The Book of Unknown Americans Cristina Henríquez Book Club Guide1 Perception / Expectations Alma, Arturo, and Maribel pull up to their new home in Delaware: “Two stories, made of cinder blocks and cement, an outdoor walkway that ran the length of the second floor with metal staircases at either end, pieces of broken Styrofoam in the grass… I had expected it to be nicer. Something with white shutters and red bricks, something with manicured shrubs and flower boxes in the windows. The way American houses looked in the movies.” Pg 4 Mayor’s father wants him to play soccer like his older brother: “For him, the logic went something like: I was Latino and male and not a cripple, therefore I should play soccer. Soccer was for Latinos, basketball for blacks, and the whites could keep their tennis and golf as far as he was concerned.” Pg 16 Alma is confused why Arturo digs mushrooms all day in the dark and asks him if his employers know about his work experience: “I’m not going to make waves, Alma. I’m happy just to have a job.” Pg 25 Celia wants to get a job in case her husband loses his job. He responds with no and: “I am the provider… That’s all there is to it.” Pg 39 Alma tries to get Maribel into the Special Education School, Evers: “I had wanted the school to act like a switch, something that would turn her on again from the second she walked through the door.” Pg 49 “The military in Guatemala at that time became too powerful, and the people revolted. The army began kidnapping citizens who they suspected were against them. They were burying people alive. They were raping women thirty times a day. They were laying babies on the ground and crushing their skulls with their boots.” Pg 87 Celia and Rafa are given tenthousand dollars from Celia’s sister. Celia wants to use the money to travel but Rafa makes the ultimate decision and uses the money to buy a car. Pg 160 Alma discusses loses their documentation to stay in America after Arturo loses his job at the mushroom farm: “This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. We had followed the rules. We had said to ourselves, We won’t be like everyone else, those people who packed up and went north without waiting first for the proper authorization.” Pg 181 1
The Book of Unknown Americans Cristina Henriquez Published by Vintage March 3rd 2015 305 Pages
Home “We had bundled up our old life and left it behind, and then hurtled into a new one with only a few of our things, each other, and hope. Would that be enough?” Pg 6 Alma, Arturo, and Maribel are in their new Delaware home and were hungry. They realized they had no food at home and didn’t know where to go to buy food. Pg 7 “Both Celia and I miss certain things about Panama… It’s hard to let go of that, even when you have a good reason for leaving. How can I describe what it was like during the invasion? We slept in a city bus one night because the bus was barricaded and when we and all the other passengers tried to get off, men from the Dignity Battalions were standing outside the door with guns pointed at us, telling us not to move… No one was outside except people who were fighting… We went three weeks without leaving the house. We were eating toothpaste by the end of it. There was static on the television.” Pg 22 “Maybe it’s the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing: Someplace else will be better than here. And the condition: if only I can get to that place.” Pg 286 Sense of Belonging In the apartment complex, Micho went around and made sure all of the documented immigrants were registered to vote. They discussed the potential important of Obama’s candidacy. Pg 76 Mayor doesn’t feel Panamanian since he left at a young age but doesn’t feel American either since kids at school make fun of him for his heritage: “The truth was that I didn’t know which I was. I wasn’t allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn’t feel the thing I was supposed to claim.” Pg 78 “‘Go home’ he said. I knew those words, and I knew by the way he said them that he didn’t mean I should go back to the apartment.” Pg 152 “These people are listening to the media, and the media, let me tell you, has some fuckedup ideas about us. About all the brownskinned people, but especially about the Mexicans. You listen to the media, you’ll learn that we’re all gangbangers, we’re all drug dealers, we’re tossing bodies in vats of acid, we want to destroy America… we’re all wetbacks who crossed the border illegally.” Pg 236 “And yes, you can talk to us in English. I know English better than you, I bet. But none of them even want to try. We’re the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they’ve been told they’re supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if the did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we’re not that bad, maybe even that we’re a lot like them. And who would they hate then?” Pg 237
Violence Against Women Quisqueya’s mother got married and her new stepbrother took things too far: “He was always walking in on me in the shower, claiming he didn’t know I was there, or I would catch him watching me while I tanned by the pool… I was in the kitchen getting a soda from the refrigerator when he came up from behind and kissed me… I tried to push him off but he was stronger than me… He did unspeakable things, all against my will. I don’t know why, but he thought he could do whatever he wanted. That’s how boys are.” Pg 116117 Alma can’t find Maribel after he bus drops her off: “Her back was against the cinderblock wall, and her hands were up over her head… Her shirt was bunched under her armpits, exposing her white cotton bra, and her head was turned to the side, her eyes squeezed shut.” Pg 121 “He twisted his hand fortyfive degrees and cocked it like a gun, three fingers drawn back, his thumb in the air, and let a burst of air explode from his lips… ‘Comprende?’” Pg 152 Guilt + Grief Alma was holding the ladder when Maribel fell and damaged her brain: “Had I really let it slip? Was it my fault?... I wanted her to have the full, long life that every parent promises his or her child by the simple act of bringing that child into the world.” Pg 102105 Maribel and Mayor sneak off together and Maribel’s father suspects another teenager is responsible for her disappearance. He goes to confront the teenager and ends up shot and killed. Maribel asks Mayor if this was all her fault: “I could see that she was going to live with that question for a long time. I’d been living with it for less than a day myself and it was tearing me up.” Pg 261 Alma had previously went to the police about the teenager harassing her and Maribel and the officer shooed her away. After Arturo’s death, he apologizes for turning her down and tells her he will get justice for her husband. Pg 268 Alma is packing to go back to Mexico after her husband’s death: “I took another plate from the cabinet and dropped it.. Then another. Then another… What is the meaning of all these things? All these bags and bags I’ve been packing? We could take everything we have with us. We could take every single thing that every single person in the world has ever had. But none of it would mean anything to me. Because no matter how much I took and no matter how much I had for the rest of my life, I didn’t have him anymore.” Pg 276
Discussion Questions Do you novels can change people’s perceptions on immigration? Why? How can guilt infiltrate our lives and impact our decisions? How did guilt affect Alma regarding Maribel’s accident? How does Cristina tackle violence against women in the novel? What did you make of the “breadwinners” in the novel and their associated power? Discussion Questions Provided by Publisher Knopf How does Alma’s perspective in the novel’s first chapter illustrate her and her family’s hopes for their new life in America? Take another look at her statement after the trip to the gas station: “The three of us started toward the road, doubling back in the direction from which we had come, heading toward home” (11). What are the meanings of “home” here, and how does this scene show how America meets and differs from the Riveras’ expectations of it? Mayor describes how he’s bullied at school and his general feelings of not fitting in. How do you think this draws him to Maribel? What do they have in common that perhaps those around them, including their parents, cannot see on the surface? How is the scene where the Riveras sit down for a dinner of oatmeal a turning point for the family and for the book? Discuss the role of food in the novel, especially how it evokes memories of home and establishes a sense of community. Are there any other cultural values or traditions that do the same thing? What are some key differences in the way that the women in the novel respond to challenges of assimilation compared to the men? How does Alma’s point of view highlight these differences? What brings Alma and Celia together as neighbors and friends, and how does their relationship change by the end of the book? What are some of the signs throughout the novel that Maribel is getting better? Consider the scene in the pizza restaurant in particular, and her response to Alma’s joke. How does laughter here, and in other places in the book, evoke feelings of nostalgia and change?
How does Alma’s lingering guilt about Maribel’s accident affect her choices and interactions when she’s in America? Do you think that she still feels this way by the end of the book? What does she have to do, and realize within herself, to move beyond her feelings? Do other characters besides Alma struggle with guilt? How does this emotion echo throughout the book, even among the varying narrators/voices?
How would you describe the atmosphere of the impromptu Christmas party in the Toros’ apartment (p. 137)? What brings the residents of the building together, as a group and in more intimate settings? Why do you think Cristina Henríquez brought all the characters together during this particular holiday? Discuss Quisqueya’s role in what happens to Mayor and Maribel. Without her intervention, how might have their relationship, and ultimately the novel, ended differently? How does Garrett cast a threatening shadow over several characters’ thoughts and actions? Did your opinion of him change after you learned about his home environment? How much blame can, or did, you ascribe to him for what happens to Arturo? How does the Toros’ buying a car influence the course of events in the novel? What does the car mean for Rafael and Mayor individually and for their fatherson relationship? Was Alma’s decision to return to Mexico with Maribel the best one? Were there alternatives, or did their departure seem inevitable to you? Alma and Mayor are the primary narrators of the book, yet they have very different voices and perspectives. How does pairing these points of view affect the telling of this story, even as they are punctuated by the voices of the neighbors in Redwood Apartments? And how does the chorus of voices affect this main story and pose larger questions of immigration and the Latino experience in the United States? Were you surprised that the book takes place in Newark, Delaware, rather than in the larger Latin American communities of Florida, New York, Texas, or California? What does this setting
suggest about immigrant families like the Riveras and the Toros across the country? Do you feel differently about the immigration debate now raging in the United States after reading this book? Do you, the members of your family, or your friends have stories of moving to another country to start a new life? Did any of the stories in the novel resonate with those you know? How does the final chapter, told in Arturo’s voice, influence your understanding of what he felt about America? What do you make of how he ends his narrative, “I loved this country,” and that it is the last line of the book (286)? Related Links NYT Homesick Strangers Among Us The Guardian The Book of Unknown Americans The Washington Post The Book of Unknown Americans WNYC Interview with Cristina New Yorker Cristina Henriquez on Immigration, Detention, and Missing Names Guernica The Stories of the Unknown