Book Of Unknown Americans Character Analysis

In our world today, it is all too easy to forget that everyone has a story. A story that twists and turns to form who we are. At the center is where we call home. Our homes are the places where we can say that we belong; the places where we can be comfortable. In The Book of Unknown Americans, author Christina Henríquez explores the idea of home, and portrays different cases with each character throughout the book, going into the perspectives of individual characters to supplement the story. In each of these cases, the character has a unique background that shapes them and brings them to make the decisions that they do in the book, just like how each of us makes decisions based on our past experience, which all leads back to where we call home.

Because a place can do many things against you, and if it’s your home or it was your home at one times, you still love it. That’s how it works” (21).

This shows that although he has embraced his new life in the US, he misses everything that he left behind in Panama. His friends considering him as a foreigner made him feel like he was alienated from the country he had loved, which was why he decided that the family wouldn’t travel to Panama that time. His idea of home includes both the US and Panama, even if he didn’t live in Panama anymore.

When we look at the Rivera family, they have a somewhat similar case to that of the Toros. They had a good life in Mexico, but decided that because of Maribel’s injury, they would have to send her to a new school in the US. They find many things foreign to them and go through the experience of moving to a new country, having to get accustomed to the culture in the US. However, they find solace in the friendship of the people in the apartment complex, especially Celia Toro. When Alma meets Celia at the Dollar Tree, Celia tries to help Alma adjust into living in America, teaching her some things about life in America. When asked what she had been eating, Alma

I was born in the US to two parents who had lived their whole lives in Korea. Soon after I was born, our family moved to Hong Kong, and I’ve been at Hong Kong ever since. I attended an international school since I was 4, so English was my first language, followed by Korean and Mandarin. However, since I’ve never lived in Korea, I felt somewhat like an outsider when people talked in Korean. I almost always understood what they were saying, but I was never confident enough in my Korean. And, although I lived in Hong Kong my entire life, I only learned Mandarin from school, and never picked up much Cantonese. So, my sense of home has always been a bit conflicted. I usually tend to go with Hong Kong, since I was most familiar with the place and the culture, but even that is problematic since I don’t speak nor understand much Cantonese. However, all my other choices are quite awkward, as I can’t exactly say I am from Korea or the US.

When I read this book, I found that some of the characters’ stories had some similarities to mine, especially Mayor Toro. Mayor was born in Panama, but his family moved to America when he was young, so most of his life was spent in a country that his parents didn’t grow up in, even though both of them yearned to return. This turns out to be fairly similar to how I’ve lived in Hong Kong for most of my life, even though my parents both grew up