Her lack of English speaking skills lead to miscommunication and a misunderstanding of the facts. The police dismiss the incident in part because Alma does not know how to speak English well. Her mother Alma witnesses the assault, and she immediately goes to the police. Days later, Garrett sexually assaults Maribel. One day after school, Garrett follows them and he bullies Mayor and accosts Maribel. But their relationship is threatened by Garrett Miller, a boy at Mayor's school, who constantly bullies Mayor. Yet given her inability to speak fluidly due to her head injury, he learns to communicate with her through other means. When Celia's son Mayor meets Maribel he is immediately attracted to her. Celia Toro befriends Alma Rivera, and both women grow quite fond of each other.
The Toro parents are immigrants from Panama who have become legal citizens but struggle to get by on one meager income. The Toro family have two sons, Enrique and Mayor, and they live in the same low-income apartment complex as the Riveras. They find emotional support when they meet Rafael and Celia Toro. They do not know how to speak English, they are unfamiliar with the school systems, and they are new to American culture. The Riveras encounter the plight of many poor immigrants. However, the family's life beyond his job remains uncertain they do not have a stable home environment, Alma does not work, and Maribel has not been officially admitted to Evers. Arturo obtains a work visa, and he is able to get a job at a mushroom factory. Alma and Arturo hope that enrolling Maribel in Evers will help her recover from her severe brain damage. Their journey into the United States leads them to Newark, Delaware, a town with a school for the intellectually disabled known as Evers.
Plot Īlma and Arturo Rivera leave their comfortable surroundings in Pátzcuaro, Mexico when their daughter Maribel suffers a severe head injury. The 304-page book was published on Jby Knopf. Henríquez originally conceived the novel as a short story told from Mayor's point of view. The story is told from multiple first-person points of view, with the two main narrators being Alma Rivera, a 30-something housewife from Pátzcuaro, Mexico, and Mayor Toro, a teenage social outcast and first-generation American whose parents were originally from Panama.ĭevelopment and publication history The Book of Unknown Americans is a 2014 novel by Cristina Henríquez published by Knopf.
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