44 pages • 1 hour read
Cristina HenríquezThe Book of Unknown Americans
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 23-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary: “Mayor”
Rafael gets a job delivering papers, and the Toro household is in a lighter mood because of this. When it starts snowing during school a few days later, Mayor decides to sneak out of class and borrow his father’s car without asking. Mayor drives over to Evers, the school Maribel attends, and sneaks around until he finds her classroom. Through the window, he signals for her to come outside. She ditches school and they drive to get fries at McDonald’s then travel to Cape Henlopen to stand in the snow together, Maribel dressed in Mayor’s coat. They kiss then fall over and Maribel erupts in laughter.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Micho Alvarez”
As a Mexican immigrant, Micho describes his disgust with the way Mexicans and Mexico are stereotyped in America. He is tired of people thinking he doesn’t speak English. He is fed up with being ignored and invisible. He talks about why Mexicans come to the US and the earnest hopes they bring with them. He also talks about his experiences working as a photographer—how he hoped to provide some meaningful commentary on the crimes of the drug war but the only photos anyone wanted to see were gory ones. Micho came to America to try and make more of a difference with his photography. Working with an immigrant aid group, he now photographs people’s living conditions and pictorially documents the difficulties Latinos face in the US because of the color of their skin.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Alma”
When Maribel’s bus doesn’t drop her off after school, Alma panics. She goes to Celia, asking if Maribel is with Mayor. Celia says that Mayor is at the movies with a friend and tries to call Mayor, but he doesn’t answer. Celia then calls Arturo and demands that he come home immediately.
When he arrives at the apartment, Arturo asks Alma if she called the school or the police, and shame-facedly Alma admits that she didn’t think to do either of those things. She finally tells Arturo about the boy assaulting Maribel outside the apartment building. Arturo is angry with her and accuses her of lying to him. Alma pleads that in attempting to settle it herself she was trying to make it up to him and atone for what happened when Maribel fell from the ladder. Arturo tells Alma as plainly as he can that none of that was her fault. It was no one’s fault, Arturo insists. It was just what happened. Before he sets out to find Maribel and the boy who assaulted her, Arturo makes Alma promise that she will forgive herself.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Mayor”
The intensity of the snowfall prompts Mayor to pull over to the side of the road. He realizes Maribel has fallen asleep then he falls asleep, too. When they wake up, it’s past 1:00 am. Mayor is ready to speed home, but Maribel stops him and tells Mayor about Garrett attacking her. Mayor comforts her, wishing he could hold on to her forever.
When the pair arrive back at the apartment building, they find Rafael waiting for them. Mayor realizes something ominous is unfolding when his father doesn’t even stop to yell at him for stealing the car. Rafael takes Mayor and Maribel to the hospital, where he tells them Arturo is having surgery. Celia refuses to answer Mayor and Maribel when they ask what happened. It’s not until the Toros are back at home that Celia tells Mayor that Arturo was shot while out looking for Maribel.
By eavesdropping on the adult neighbors who come to visit, Mayor is able to reconstruct what happened to Arturo. Arturo went to Capitol Oaks, thinking Maribel was there with Garrett, and that perhaps she’d been attacked again. Garrett’s father came outside, carrying a gun. In Spanish, Arturo said he was looking for his daughter. Garrett’s father insulted him and then shot him.
Before long, the call arrives informing the Toros that Arturo is dead. Celia tries to do all she can for Alma. Mayor goes to see Maribel and tells her that he isn’t sure, but he doesn’t think it is their fault that her father died. Privately, Mayor wonders if God is to blame for all the suffering the Riveras have shouldered.
Later, Mayor sees Maribel outside the building beside her family’s discarded mattress. She tells Mayor that she and her mother are going back to Mexico. Mayor doesn’t wake up early the next day to watch them leave. Instead, he imagines their long trip back home. He knows he has lost Maribel forever but hopes that somehow there will be a silent place for each other in one another’s lives.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Alma”
Alma recounts the numbness she felt immediately after Arturo’s death. Officer Mora comes to apologize for not helping her earlier and promises that this time there will be justice though Alma is not sure. All the neighbors come to visit too, each offering a story or condolences. Alma tells Celia that she doesn’t want Arturo buried here and that she will take the body back with her to Mexico. Celia takes up a collection so that Arturo’s body can be flown back.
Phyllis, the translator at Maribel’s school, is sorry to hear that they are headed back to Mexico. She tells Alma that Maribel has made a lot of progress and is a different girl than when she arrived. As Alma and Maribel take the long truck ride back home, Alma realizes that may be true since Maribel’s plans include cutting her hair and dying it purple, just like the spunky rebel she was before her accident.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Arturo”
Arturo describes his motives for coming to the US as different in some ways from many immigrants. They were happy, with a life they enjoyed. But they came here for Maribel, and the journey was worth it. Though they left so much behind, Maribel regained the glint in her eye. They were safe. They made friends. If asked, he’d always say how much he loved America.
Chapters 23-28 Analysis
The teenagers’ decision to cut school and spend the afternoon together yields a terrible, unexpected outcome. This plot twist focuses on the harsh realities immigrants face and The Cultural Isolation of Immigrants in America. The tragedy is hinted at in the commentary of Micho Alvarez, whose account leads into the final events of the novel. As a photographer, Micho became disaffected by the work he was commissioned to complete while in Mexico. He wanted to take photos to document the ways the drug cartels impact everyday life in Mexico for average citizens but was only assigned to cover the gory sensationalistic aspect of cartel influence. In coming to the US, he says he wanted to make a difference in the lives of immigrants and document the suffering of those who “got jumped for just being brown in this country” (238).
Arturo is killed for being Latino. While the history of Garrett’s family makes the issue slightly more complex (Garrett’s brother being killed in the Iraq War makes that family victims in a sense), it is prejudice that ends Arturo’s life. Mayor imagines Arturo begging Garrett’s father to help him find his daughter, saying please, “one of the few words he knew” in English, before being gunned down (258). Garrett’s father can claim Arturo was trespassing rather than coming to ask for help. His death is senseless and unnecessary, and it raises the question of whether the family’s move to the US was worth it.
The answer to this question comes from Maribel herself. After Alma describes her heartache and rage and Mayor reports his pain in losing Maribel forever, one glimmer of hope appears in the novel toward its conclusion. When Maribel tells her mother that she wants to cut her hair and dye it purple, Alma knows her daughter has come back to her and is now closer to who she was before the accident. When Maribel tells her mother “I’m fine,” Alma notes, “It was what I had been waiting to hear the whole time” (284). Though Arturo has sacrificed his life, Maribel has been saved, perhaps because of better educational opportunities but more likely because of the intense connection she forges with Mayor.
Arturo’s coda, in which he professes his love for America, ensures that the theme of injustice is not ignored in the aftermath of Maribel’s transformation. Though Arturo would tell others of “all the ways [he] loved this country” (286), in America, he was denied the right to have meaningful work safety because of the racism that pervades society. As a parent, he made the sacrifice to leave home and start a new life in order to help his child but had to sacrifice his life in the process.
