The Book of Unknown Americans

Arturo Rivera is stoic throughout the novel. He is unhappy in his work but does not give voice to his pain or anger. Instead, Alma watches him closely and tries to guess at what is on his mind. She feels that the accident has created a rift between the two of them, and it seems that at least in one conversation, after they forbid Maribel to continue seeing Mayor, the couple no longer see eye-to-eye. When Arturo tells Alma, “But don’t you understand?…[w]e don’t get her again” (221), we see that he is more resigned to Maribel’s new identity than Alma is capable of being. However, in his final conversation with his wife, Arturo seems to understand why Alma needs to believe so ardently that Maribel can recover. “Do you hear me?” he tells her. “Forgive yourself” (246). This comment from Arturo gives Maribel the release that she has needed since Maribel’s fall.

Maribel Rivera is Alma and Arturo’s teenage daughter. Before the accident, Maribel enjoyed challenging authority and flouting convention. Alma recalls Maribel painting her nails black and on one occasion, insisting on preparing a complex meal without any assistance. It was this headstrong spirit that led her up the ladder; she insisted on helping her father, and her parents gave in when it was clear that she was committed to the idea.

As a result of her fall, Maribel struggles in school, experiences constant headaches, and has trouble with language and memory. However, by the end of the novel, she shows clear signs of returning to the girl she once was. She has the language skills and adequate memory to confide in Mayor about the attack by Garrett. On the ride home to Mexico, she is able to envision her future and is already making plans.

As the non-athletic second son of the Toro family, Mayor struggles to find an identity that will please both him and his parents. He is not interested in his father’s facile version of masculinity but feels he must lie to Rafael about playing soccer so he can earn the love that is shown to his older brother, Enrique. Because he has experienced harsh judgment from his father for not being good at sports and for being Latino and unpopular with his classmates, Mayor does not judge Maribel as others do. He is immediately attracted to her physically but soon sees her as a fellow outsider, someone he can protect.

Rafael Toro, Mayor and Enrique’s father, is defined by his machismo. It is important to him that his sons are athletic and that they date the right kind of girls, namely ones unlike Maribel. He needs to be the sole provider for his family and will not allow his wife to look for work even when they need money. When his pride is injured by a former classmate’s taunt, he cancels the family’s plans to return to Panama for his school reunion. He seethes with quiet anger throughout the novel, always ready to blow up at Celia and Mayor. However, he is warm and compassionate to his neighbors and it is important to him and Celia that they are US citizens.

Celia Toro, Mayor and Enrique’s mother, is the force that unites everyone in the building and helps them connect and find community. She is a friend to Quisaqueya, whose sullenness and gossip irritate everyone else. She helps Alma find a foothold in America by directing her to services and classes available at the Community Center. When the power goes out in the building on Christmas, she invites everyone into her apartment and they spend an unexpectedly festive holiday together. Celia navigates around Rafael’s fragile male ego by using passive-aggressive tactics. Unlike her husband, she seems to equally support both of her sons.

Enrique Toro, Mayor’s older brother, is a minor character in the novel, but his voice is the only one that encourages Mayor in his rebellion against his parents. When Enrique comes home from college for the winter holiday, we get a sense that he is beginning to see himself as separate from his immigrant parents, and looks at their lives as inadequate. He tells his younger brother: “This place is so depressing. Every time I come back, it seems shittier” (135). When Mayor tries to defend the home his parents have made, Enrique laughs and tells him, “That’s just because you don’t know any better” (135). This comment makes Mayor imagine going off to college and starting out somewhere new, separated from his family’s rules and views. Enrique’s role in the novel highlights the complexity of being first-generation American. In getting a sports scholarship to college, he is living his parents’ dream, but that dream has also separated him from them.

Garrett Miller is a teenage white boy and the novel’s antagonist. He is a menacing figure from the first moment the Riveras spot him skulking around the local gas station. Later, he shows up at their apartment building, again loitering in a threatening way. He views Maribel as easy and attractive prey and is surprised when Mayor, whom he regularly bullies, throws a punch in defense of her. His regular hectoring of Mayor, his sexual assault on Maribel, and his apparent readiness to shoot Alma if a firearm were available all make him seem like a close facsimile to real-life white males who engage in senseless violence, taking out their anger on those closest at hand. Mayor hints at the pain of Garrett’s home life—his brother killed in combat, his mother incapacitated by grief, his father violent and addicted to alcohol. The novel does not attempt to sympathize with Garrett or his father, who ultimately kills Arturo, but it does portray the origins of his pathology.