![]() Henríquez complicates the term “American” by examining what it means to be stateless and displaced, in search of a welcoming place to call home-and what it means to find that America is a less-than-welcoming place for many. Through these detours into the past, Henríquez illustrates the often horrific and violent situations that have forced countless American immigrants to flee their home countries in search of safety. as a means of securing the neutrality of the Panama Canal and deposing the corrupt dictator Manuel Noriega), and to 1980s Guatemala, which was, at the time, in the middle of what would turn out to be a nearly-thirty-year-long civil war between the Guatemalan government and rebel groups. invasion of Panama (an invasion code named “Operation Just Cause,” justified by the U.S. T he unknown Americans of Cristina Henríquez s novel are Hispanic tenants of a run-down apartment building in a down-at-heel Delaware town. ![]() In tertiary characters’ flashbacks, Henríquez transports her readers to, among other places: the hubbub of 1960s New York City, the tumult and violence of the December 1989 U.S. ![]() ![]() The financial crisis of 2007-2008 has gripped the nation, and several of Henríquez’s characters live daily with the fear that they will lose their jobs-eventually, for Arturo Rivera and for Rafael Toro, those fears are realized. The Book of Unknown Americans is set primarily in Delaware in 2008, in the months leading up to and directly following the election of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. ![]()
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