Tragedy and the American Dream in Cristina Henriquez's "The ..., Study notes of Poetics

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“Maybe it’s the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing: someplace else will be better than here. And the condition: if only I can get to that place.” -Cristina Henríquez, The Book of Unknown Americans If you work hard, you will be rewarded. The people of the United States of America can work towards upward mobility since they are afforded equal opportunity to accomplish their goals. That is the assurance of the American Dream, which permeates the cultural fabric of the United States. A promise rather than a given, the American Dream must be earned in order to be realized. Such is the doctrine. In The Book of Unknown Americans (2014), a novel by Cristina Henríquez, the theme of the American Dream unfulfilled forms the crux of the characters’ tragedies. The Book of Unknown Americans elicits an ambivalent reader response of empathy and repulsion. Henríquez arouses this response through juxtaposition, which lends the novel a tragic quality and calls the reader to critique the promise of the American Dream as they wrestle with their responses to the immigrants’ narratives. In an interview with NBC News , Henríquez explains that she did not set out to write a social commentary about the current ongoing immigration debate when she penned The Book of Unknown Americans : Certainly I read a lot and follow the news. But as a writer, I am not interested in a political story. I am searching for the humanity of the characters. I never set out to write a book about an “issue.” This was never a story about immigration; it is a book about immigrants. Immigration is a system, and immigrants are people. I just tried to focus on bringing people to life (“Novelist Cristina Henríquez: Immigrants as ‘Unknown Americans’”).

previously forbidden from seeing Maribel due to Quisqueya, their neighbor, disclosing that she sees Mayor taking sexual advantage of Maribel. But the dramatic irony is that the reader knows this is not actually the case. When Mayor and Maribel are alone together, Mayor prematurely ejaculates in his pants while he gives Maribel an innocent kiss. But all Quisqueya sees is that Mayor’s pants are moistened around his groin when he pulls away from Maribel. Quisqueya tells the Riveras, who then tell Mayor’s parents. As a result, Mayor is forbidden from seeing Maribel. Mayor steals his father’s car and takes Maribel away from the Evers School so he can show her the first snowfall she has ever seen in her life. Mayor ignores the messages from his cell phone as the Toros and Riveras look for him and Maribel. When Arturo sets off to confront Garrett, he is killed – the killer left unconfirmed. All the reader is told is that Arturo goes to Capital Oaks where he becomes embroiled in a confrontation, and someone with a shotgun fires at him. The loss of Arturo’s visa and, ultimately, his death, leave Alma and Maribel with no other choice but to return to Mexico. The Book of Unknown Americans is divided into chapters that are narrated by different residents of the apartment complex in Newark, Delaware where the Riveras live. These characters are immigrants who originate from countries from across Latin America, such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, México, and Panamá. Personal testimonies that detail who these characters are, where they are from, why they choose to leave their places of origin, what they dream of accomplishing in the United States, and what happens after they arrive interrupt the central narratives that are told from Alma and Mayor’s points of view. In his article, “The 2014 Novel of the Year,” Nathaniel Rich, writer for Daily Beast , calls Henríquez’s narrative technique “a conceit that serves no urgent narrative purpose, apart from creating a sense of a vast multitude, each character standing for many, as if to show how many varied forms immigrant life

can take.” While I agree with Rich that Henríquez employs multiple narrators as a conceit of immigration, I disagree that there is no urgent purpose to this technique. The theme that connects all of these narratives is the characters’ experiences in pursuing their American Dreams and the ambivalent reader response that their stories cause. Rich’s review of The Book of Unknown Americans also problematically labels Henríquez’s immigrant characters. Rich writes, “Henríquez’s unknown Americans have problems and triumphs as diverse as any group of Americans, but as their stories accumulate it becomes clear that they all have one peculiar thing in common: they are all virtuous” (“The 2014 Novel of the Year”). While the immigrant characters have their endearing traits, these characters still make mistakes and they are not entirely virtuous. Part of what gives The Book of Unknown Americans its humanizing effect is that it makes readers recognize the immigrant characters’ human qualities in their entirety – the good and the bad. These characters should not be put up on pedestals; they are not without their errors. In fact, their blunders contribute to the novel’s tragic quality to begin with. We would not be discussing tragedy in The Book of Unknown Americans if the characters were purely virtuous. According to Aristotle’s Poetics , tragedy should “imitate actions which excite pity and fear” (“Poetics”). Aristotle also dictates that the change of fortune from good to bad should “result not of vice, but of some great error or frailty” in a character “who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty” (“Poetics”). The characters’ errors and virtues combine to create an ambivalent reader response, which is the essential element that makes The Book of Unknown Americans a tragedy. According to tragedy theorist, Richard Palmer, there is currently no working universal literary definition of tragedy that all scholars can agree upon. In his book, Tragedy and Tragic

scene is redemptive in its miraculous and sentimental nature or tragic because it also means that the Riveras may have come to the United States for nothing. This is especially highlighted in the final chapter of the novel, where Arturo speaks. The characters’ fates and their flaws that get them there repulse readers while the characters’ first-person narratives reveal enough information for readers to empathize with them. Quisqueya is a character easy to disdain. While acquainting herself with Alma, Mayor’s mother, Celia Toro, describes Quisqueya as a “busybody” who “doesn’t know how to connect with people” (Henríquez 56). Indeed, Quisqueya is a judgmental and jealous gossip. However, the addition of Quisqueya’s narrative helps the reader gain context of her background enough to develop sympathy for her and empathize with why she feels so compelled to divulge what she perceives to be Mayor taking sexual advantage of Maribel. In her narrative, Quisqueya describes the sexual abuse she endures from her stepbrother. The consequences of Quisqueya’s disclosure are followed by such disastrous results in the end that the reader experiences a dramatic irony where they grapple with acknowledging Quisqueya’s traumatic past and what they know actually happens between Mayor and Maribel. In addition, Quisqueya’s story presents readers with an immigrant character who does not come to the United States by her own initiative. Instead, she comes alongside her mother, who marries a United States citizen and moves to California. When Quisqueya tries to tell her mother what is going on, her mother accuses her of trying to ruin everything (Henríquez 117). Quisqueya says, “I was less important than the things she had now – a nice house and diamond jewelry, an expensive car and a big refrigerator” (Henríquez 117). Quisqueya’s tragedy is that her mother prioritizes her American Dream over her daughter’s well- being. Nevertheless, Quisqueya moves on with her life, doing what she can to make it better for both herself and her community. Unfortunately, as a result, Quisqueya becomes a catalyst for the

Rivera family’s own downfall when she tries to save Maribel from Mayor by reporting what she witnesses between them. Another character that is easy to dislike but also easy to empathize with is Benny Quinto, an immigrant from Nicaragua. Benny is an example of a common man in tragedy. In “Tragedy and the Common Man,” Arthur Miller unpacks how tragedy – more specifically, the element of the tragic hero – has evolved in the modern era. Scholars traditionally agree that tragedies have a hero of noble status, such as a king or knight, but can tragedy exist in a modern and American framework? Kings and knights are nonexistent in the United States, after all. Miller asserts that tragedy is still possible today because a common man can be a tragic hero: For one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy – or tragedy above us. The inevitable conclusion is, of course, that the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, the kings or the kingly, and where this admission is not made in so many words it is most often implied. I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were (“Tragedy and the Common Man”). Benny fits the bill for a common man. He is also unique as a tragic hero in The Book of Unknown Americans because, as a member of the priesthood in Nicaragua, he holds some virtuosity and sense of nobility. With his position as a priest, his immoral decisions, and the oppressive system he is up against in mind as the reader learns about Benny’s journey to the United States and his pursuit of the American Dream, the reader feels ambivalent about him. One of the most troubling things the reader learns about Benny is that he steals money from his church so that he can pay to go to the United States. The image of Benny stuffing offering envelopes up under his shirt while he is supposed to be carrying out his priestly duties is disturbing. He is a priest, but he is open about his sins in the narrative. The reader also finds that

As Miller says, “Tragedy enlightens – and it must, in that it points the heroic finger at the enemy of man’s freedom. The thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts” (“Tragedy and the Common Man”). The ambivalence that readers feel about Benny and his story makes them think about immigrant humanity; on one hand, Benny is a victim to the immigration system since his getting blackmailed convinces him to turn to a life of crime. On the other hand, Benny does come undocumented to begin with. But, then again, he does it to help improve the quality of his life. After all, the financial opportunities available to him in Nicaragua are limited. The reader’s ambivalence can make them go back and forth infinitely. There is no easy answer on how to feel about Benny. His story is controversial. What he navigates through is complex. And that is the point. Nelia Zafón, like Benny, achieves a second-rate version of her American Dream. In 1964, at the age of seventeen, she comes to the United States from Puerto Rico with dreams of living in New York City and becoming a famous dancer and actress. She works hard and makes sacrifices to try to realize her dream of becoming a star – putting money she earns from her waitressing job into dance and acting classes and feeding herself with leftovers from diners’ plates at the restaurant where she works. Despite this, she does not get a single role. She partially blames her inability to land roles on her ethnic background: The world already had its Rita Moreno, I guess, and there was only room for one Boricua at a time. That’s how it works. Americans can handle one person from anywhere. They had Desi Arnaz from Cuba. And Tin Tan from México. And Rita Moreno from Puerto Rico. But as soon as there are too many of us, they throw up their hands. No, no, no! We were only just curious. We are not actually interested in you people (Henríquez 177).

Frustrated by her inability to score any roles due to her ethnicity, she eventually imagines a new dream for herself – one where she opens a community theater – and leaves New York for Delaware, where taxes for new businesses are lowest. She opens the Parish Theater, which barely stays afloat: “The theater wasn’t making much money, but we were bringing in enough to keep the plays on. That by itself was some kind of miracle. Now, twenty years later, I still run the Parish Theater. We do just one production a week” (Henríquez 178). While the Parish Theater is not putting on productions that bring in a full house of people and while she does not realize her original American Dream, Nelia is still content with her life. Nelia’s error is that she has high hopes. Her mami points this out to her before she leaves, However, Nelia’s pride and optimism drive her to set out for her dreams anyway: “I told my mami, You can look for me in the movies! And I left” (Henríquez 175). Nelia is sure that her hard work will pay off, but she finds that there is a greater force that works against her: the industry. She redeems herself, though. Nelia’s attitude and outlook on her life and her definition of success changes to something that makes her happiness more feasible. Readers feel ambivalent to Nelia’s story and her response to how her life turns out. Unlike Benny, the reader’s ambivalence comes more from Nelia’s situation than from her occupation or the decisions she makes. The real root of the Nelia’s tragedy is that she is no match for the institutionalized racism in her industry, which limits the roles she can land. One of the roles she auditions for is a housekeeper for Man of La Mancha. According to Tre’vell Anderson’s 2017 Los Angeles Times article, “4 Latino stereotypes in TV and film that need to go”, Hollywood tends to fall back on the stereotype of Latino janitors or maids, gangbangers, and Spanish-only speakers. To this day, Hollywood still lacks diversity in the types of roles that Latino actors would be cast in. In addition, the number of Latino actors who land top film roles is

At the same time, readers can find solace in Nelia’s resilience and optimism. When she remembers coming to terms to the racist forces she is up against in her industry, she says: “But I’m a fighter. You get me against the ropes and I will swing so hard – bam! So I thought, well, if I’m not going to find it, then there’s only one other option: I will create it” (Henríquez 177). Her attitude is admirable. Instead of sulking in failure, she makes the best out of an unfortunate situation and creates a goal that is more feasible for her means. She does research on the tax rates for new businesses in different areas, saves money, signs up for extra night shifts at the restaurant, and works on her new business endeavor during the day. Finally, her hard work pays off. She has regular audience members who show up for the productions she puts on. The pleasure she finds in her business is giving roles to young actors since she can relate to their enthusiasm for acting. Her ability to pick herself up and find joy in a new venture where she shares her passion for acting with the next generation is inspiring. Like Nelia, Micho Alvarez also talks about how stereotypes of Latinos in the media dehumanize him and how he settles on a more feasible version of his American Dream. He is frustrated by how the media portrays people like him: These people are listening to the media, and the media, let me tell you, has some fucked- up ideas about us. About all the brown-skinned people, but especially about the Mexicans. You listen to the media, you’ll learn that we’re all gangbangers, we’re all drug dealers, we’re tossing bodies in vats of acid, we want to destroy America, we still think Texas belongs to us, we all have swine flu, we carry machine guns under our coats, we don’t pay any taxes, we’re lazy, we’re stupid, we’re all wetbacks who crossed the border illegally. I swear to God, I’m so tired of being called a spic, a nethead, a cholo, all this stuff. Happens to me all the time (Henríquez 236).

Micho talks about how all of these negative media representations of people from México impact his day-to-day interactions with others who buy into the stereotypes. He walks into a store and the employees either ignore him or watch him closely, thinking he is going to try to steal something. Micho’s story raises awareness of how marginalized Méxicans like him are in the United States. His narrative also sheds light on the circumstances of people like Benny Quinto, who, as addressed previously, crosses the border illegally himself (though he is from Nicaragua, not México): The whole thing is very, very complicated. I mean, does anyone ever talk about why people are crossing? I can promise you it’s not with some grand ambition to come here and ruin everything for the gringo chingaos. People here are desperate, man. We’re talking about people who can’t even get a toilet that works, and the government is so corrupt that when they have money, […] instead of using it in ways that would help their own citizens, they hold on to it and encourage people to go north instead. What choice do people have in the face of that (Henríquez 237)? Micho’s call for people to consider the complexities of Latino immigrant experiences is thought- provoking. He offers a perspective that makes the reader place themselves in the shoes of the people he describes – those who come from tough situations that make them feel like they have no other good option but to leave their home countries and cross the border. This also makes readers feel a strong sense of repulsion – not at Micho, but at the people who buy into negative stereotypes and marginalize Latinos because of them. Part of this response comes from the way that Micho makes his delivery. He goes on an impassioned rant that wakes readers up to his frustrations.

between an empathy and repulsion that brings awareness to the complex and diverse situations that Latino immigrants experience. Aristotle says that a well-constructed tragic plot should be “single in its issue, rather than double as some maintain” (“Poetics”). His teachings, while certainly valuable in the context of classical tragedy, however, are not applicable to a modern and American tragic framework. Tragedies such as what Henríquez provides can be well done and diverse in the issues their plots contain so long as the complex way in which the story is weaved is done with purpose. In Henríquez’s case, it helps her present readers with a wide array of immigrant narratives. She achieves her goal of writing a book about immigrants. As Henríquez says in her interview with Bustle , The Book of Unknown Americans is “an American story (Luchette)”. Aristotle comments on the type of tragedy that exists in the time he makes his commentary. However, The Book of Unknown Americans offers a modernized version of tragedy

• one that reinvents tragedy. The immigrant narratives that are integrated into the novel do not detract from the main narrative involving the Toros and the Riveras because, like their narratives, the narratives of other characters such as Benny, Nelia, and Micho possess tragic qualities that evoke the ambivalent response that makes readers reflect on the American Dream. One such aspect of the main plotline that drives this evaluation of the American Dream is the Toros’ new car. Celia Toro’s sister, Gloria, who still lives in Panamá, receives money in a divorce settlement and offers to send ten thousand dollars of it to Celia and Rafael. Despite Celia’s objections, Rafael decides that they should use the money to buy a car. The Toros go to a used car dealership where they purchase a Volkswagen Rabbit. The car becomes central in the reader’s feelings of ambivalence. It is also a vehicle for tragedy. The car symbolizes the

American Dream. According to Mayor, “It was no secret that since he was a boy, my dad had lusted after cars, and the pinnacle of his obsession would have been to own one” (Henríquez 159). Rafael’s lust for the very idea of owning a vehicle is reflective of the consumer culture that exists in the United States and the simultaneous benefits and pitfalls that culture can provide. The Volkswagen provides the Toros with more freedom, mobility, and status – though these things come with a price to pay for the Toro family. The car helps make the reader more aware of the obstacles the Toro family faces as marginalized Americans. For instance, even though the Toros are driving on the interstate, Rafael is scared to drive the car fast because he does not want to be pulled over by the police. At one point, Arturo tells Celia that the men at his work say, “if you’re white, or maybe Oriental, [the police] let you drive however you want. But if you’re not, they stop you” (Henríquez 165). While the idea of white and “Oriental” people being able to drive “however they want” is problematic, Arturo’s fears are not entirely unfounded. According to Ranjana Natarajan’s article, “Racial profiling has destroyed public trust in police. Cops are exploiting our weak laws against it.” in The Washington Post , a 2011 report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights found evidence of widespread racial profiling, with African Americans and Hispanics being disproportionately likely to be stopped and searched by police. In addition, the Rafael faces a language barrier when they purchase the car, leaving him to depend on Mayor to translate for him and the salesman: The only reason I’d come was because my dad thought he might need a translator. To him, everything had its own language […] He never talked about cars with anyone in English, he said. Therefore, he didn’t now the language [of cars]. It was no use explaining to him that I didn’t exactly spend my days talking about cars with people,

back. I was her one chance. I wanted to give her the thing that it seemed like everyone else wanted to keep from her: freedom” (Henríquez 231). However, Mayor is aware that his parents still have the power to discipline him again, so he turns off his cell phone when he hears it ring so that he can prolong what he knows is just temporary time with Maribel. The aftermath of the rebellion leaves Mayor feeling tremendous guilt over Arturo’s death. Mayor wonders if he is to blame for Arturo’s fatal end and cannot help but think about how the car gave him the ability to take Maribel from school. At one point, Mayor thinks, “Maybe if my dad had never bought that car, I wouldn’t have had a way to get to the beach” (Henríquez 261). In this way, the car becomes a representation of the guilt Mayor feels over Arturo’s death. In the end, Mayor settles on the notion that, perhaps, nobody is really fully to blame: You could trace is back infinitely. All these different veins, but who knew which one led to the heart? And then again, maybe it had nothing to do with any of us. Maybe God had a plan and He knew from the second the Riveras set foot here that He was putting them on a path towards this. Or maybe it was completely random, just something that happened (Henríquez 261-262). The number of people and things that could be blamed as the ultimate source of Arturo’s death is too much for anyone to be able to decide on with full confidence. Realizing this, Mayor comes to peace with Arturo’s death and his part in it. The novel’s ending suggests that Alma and Arturo come to peace with their circumstances as well. However, the reader may have mixed feelings about how the book concludes. In the book’s final chapter, Arturo expresses his gratitude for being able to come to the United States:

I’m overcome when I think about this place and about what it’s given us. Maribel is getting stronger. I can see it. Every day a little bit more. A safe area to live. Such good friends. It’s incredible. One day when we go back to Mexico and people ask me what it was like here, I will tell them those things. I will tell them all the ways I loved this country. (Henríquez 286) The placement of Arturo’s narrative, which is the final chapter of the book, is interesting considering that Arturo is dead in previous chapters. Because of this, the chapter operates as a flashback. What is also noteworthy about the placement of Arturo’s narrative is how it not only comes at the end of the text, but how it also follows Alma’s epiphany that Maribel is actually getting better and that, in some ways, she is still the “old” Maribel that she was before her brain injury. The coupling of Alma and Arturo’s narratives at the book’s end evokes an ambivalent reader response where the reader grapples with what to make of the story of the Riveras in its entirety. While they are on their way to return to Mexico, Maribel tells Alma that she wants to dye her hair purple, which is something that the “old” Maribel would have said. This makes Alma reach a realization: Suddenly, out of nowhere, there she was. My Maribel. The one who once upon a time had painted her nails black and now wanted to dye her hair purple. […] The person Arturo and I had been waiting for, the reason for all of this. […] All this time I had been buried too far under my guilt to see her (Henríquez 282). Finally, Alma reaches a breakthrough where she realizes that Maribel will never completely be the girl that she was before her brain injury, but all that she loves about her still remains. As a result, Alma forgives herself and decides to move forward. However, the reader is still left to consider what to make of Arturo’s narrative at the end. Arturo’s narrative reminds the reader of