Comparison Of The Characters In Henriquez's Novel 'The Book Of Unknown Americans'

Cristina Henriquez’, The Book of Unknown Americans, folows the story of a family of immigants adjusting to their new life in the United States of America. The Rivera family finds themselves living within a comunity of other immigrants from all over South America also hoping to find a better life in a new country. This book explores the hardships and injustices each character faces while in their home country as well as withina foreign one, the United States. Themes of community, identity, globalization, and migration are prevalent throughout the book, but one that stood out most was belonging. In each chacters viewpoint, Henriquez explores their feelings of the yearning they have to belong in a community so different than the one that they are used to.

Yes, it was actually very difficult competing with my younger and older siblings. They were all very competitive in everything that we did. That even includes our wardrobe, sometime even our looks. Another thing that I had to work harder for to get was being my own person and not living off of my parents, unlike my younger siblings.

Siblings always compete. It is part of human nature. However, in my case, my parents played an important role in fostering completion between my brother and I by signing us up for the same activities. For a long time, I did everything with Bennett. Any basketball, soccer, or football team I was on, I can assure you that Bennett was there too. It is not as if my mom and dad intentionally put us against each other. Looking back, I know that any reasonable parent with two sons the same age would do the same thing, but competition, and losing, would become an important influence in my relationship with Bennett because of this.

The topics of these researches vary greatly. For the purposes of this study, however, the focus will be the effects siblings have on each other’s achievement levels, as well as the effects of sibling violence and rivalry. One aspect that researchers have done studies on is the

May immigrants sacrifice who they are, what have and their cultural beliefs and identity when immigrating to a new country. These experiences and struggles are clearly echoed in Cristina Henriquez’ novel, The Book of Unknown Americans. These immigrants leave behind their roots and their cultural awareness behind in order to reach a land that promises freedom and financial growth. I just wonder if the sacrifice is worth the struggles and emotional losses immigrants encounter during this journey. The story of Maribel Rivera keens closely to me because it resembles my journey as well as the journey of others who bring or send their families to the United States.

From the time a child is born to the age of maturity, they are molded into what society has interpreted as normal. These fragile adolescent years are crucial to the development of the child's behavior, which bares the question of how important a sibling’s role plays in this development. Humans learn their behaviors and morals through the interaction with one another, feeding off of each other’s experiences. This dependency on others is shown through sibling relationships, even more so in the story of "The Rich Brother".

The Book of the Unknown Americans is a refreshing novel about two immigrant families who struggle to acclimate to their new homes in Delaware. This novel manages to accurately portray the obstacles that most immigrants must overcome, whether it be good old modern American racism or the effort to learn a new language. By following the Toros and the Riveras, readers are exposed to the obstacles of being both a newly immigrated family and an established immigrated family in both the real world and at school. In addition to these, readers are also introduced to the problems that parents must overcome with raising a mentally injured youth.

In the novel, The Book of Unknown Americans, Chirstina Heriauvez uses the characterization of Alma to depict an immigrant's´ journey in America to unravel the truth about the dark side of assimilating. The novels demonstrates that immigrants´ are filled with hope at the prospect of starting someplace new which often blinds them to believing that their new place will be better than their current situation. It can easily be impacted by racism, intolerance and the mistreatment of others.

My family is quite competitive, and that has been especially true between me and my three older brothers. Growing up with three older brothers made me want to be competitive against them in many different things, it was my goal from a young age to match my brothers in everything they did. Example of this include; sports, video games and other activities. I yearned to better than them in the activities that we did together. All of us would compete in old nintendo games and there would generally be a hierarchy of who was the best in these games. For example my brothers and I would play mario kart and the original hierarchy went from my brothers Mark, Matt, Nathan and then me. Mark was the one who was naturally talented at video games and was more likely to take it much

I had friends in both middle and high school who had siblings close in age. From my recollection if one sibling was a trouble maker the other one usually was also. I remember two brothers that were constantly skipping school and in trouble. They were close in age and the younger one shadowed his brother's behavior. Opposite of that, if one sibling did good in school and achieved good grades the other sibling did also. However, I did not experience this because my sisters were to far apart from me in age to attend school with them.

Ariel Adelina Mena is a married 24-year-old graduate student from Fresno State, who’s pursing her Master’s degree in Student Affairs & College Counseling. Ariel have an older brother, 27, sister, 26, and a younger brother, 17. Ariel’s older brother has been between jobs but is married with two kids. Ariel describes her oldest brother as a wonderful father who stays at home to watch his children. Ariel’s sister is in the military and is divorced with one child. Ariel shared with me that she has always look up to her sister, however, her sister has been very negative towards Ariel throughout her own life. On the other hand, Ariel is very close to her youngest brother. Her youngest brother aspires to attend UCLA and

    Although I’m the oldest of four kids, I don’t really believe in a lot of the typical, contemporary stereotypes. They don’t really matter to me. In a sense, perhaps the ideology that the first child is always the smartest is somewhat true. I apologize if this sounds conceited, but I see that my brother struggles with his third grade math and reading problems; however, when I was his age, I was already calculating advanced multiplication. Apart from my brother, I also have two younger sisters. We live with both of my parents as a family of six. That may seem like a big number, and although I’ve heard from many people that it’s

Numerous factors are involved in one's growth; shockingly, even birth order affects development. In my family, I am the youngest of two children. My elder brother and I are only 16 months apart, so we argue more than siblings with a larger age gap would. Ordinarily, the first child is mature and adult-like while the younger child is free-spirited; the opposite is accurate for my family. Due to my interest in studies since childhood, my parents naturally encouraged me, whereas, Nikhil (my brother) was not as invested in academics and had additional free-time. The extra pressure has made me emotionally worried because I constantly stress to uphold those expectations. Cognitively, I analyze information like an adult My brother's nature has made

According to the first chapter of the book, the siblings of the gifted usually follow in their sibling’s footsteps career wise and intellectually wise. “The same striving, driving parents who produce one child of extraordinary ability generally produce other children who are capable and intelligent.” An example of this is Pablo Casals, the cellist, whose brother became a musician and stayed in Spain when Pablo left due to his rejection of the Franco government.

I started as an unassuming born leader with a spirited younger sister Chloe who copied me. She drove me up the wall, following me everywhere, saying everything I would say and even dressing like me. I later found out the clothes were my mother’s doing so she could easily keep track of her brood. When my sister was being particularly frustrating, I would complain to my parents and they would tell me that she was looking up to me and was emulating my behavior. I had found their response more infuriating. I began to recognize how right my parents were as the years went on and after the adoption of my brother Manuel. My two siblings, six months apart, were relying on me to show them the way through the world. This instilled in me a sense of pride and a drive to set the best example I could for them.