The Book of Unknown Americans takes place in an old auto-body shop-turned apartment complex (I know, I can’t really picture it, either)—a home to several different Latino, immigrant families. Throughout the novel we hear from the perspectives of nearly all of the tenants of these Redwood Apartments over the course of seven months. Micho Alvarez is one of the neighbors in this complex. He is a beautifully self-aware photographer who says that these people are the “unknown Americans” because no one cares to befriend them. He asserts that natural born Americans feel that way about them either because they’re afraid or because they need someone to hate.
We didn’t intentionally pick such a hot-topic subject for this month’s book club but it does seem very appropriate considering all the discussions about immigration in the US these days. Either Latino immigration, the topic of refugees, or who should stay in the states and who should go—it’s on everyone’s mind and the tips of a lot of peoples’ tongues.
XOXO, Lib 