The Book of Unknown Americans

by Cristina Henríquez

I don’t know why, but he thought he could do whatever he wanted. That’s how boys are.

“You have to think like a gringa now,” Arturo said. “You have to believe that you’re entitled to happiness.”

Who comes to the United States and ends up in Delaware?

I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be a part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too.

I felt the way I often felt in this country—simultaneously conspicuous and invisible, like an oddity whom everyone noticed but chose to ignore.

You think I don’t know you? You think I don’t breathe you and dream you every single day of my life?

And how wrong that sounded: part of our lives. As if he was something with boundaries, something that hadn’t permeated us, flowed through us and in us and all around us. I learned something about grief. When someone dies, it doesn’t leave a hole, and that’s the agony.