Coping with Conflicting Identities in 'The Book of Unknown Americans' Stella Lee College

Each person’s identity is made up of many factors that influence the way they are. The decisions individuals make and how they carry themselves is largely prompted by various factors including race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, occupation, and an array of other elements. Sometimes, one’s competing identities can cause conflicts in what they feel like they should act like. In The Book of Unknown Americans by Christina Henríquez, each character experiences some kind of battle within themselves that is caused by some rivaling identities. The character exhibits this the most in is Mayor. With his parents being from Panama, and strongly urging Panamanian culture on him, as well as a powerful influence of American culture (as that is all he has ever known), he is torn between many conflicting ideals, standards, and cultures. As a result, he is forced to cope with this battle in a few different ways. Mayor faces many situations throughout the book where he is forced to confront his intersectional identity in a variety of ways, a circumstance that plenty of people in the real world can relate to.

Aside from Mayor’s ethnicity and nationality, he has a few character attributes that contribute to the way he carries...