The Book of Unknown Americans: List 1

by Cristina Henríquez
After Maribel Rivera sustains a debilitating injury, her family leaves a comfortable life in Mexico to seek treatment in the United States. Maribel develops a close relationship with her new neighbor Mayor, setting in motion a devastating chain of events.

This list covers pages 3–47 in the 2015 Vintage Contemporaries edition.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
35 words 1288 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. naive
    marked by or showing unaffected simplicity
    Back then, all we wanted was the simplest things: to eat good food, to sleep at night, to smile, to laugh, to be well. We felt it was our right, as much as it was anyone’s, to have those things. Of course, when I think about it now, I see that I was naïve.
  2. facade
    the front of a building
    The last thing I saw before we turned onto the long gravel lane that led to the parking lot was an abandoned auto body shop, its hand-painted sign on the ground, propped up against the gray stucco facade.
  3. manicure
    trim carefully and neatly
    I had expected it to be nicer. Something with white shutters and red bricks, something with manicured shrubs and flower boxes in the windows. The way American houses looked in movies.
  4. threshold
    the sill of a door
    After we carried everything up the rusted metal staircase to our apartment, after we found the key the landlord had left for us, taped to the threshold of the door, Arturo went back down to pay the driver.
  5. dingy
    discolored by impurities; not bright and clear
    The linoleum floors were dingy and worn.
  6. disoriented
    having lost your bearings
    We woke in the morning bewildered and disoriented, glancing at one another, darting our gaze from wall to wall.
  7. frayed
    worn away or tattered along the edges
    He had on a loose black T-shirt and jeans that were frayed at the hems.
  8. perverse
    deviating from what is considered moral or right or proper
    They seemed to believe she was no longer worthy of their attention or maybe that it was wrong to look at her now, that there was something perverse about it, and they averted their gaze.
  9. jut
    extend out or project in space
    “Bwwaaaak!” Julius said louder, jutting his neck toward me.
  10. vindicate
    show to be right by providing justification or proof
    Enrique had been the first player in the history of our school to make varsity as a freshman, and when he got a full-ride soccer scholarship to Maryland, it was like my dad had been vindicated.
  11. skimpy
    containing little excess
    They didn’t look like any freshmen I knew, in their skimpy tank tops and lacy black bras they wore underneath, but what I did know was that our team got a hell of a lot better after those girls showed up.
  12. ambivalent
    uncertain or unable to decide about what course to follow
    One day, I asked Coach if I could go back in, even if just for a few drills. When he looked ambivalent, I lied and said, “I’ve been practicing with my dad at home. Even he thinks I’m getting better.”
  13. divot
    a piece of turf dug out of a lawn or fairway
    Maybe there was a divot in the grass. The next time I ran into the middle to get the ball, my ankle turned.
  14. sear
    burn slightly and superficially so as to affect color
    My mother ran out to retrieve it and when she brought it back inside, she was crying and picking pebbles and dirt off the seared skin.
  15. char
    burn to charcoal
    Broken glass and charred palm trees along the sides of the roads. It looked like a different place. It was just destruction and more destruction.
  16. gratify
    make happy or satisfied
    Celia and I feel gratified when we see Enrique and Mayor doing well here. Maybe they wouldn’t have done so well in Panamá.
  17. quota
    a prescribed number
    “I can feel when I’ve found one. Then I have to snap the stem, brush off the dirt, and toss it in the collection bin. Pero tan rápido. We have quotas to make.”
  18. appalled
    struck with dread, shock, or dismay
    I was appalled, though I didn’t want to say so. What kind of place required a man to work all day without being allowed to eat or drink?
  19. consolation
    the comfort you feel when soothed in times of disappointment
    “The hot dog will be ready soon,” I added, as if it were some sort of consolation.
  20. sift
    move as if through a sieve
    This was where I had brought him? To a windowless building where he stood in one place all day sifting through dirt without eating or drinking or seeing the sun?
  21. acute
    extremely sharp or intense
    But when Arturo didn’t say anything, I felt acutely the meagerness of it, the insufficiency. We wanted more.
  22. meager
    deficient in amount or quality or extent
    But when Arturo didn’t say anything, I felt acutely the meagerness of it, the insufficiency. We wanted more.
  23. conduit
    a passage through which water or electric wires can pass
    Think of me as your conduit to the school. Anytime you need to communicate with them, call me, and I’ll get them the message, and if they need to communicate something to you, it’s the same thing.
  24. filly
    a young female horse under the age of four
    Maribel rose to her feet, like a filly finding her legs, and stretched.
  25. plait
    weave into a braided hairdo
    When Maribel was little, she used to get up early in the morning so I could plait her hair in two long braids down her back.
  26. compliant
    disposed to act in accordance with someone's wishes
    She resisted, she was confused, and then, suddenly, something would snap back into place and she was compliant, agreeable.
  27. discern
    perceive, recognize, or detect
    Even a year after the accident, I was still unable to discern the pattern.
  28. trepidation
    a feeling of alarm or dread
    We had to push past trepidation and believe that by sending her off we were doing the right thing.
  29. venture
    proceed somewhere despite the risk of possible dangers
    And because I wanted to believe him—because I wanted more than anything for her to be fine and fine and eventually better than fine, for her to transform again into the girl she used to be, for this past year to have been nothing but a strange, cruel detour that we could move beyond and never venture down again—I nodded and watched the bus heave away.
  30. incline
    a sloping surface connecting two levels
    When I opened my eyes and looked down, I saw the boy from the gas station riding his skateboard, pushing himself up the slight incline to our parking lot where the gravel changed to asphalt.
  31. sinewy
    possessing physical strength and weight; rugged and powerful
    He was slender and sinewy with a pointy gray goatee.
  32. scrimmage
    practice play between two teams
    Every morning I packed my gym bag and every night over dinner I told my parents about the drills Coach had us doing to gear up for our big games or about Jamal Blair’s crazy bicycle kick near the end of a scrimmage or about whatever else I imagined was happening on the field without me.
  33. register
    be aware of
    My parents were so wrapped up in their own problems that they barely even registered me.
  34. muss
    make messy or untidy
    Maribel, I said to myself. Forget about how she was dressed—white canvas sneakers straight out of another decade and a huge yellow sweater over leggings—and forget about the fact that her black hair was mussed like she’d just woken up and the fact that she wasn’t wearing any makeup or jewelry or anything else that most of the girls in my school liked to pile on.
  35. extortion
    an exorbitant charge
    I don’t even know why we had to pay so much money. I mean, it wasn’t no Ritz-Carlton. Wasn’t even no Ritz cracker box. But that’s the thing. It’s just extortion.
Created on Sat Sep 01 15:23:02 EDT 2018 (updated Thu Sep 06 11:21:46 EDT 2018)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.