Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas

 

What is a current topic that you would like to learn more about?  With immigration constantly in the news, I thought it was a great time to read Dear American, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas.

Jose Antonio Vargas was sent by hist mother from the Philippines to America to live with this Grandfather at the age of twelve.  He later discovers that he is not a legal immigrant and that there is no pathway for him to become a legal citizen.  In this memoir, he details his journey.

My thoughts on this book:

·       This is a book that all Americans should read.

·       Most Americans don’t realize that our immigration system is so broken that there is no “line” or easy or straightforward way to become a legal citizen.  If you grew up in the United States, but you weren’t here legally, you have to leave and go to another country for ten years to start the legal process.

·       Rhetoric that really bothers me is “my ancestors came here legally.”  I’ve noticed that most of the folks who say this have not actually researched how their ancestors came here or whether it was legal.  They are white, and they just assume it was legal.  They also minimize the fact that until the 1920s, you just had to show up, pay a minimal fee, and be healthy, which is not the process now.

·       I like how Vargas ponders that it is just fate where you are born.  You don’t work to be an American citizen if you are born here.  Why is there so much hate and anger against those born in different places?

·       I displayed my own bias while I read this book.  I thought that Jose Antonio Vargas was Hispanic by his name.  I didn’t think about how Spanish colonization in the Philippines resulted in Spanish names for the population.

·       It is hard to make it as an undocumented immigrant, but Vargas has people who cared about him and helped him out.  He has spent his life thinking that he can’t ever settle down because of his status.

·       He became a prominent journalist.

·       Jose Antonia Vargas is illegal, but the rest of his Filipino family came here legally.  It stinks that his grandfather and mother had him brought illegally as a child and put him in this legal limbo.

·       Illegal immigrants pay taxes, but don’t get any of the benefits.

·       It is good to read about people’s experiences as it helps to put things in perspective.

·       As a gay man, Jose Antonio Vargas would be persecuted in the Philippines.

·       Will we ever actually try to fix our immigration laws and the process to become a citizen? 

Overall, Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas is a book that all United States citizens should read for a good perspective on the broken immigration process in our country.

Favorite Quotes:

“What you done to earn your box? Besides being born at a certain place in a certain time, did you have to do anything at all?”

“I had to interrogate how laws are created, how illegality must be seen through the prism of who is defining what is legal and for whom.  I had to realize that throughout American history, legality has forever been a construct of power.”

“The Naturalization Act of 1790, our country’s first set of laws dealing with citizenship, said that an applicant had to be a ‘a free white person’ of ‘good moral character’ to be a US citizen.”

“Our country’s mainstream news organizations often fail to report basic facts about how much undocumented workers pay into a government that vilifies us. Whether because of ignorance or indifference, or both, failure to report these facts and provide context has perpetuated the myth of the ‘illegal’’ and who is taxing social services and taking away from ‘real Americans.’”

“According to the SSA itself, unauthorized workers have paid $100 billion into the fund over the past decade…Annually, undocumented workers pay $12 billion to the Social Security Trust Fund.”

“The mainstream media’s coverage of immigration is lackluster at best and irresponsibility at worst, promoting and sustaining stereotypes while spreading misinformation.”

“Between 1965 and 2015, new immigrants and their offspring accounted for 55 percent of US population growth, according to the Pew Research Center.”

Book Source:  Thank-you to #morrowpartner @deystreet for a review copy of this book.