Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
***THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER***
***EXPANDED WITH NEW MATERIAL TO REFLECT TRUMP'S SECOND TERM***
“This riveting, courageous memoir ought to be mandatory reading for every American.” —Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow
“l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured.” —Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and Where the Past Begins
“This book couldn’t be more timely and more necessary.” —Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of What Is the What and The Monk of Mokha
Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms.
“This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book––at its core––is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home.
After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom.”
—Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America
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Community Reviews
From the title, this book obviously concerns political issues, but it's truly a memoir at heart. Maybe it's because I found Vargas very relatable (though I was born a US Citizen), but I found this book really moving. He's someone who is determined, independent, and creative, and we see him work hard to make the best of what he has. Although the last section wasn't as good as the beginning in my opinion (perhaps because he's had less time to reflect on it), the book as a whole was still very moving. What hit me the hardest was when Vargas talked about feeling like he needed to "earn" his spot, like no matter what he did, he was still undeserving of his successes. Of course, with many people saying that undocumented Americans are "taking away" jobs/opportunities/resources, it's not surprising that one would feel this way. The best parts of this book are when Vargas just talks about how he felt. The struggles he goes through, externally and internally, humanizes the idea of an "illegal immigrant."
Because it's mostly just his story, not a lecture but on what immigration policies in America 'should be', I would definitely recommend everyone to read this book, even if you're politically more conservative.
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