Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen

“To Lolo, America was something you wear, something you buy, something you eat, and he wanted to spoil his first and only grandson—me.” 

The author’s introduction to American culture is couched in consumerist terms. Lolo, the author’s grandfather who is well-acquainted with America, chooses to interpret American identity through a purely capitalistic lens: American culture is bought, worn, and consumed. To pass as an American and to integrate into the culture, the author must learn to become a consumer. This is juxtaposed against the poorer Filipino culture, in which the author’s family did not have the finances to express themselves in such a manner. 

“Filipinos fit everywhere and nowhere at all.” 

The above quote helps to illustrate one of the central tensions in the book: that people from the Philippines are uniquely placed at an intersection between Asian and Latino identity that precludes them from entry into any one racial demographic. To be a “documented Filipino” is still to claim an amorphous identity; to be an undocumented Filipino doubly so. The lack of a clear, defined identity caused all sorts of problems, especially for a young man attempting to understand himself in a world that does not consider him to be legal. In an anti-immigrant political climate, the racism faced by the author becomes a struggle to comprehend how Filipinos fit into the complicated racial narrative of American history. 

“While the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act benefited Asian immigrants, it put Latinos at a disadvantage.” 

A recurring motif in the text is the manner in which concessions are allowed to certain groups of immigrants only at the expense of others. The author remembers the anti-immigrant politics of the mid-1990s and correlates this to one of the largest immigration reforms in American history, the legislature that shaped the modern discourse around immigration. The bill was intentional divisive: not only did it help create the idea of “legal” and “illegal” forms of immigration, but it kindled internal tensions between immigrant demographics by favoring one group over the other. 

“I did not want to ‘get legal’ and become a ‘citizen’ because I am gay.” 

The author’s sudden understanding of the illegal nature of his journey to America happens coincidentally with another reveal about his identity. His sexuality inhibits one of the few ways in which he can make his stay in the US legal. These competing crises in the authors life lead to him fleeing the safe, secure surroundings of his grandparents’ home. The rush of understanding is overwhelming and he finds himself caught in a prison, placed there by his well-intentioned relatives who have now begun to deplore his sexual identity. 

“Ragtime connected dots I didn’t know existed, allowing me to better understand American history in ways my textbooks didn’t fully explain.” 

The author uses media to teach himself about the intricacies of American culture. The movies, music, musicals, and books he absorbs give him a crash course in American culture history but not an authentic understanding. Instead, he is presented with a simulacra of American life; culture as it is presented through a media-orientated lens. He recognizes this issue—though struggles to give it voice—when he realizes that so few people in the movies look like him. The author begins to understand American culture through the texts America creates about itself, rather than the raw, unfiltered America that surrounds him. 

“The angrier Lolo became, the more independent I felt.” 

After such a long struggle to define his identity, the author begins to find solace. Part of this is his burgeoning interest in culture and journalism, part is due to his growing independence. Still a teenager, he approaches teenage rebellion in a somewhat responsible manner. He plans out a career that contravenes his grandfather’s intentions, defining himself in opposition to his grandfather’s limited ambitions for his grandson. In a meta-textual sense, the fact that the audience are reading the author’s words provides a justification for the author’s actions and an indication of eventual success. 

“Besides being born at a certain place in a certain time, did you have to do anything?” 

The rhetorical question posed to the audience is designed to force them to confront the random nature of immigration and citizenship status. The author is essentially a typical American child. He has had many of the same experiences in his life and has many of the same ambitions. The only point of differentiation is that he happened to be born in the “wrong” country at a time when this makes his ambitions bureaucratically impossible. He has no choice or control over this and the above quote calls the reader to question the very nature of citizenship and what it means to be a legal resident. 

“Black writers gave me permission to question America.” 

Reading the works of African American writers, the author discovers a world of literature that is not afraid to challenge the status quo. He finds solidarity in their writing, not just in the sense of being part of a marginalized racial demographic, but in being classified as an “illegal.” The language and discourse surrounding immigration is informed by the centuries of work by black American writers. Through them, through their work, he learns to be assertive and stand up against the hegemonic master narrative as described by Toni Morrison. 

“Am I taking someone else’s spot?” 

After the language around immigration heats up following 9/11 and a decade in a country in which illegal immigrants have become a focus for negative politics, the author has internalized anti-immigration rhetoric. On receiving a great job offer, one of his first thoughts is to worry whether he is taking someone else’s job. This reactionary talking point—that illegal immigrants are taking the jobs owed to legal residents—is disproven throughout the book: the author is hardworking, qualified, and eminently intelligent. He thoroughly deserves his internship but cannot process his excitement without referencing his own internalized loathing. 

“I was always on some kind of deadline for work, which made me forget about my other deadline: the expiration of my only piece of identification in a town that runs on business cards, resumes, and IDS.” 

As the author travels across the country, the stakes are raised. The trip East has placed him in a more dangerous position: in the post-9/11 world, being an illegal immigrant in the nation’s capital is provocative. The idea of deadlines introduces a narrative device into this predicament. As the clock ticks away on the driver’s license, the author must find a way in which to circumvent the reality of his immigration status. As much as he succeeds in his new position, the specter of his expiring license reminds him (and the audience) of how short-lived this success could be. 

“As he walked away from my car to answer the call, I felt something wet trickling down in my pants.” 

The level of fear and anxiety instilled in the author by the circumstances of his illegal status are conveyed to the audience during a routine traffic stop. It is an incident that most legal residents would not think twice about, but to the author, it is enough to make him lose control of his bodily functions. His frayed mental state and his anxiety-ridden mind manifest in an unseen, uncomfortable moment. The police officer does not know what happened, he is called away to something more important. For almost everyone involved in the traffic stop, the instance is unremarkable. For the author, terrified of losing everything, the traffic stop was a defining moment in his life. 

“It was the easy answer to Zuckerberg’s easy question, the kind of question I had never fully answered since I found out that I was not supposed to be here.” 

The repetition of the word “easy” in the above quote reinforces the extent to which lying has become an essential part of the author’s life. The question from Zuckerberg seems inconsequential; the dramatic irony of the situation relies on the notion that while this is a throwaway comment from Zuckerberg, it is the central question to the author’s identity. The author has to lie and he has to lie in a simple, convincing manner, lest his entire life unravel in a seemingly inconsequential moment.

“The thing is, you weren’t supposed to make it this far.” 

This line is delivered by an immigration lawyer who is casually sipping a Diet Coke. In this relaxed moment, the man reveals the subtext to all of the legal advice provided by similar lawyers: that everyone is aware of the existence of illegal immigrants but they are willing to accept their existence provided that these undocumented people remain part of the unrepresented political underclass. Illegal immigrants may be necessary and they may contribute to the country’s prosperity, but they are not meant to excel. This axiom, which has been internalized by the author and many of his family, is one of the fundamental issues with the lack of options for illegal immigrants in the United States. 

“I learned that you come out to let people in.” 

The author likens the reveal of his immigration status to the reveal of his sexuality. The benefit lies not only in finally being true with oneself, but in allowing other to finally provide help and support where previously they had been unaware of an internal conflict. Due to the author’s earlier experiences in coming out, he turns the entire notion of “coming out” into a motif. The literary support and representation he discovered as a gay man is something that he hopes to provide to other undocumented people. The manner of his first coming out informs his second. 

“I am not a criminal. This is not a crime.” 

The inherent power of the above quote is made evident by the author’s previous struggles with internalized loathing. He has worried for years that he is taking another person’s job, that he is committing a crime, or that he is—in some way—a criminal. By including these blunt sentences in the description of how he revealed his undocumented status to the world, they become powerful mantras. He is asserting his newly found self-belief and learning to process his old neuroses. 

“Who is Jose Antonio Vargas?” 

The power of Jack Shafer’s article title is that it poses a question that the author himself has long asked. Identity has been a central theme to the book and it is ironic that a person other than the author believes they could answer the question so succinctly. The author has spent the entirety of the text grappling with his identity as an immigrant, as a homosexual, as a journalist, and as an American. That this struggle is distilled into a single article is ironic and almost comical in its reductive reasoning. 

“Underneath all that bravado is a fidgety guy.” 

Though the text is a damning indictment of Fox News and Tucker Carlson, the above quote peels back the more aggressive façade of the television host and finds a shared humanity. The author is known to fidget and display his anxiety in a physical manner. Though Tucker Carlson is particularly venomous in their exchange, the nervous fidgeting is a common ground they share. It is not necessarily a positive trait, but it is a deeply human shared connection. Even though he is damning of Carlson’s politics and rhetoric, the author takes a moment to provide a moment of empathy. 

“I am not hiding from my government. My government is hiding from me.” 

The third part of the book opens with an inversion of expectations. Unlike many undocumented people, the author is now famous for his lack of legal residence in the country. Contrary to many undocumented people’s fear of being contacted by the government, he is now actively contacting ICE, seeking clarification over his own future. It is an ironic reversal of roles, in which the undocumented worker—who has spent most of his life hiding and lying—now finds that his government, the institution that he has feared for so long, seems to be doing exactly the same. 

“Breitbart runs immigration policy in the United States.” 

The author is told by his lawyer not to accept an invitation to Congress from Nancy Pelosi, as it might be considered antagonistic and could harm other undocumented people. To justify this, the lawyer quotes the hundreds of times that the author’s name has appeared on the Breitbart website. This reveals the changing nature of government policy under President Trump; previously in the text, Breitbart had been a right-wing agitator focused anger and violence towards people like the author. By the closing stages of the book, this website has begun to dictate policy and has a real influence on the way in which immigration is handled by the government. The increased treat to the author and other undocumented workers is represented by the growing influence of Breitbart with respect to immigration policy. 

“We show up.” 

The author’s decision to accept the invitation from Nancy Pelosi is an act of defiance. The symbolic meaning of the acceptance reveals what the author believes to be the greatest benefit to American civil society provided by immigrants, both documented and undocumented: regardless of the dangers and the fears, they show up. They contribute to society, whether they are loathed, hidden, or lacking in political representation. The acceptance of the invitation—in a literal sense, showing up—is the representation of the author’s thesis that immigrants of all sorts always show up. 

“When Hilary Clinton, a longtime champion of children’s rights, was asked to weigh in, she said tens of thousands of children and teenagers should be sent back to their home countries.” 

Though there are many stinging criticisms of the right-wing in the text, there are also many criticisms of the left. In a way, these criticisms are more pointed. In the above quote, for instance, the author reveals the extent to which immigrant children are treated as political theatre by politicians only focused on polling numbers. Despite being a longtime champion of the rights of children, Clinton is willing to disregard immigrant children ahead of an eventual run for president. Her previous attitudes are betrayed by contemporary politics; even those nominally on the left are willing to cast aside their loyalties to immigrant rights in the name of political power. 

“We don’t want you hurting yourself.” 

The above quote is laden with irony. Having finally understood why none of his fellow prisoners have shoelaces, the author is informed that it is because Border Patrol fears that inmates might attempt suicide. Border Patrol portrays itself as worried about the well-being of those in their care, though this statement stands in stark contrast to the harsh conditions in which all of the immigrants are kept and how they are treated in a more general, political sense. The ironic implication of the quote is that, while Border Patrol might not want the inmates to hurt themselves, they have few qualms about enacting hurtful and punitive measures against anyone trying to cross the border without the right paperwork. 

“The truth is, I’m not the only one who lost a mother.” 

Though the book has focused on the story of an individual, the final chapters see the author expanding the scope of his premise. He considers the boys in the Texas jail, as well as the members of his family who have also lost someone. While he was forced to grow up with a mother a long distance away, he realizes that his own mother has endured a similar experience. The distance between them has numbed him to the emotional complexities of his mother’s life, but as he grows older, the author feels an urge to understand his mother’s actions and empathize with her decision to send her son away to another country.