Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen

The author learns to play the role of an American. He spends a lot of time in libraries, studying for his role. There, he watches movies and listens to music, though he is confused by the wider political issues presented in magazines. Figure skating is another fascinating subject; the routines of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding help to introduce him to classical music. He also listens to pop and rap, hoping to understand white and black American culture. He collects idioms and mannerisms from television, while the Oprah Winfrey Show introduces him to a wealth of black American authors. Through the musical Ragtime, he learns about the history of black and white American music, as well as the influence of immigrants. He learns that white people—from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and other countries—could be immigrants too. He learns that, aside from Native Americans and some African American groups who were brought to the continent as slaves, every demographic in America is made up of immigrants.

After a month of living with Peter, the author returns to his grandparents’ house and makes an uneasy peace. He remembers watching The Joy Luck Club with his grandmother. She cried. The author realizes that he is not alone in missing his mother. Learning how to pass as American is the author’s way of exerting control over his uncontrollable life.

The idea of a byline in a newspaper hooks the author. No one in his family has written professionally, so his entry-point into journalism is Mrs. Dewar, his English composition teacher and a “self-described hippie with a smoky voice” (46). She jokes that the author would be well-suited to journalism as he asks too many annoying questions. Writing is both a rejection of Lolo’s strategy of secrecy for his undocumented grandson and a way for the author to validate his own existence. Very quickly, journalism becomes a driving force in his life and a new identity. He talks his way into an unpaid internship at the local newspaper and is sent to cover a nearby fire when there are no other reporters available. It becomes a front-page story. The sight of the author’s name on the front-page infuriates Lolo.

The author also has many other hobbies and activities—debate club, theatre, and choir—to keep himself busy and out of the house. Teachers help transport him to and from activities, and parents of friends from more affluent neighborhoods help to pay for his trips. The author acknowledges he is a product of his benevolent community. The author is elected as the student representative on the school board; he is friends with many teachers and officials, including Rich Fischer. Rich is the school district’s superintendent and takes a special interest in the author; they become close friends. These many supporters and friends help the author not because they can afford to do so, but “because they wanted to” (49).

The author reveals to his adult friends that he is not planning to attend college; his illegal status means that he cannot apply for financial aid and he cannot afford to attend. Instead, he gets a job at the local newspaper. Soon, however, adults at the school are asking him about his plans for college. Many of these figures have replaced the mother in his life, becoming proxy parent-figures. Slowly he begins to tell them about his illegal status. They consult lawyers and try and develop a plan, including the possibility of adopting the author or marriage to a classmate. None of these are viable. Eventually, the author discovers a scholarship program that does not ask about immigration status. The program is run by Jim Strand, a local venture capitalist, and the author meets him and thanks him. He decides to attend San Francisco State. In the future, he will serve on the advisory board for Jim Strand’s scholarship.

The author recalls the first time he “willfully broke the law” (53), filling out an employment form for a local newspaper just before he graduates from high school. Since his experience at the DMV, he has continually avoided any kind of documentation or paperwork. The application notes that federal law prohibits him from providing false information and requires, under penalty of perjury, that he attest to his legal immigration status. He ticks a box claiming to be a lawful citizen of the United States. He knows that it is a criminal act but he also knows that employment means independence. The author is determined to earn his legal citizenship one day, even if he does not know how. He is no longer a blameless child, however. In his defense, he asks the audience what they would have done in his situation.

Due to his status, the author has never felt protected by the law. After extensive study, he has determined that “throughout American history, legality has forever been a construct of power” (55). From the lynching of black Americans to the seizure of Native lands to the lack of suffrage for women, laws have been used to consecrate and protect the powerful and the privileged. Native Americans were not considered US citizens until 1924; the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was designed to prevent a specific ethnicity from immigrating; the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required that escaped slaves be returned to their owners; and the Naturalization Act of 1790 only applied to free white people with “good moral character.” All were legal.

The author finds himself becoming obsessed with the binary construction of race in America: black and white. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye introduces him to these ideas. He empathizes with the protagonist Pecola; both have been lied to from a young age. While Pecola focuses on her desire for blue eyes, the author thinks about his lack of official paperwork. The author watches an interview with Toni Morrison in which she discusses the idea of a master narrative, of how ugliness is defined in relation to the ideological white male life, represented by the blue eyes Pecola covets. The author decides that he will not play the role of a victim. He will reject the master narrative’s definition of him as an illegal person. Through his study of the struggle of black Americans, the author learns about the struggle of other marginalized groups and the centrality of whiteness. From Morrison, the author moves on to other writers, such as James Baldwin, and takes refuge in their works.

The author’s ambitions compel him to take more risks. After the entry-level job, he applies for an internship at The Philadelphia Daily News in 2001. In the interview, he lies and says that he has a driver’s license. While covering the police beat in the city, he takes cabs and buses. The events of 9/11 change the discourse around immigration. In 2002, when he applies for another internship, he is told to bring proof of citizenship. When he tells the truth to the recruiter, his offer is rescinded. Telling a stranger about his illegal status makes the author paranoid. He flies to Seattle and asks to meet her in person; he needs to look her in the eye and know that she will not tell anyone. She never does.

Eventually Jim Strand and Rich Fraser help the author arrange a meeting with an immigration lawyer. It does not go well. The only option is to return to the Philippines and apply for legal immigration after ten years. Though the author is distraught, Rich encourages him to not let the issue interfere with his studies. The author learns how to compartmentalize his worries. The following summer, he wins an internship at The Washington Post. Thrilled, the author calls a friend and talks about the offer. He worries that he might be taking a legal resident’s spot. He is told not to worry. However, he does need a driver’s license to proceed.

The author spends hours figuring out how to get a license. Oregon, he discovers, is the only state that does not require a green card or a passport. A friend introduces him to Craig Walker. Craig lives in Oregon and allows the author to use his home address to apply for an Oregonian driver’s license. The author travels to Oregon to take his driving test. Throughout this time, Lolo is increasingly worried about his grandson overexposing himself and getting caught. The author passes his driving test just two weeks before his internship begins; the license is the “only piece of government-issued identification” (62) he has for eight years. Reflecting on this period, the author is shocked that the people around him were so willing to help. Discussing this with a friend, he does not believe they helped him out of “white guilt” or due to a “white savior complex” (62); the author would only be introduced to these when he moved to Washington, D.C.

The author’s summer internship at The Washington Post is a success, so much so that he is offered a two-year internship straight out of college. The author’s family of white adults and school teachers in California are thrilled but his real family cannot help but be worried. He has two graduation parties before moving—one with each family—and then leaves for D.C. in 2004. The author knows he needs to be careful, that he needs to make friends and succeed whilst not standing out too much. The author becomes anxious and paranoid, worried that everyone can read his illegal status on his face. He begins to think about leaving The Washington Post or leaving America. He needs to tell someone the truth, so turns to a fellow reporter named Peter Perl. Peter has been a mentor figure in journalism since the author’s arrival at The Post. They sit on a park bench and the author reveals everything. Peter accepts the issue as their “shared problem” (66) and that, once the author has proved his abilities as a journalist, they can deal with it further. The author spends Thanksgiving with Peter and his family.

The author reflects on all the strangers who have saved him at important junctures in his life. People have not only not reported his illegal immigrant status, but they have gone out of their way to help him. These strangers, he says, “have allowed people like me to pass” (67). If five such people have helped just one illegal immigrant, then perhaps the nation’s 11 million undocumented workers are helped by a network of 66 million Americans.

Being a reporter becomes the author’s entire identity. The constant deadlines at work make him forget the big deadline in his life: the eventual expiration of his Oregon license. He knows that he cannot escape constantly lying about himself in a profession so dedicated to telling the truth. This leads him to try even harder to ensure that his work is perfect; he writes stories that other journalists cannot write.

Even so, he is insecure about his written English. He is assigned to the “Style” section and writes about video games and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the city. His work catches the eye of the foreign desk editor, who proposes that the author travel to Baghdad as a correspondent. He tries his best to decline the offer politely, suggesting instead that he wants “to get to know America more” (69). He aims to become a political reporter—a crowded and prestigious niche. To carve out his own space, the author begins accompanying his stories with self-shot and self-edited videos. Technology becomes his way of standing out.

By the time of the 2008 election, the author pitches his coverage on the first social media and digital-orientated Presidential election. He sends this pitch to The Washington Post’s top editors, and two weeks later he is assigned to the campaign team. He speaks to a friend and mentor, Lynne Duke. Lynne is a senior colleague who—together with other African American women in the office—has taken the author under her wing. She advises him to “understand what kind of journalist [he’s] going to be before the political machine eats [him] up” (71). The author comes close to revealing his secret to Lynne but does not.

While covering the 2008 campaign, the author is stopped by a traffic cop. He presents his license and registration. The Democratic primary between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton has been a stressful time; in an effort to file before his deadline, the author had been driving at 30-miles-per-hour over the speed limit. The sheriff’s cell phone rings and the author feels a warm trickle down his leg; he has urinated in his pants. The sheriff returns and allows the author to leave, advising the author to slow down in the future. He cannot help but “worry about everything” (73), even though his professional life is a huge success.

One of The Washington Post’s top editors congratulates the author for his involvement in covering the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. The team wins the Pulitzer Prize and the author sees his name written in the nominating letter. Rather than elation, he feels only fear. News of the “youngest and only the fourth Filipino journalist” (74) to win the Pulitzer Prize spreads. The author receives a call from Lola. She is worried. The author tells her not to worry, but as soon as he hangs up the phone, he runs to a toilet cubicle and cries. In that moment, he realizes that his lies will have to stop. They are now too unwieldy and passing has become exhausting.

The author fulfils a professional ambition by writing for The New Yorker, interviewing the owner of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. He walks with Zuckerberg near the Facebook headquarters and Zuckerberg asks the author where he is from. The interview itself is the result of a long process of convincing Zuckerberg and his team that the author is the right man to write the first in-depth profile of the mysterious tech billionaire.

By this time, 2009, the author has been recruited to write full-time for The Huffington Post. By the summer of 2010, however, at the peak of his journalistic career, depression has taken hold of the author’s life. His driver’s license will soon expire, and he cannot tell anyone about what is bothering him. He tells Zuckerberg that he is from Mountain View, a lie that has become easy enough to tell. Throughout his career, he has “so internalized the axiom that [he needs] to ‘earn’ [his] American citizenship that [he is] uncertain if [he has] ‘earned’ the right to express [himself] in such personal terms” (76) such as “I,” “me,” or “my.” He has become terrified of confronting his own despair and has built a life accordingly: always on the move, always unable to leave the country.

For a long time, the author has worried that by sharing his secrets, he drags more people into his personal mess. Lies have been exacerbated by more lies: he lies about a sick grandparent to get out of a wedding in Mexico City; he never places family photos in his workspaces; he tells people that his parents are dead; and he chases bylines while trying to be invisible, all to prevent awkward questions. The irony of asking Mark Zuckerberg to be more open and transparent while existing at the nexus of a web of deceit is not lost on the author. He has begun reading the many stories of undocumented young people who have demanded political action. He realizes that for his life to proceed, he must “get at the truth about where [he] came from” (79). The interview with Zuckerberg forces the author to realize that he can no longer live with his lies. He must write his own story.

At least ten immigration lawyers tell the author that publicly telling his story is not a good idea. They offer many diagnoses but few treatments for the ailment at the center of the author’s life. One lawyer tells him that he was not “supposed to make it this far” (80). The author is determined to write his story not because he wishes to be a martyr, but because he wishes to be a human being. He believes that he has an even greater responsibility to speak up knowing that his struggle is representative of a wide spectrum of immigrants.

The author equates revealing his illegal status to revealing his homosexuality, saying that both instances of “coming out” are “more about letting people in” (81). For years, he kept his Filipino family from his family of friends and mentors. He compartmentalized people, keeping certain pieces of information privileged to certain groups. On his 30th birthday, the author decides that it is time for everyone to meet everyone else. He throws a party and invites everyone. In all, 30 people attend. They are family members, friends, mentors, and colleagues. The author stands up in front of them and reveals everything about himself. By this time, Lolo has passed away from a heart attack. In the months before Lolo’s death, he and the author reconciled. Two months after the funeral, the author learns that his real father is dead. He is angry at first and then helps his half-siblings pay for the funeral.

On 22 June 2011, The New York Times Magazine publishes the author’s piece: “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” The article also carries the headline “OUTLAW.” At the moment of its publication, the author founds a group named Define America with his close friends. The group helps to tell stories about immigration in an attempt to change the culture—and ultimately the politics—that affects immigrants. In the days before publication, as the author is checking every final detail in the article, he receives a phone call from an immigration lawyer. Revealing everything in the article, the author is told, will make it nearly impossible for him to ever become a legal citizen. The essay is a personal reckoning for the author; he believes the article is “journalistic service to the public good” (84). He has written the article as a starting point for other journalists to investigate further. One example of this is the question of how undocumented workers pay income taxes. Each year, the IRS collects billions in taxes from undocumented workers yet still does not recognize that they have a right to earn a living. Likewise, the author and other undocumented workers pay social security. These facts are rarely reported in the news media, but would tamper anti-immigrant rhetoric if revealed. As a result of a lack of coverage and visibility, immigrants’ “existence is as broadly criminalized as it is commodified” (86).

Once the article is published, the author is accused of having a biased agenda. He expects this. However, the story is largely examined through a political lens, which he did not expect. The author had taken pains to provide examples of anti-immigration rhetoric to approximate some notion of journalistic integrity, and worried he had sacrificed the fundamental humanity discussed in the story. The article had a protracted route to publication; it had been rejected, then accepted, then killed, and finally published. This difficulty, the author believes, is emblematic of journalism’s struggle to understand the issue of immigration. Latino journalists are underrepresented in the profession despite being the country’s largest racial minority group. The author views the media’s coverage of immigration as lackluster at best, aside from a few noted exceptions.

The author details his various media appearances and the difficulty he has faced in making the media—particularly the television news networks—treat the subject with respect. They are running out of time to chronicle a “demographic makeover unlike anything this country has ever seen” (90). Furthermore, race, class, and immigration are often intertwined. The author notes that immigrants now hail from Asian and Latin America, rather than Europe, and reform to immigration was only made possible by the Civil Rights movement. President Trump’s campaign to “Make America Great Again,” the author notes, is an explicit attempt to wind back the clock to a time when immigration was dictated by what President Kennedy called “discriminatory national racial quotas” (90). The irony, the author notes, is that Trump’s own grandfather was a German immigrant.

News organizations, the author believes, lack the clarity to discuss immigration and its intersection with race, class, and identity; the media fails to correctly frame anti-immigrant rhetoric as racist; the “framer-in-chief” (91) of this white supremacist ideology as political rhetoric, he says, is President Trump, whom he believes to be a culmination of the media’s failure to correctly address immigration. The author notes the need to discuss Native Americans and African Americans in the conversation about immigration and how the stories of these demographics are unique. Even American citizenship is not always enough, the author notes, citing the lack of response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, a US territory whose populace are US citizens.

The author finds himself at the center of an article that asks, “Who is Jose Antonio Vargas?.” In the piece, the media critic Jack Shafer confronts the lies told by the author and his attempt to normalize these lies, as well as how the telling of lies affects the author’s journalistic credibility. The author addresses the criticisms and his right to withhold private information in unrelated reporting. Though he wishes to contact Shafer, the author is advised not to do so. He discusses the idea of advocacy journalism, the way in which people from non-majority identities are regarded as advocates rather than journalists when they write about a topic close to them. The only controllable thing, the author is told, is his work. The newfound idea of the author as the face of undocumented immigrants is interfering with his ability to be regarded as an independent, objective journalist.

The author considers the language used to discuss immigration, such as the difference between an “ex-pat” and an “immigrant.” Why is the former typically applied to white people rather than the latter? Language becomes a barrier to information in this respect. The author believes that America, a country founded on pro-immigration ideals, must examine itself closely when considering the question of who gets to be an American. White immigration, he says, is viewed as “courageous and necessary” (95), while migration by people of color (whether legal or illegal) is treated as a legal question, a potential crime, a worry over assimilation, or a concern over changing demographics. Modern immigration is a descendant of imperialism and colonization, the author states, and is thus a natural progression of history.

In the months after his article, the author grows anxious. He has not heard from the government. He pitches an article examining this question, which eventually will become a Time magazine cover story. In the piece, he answers many of the questions he has been answering. Rather than having his picture on the cover, the author suggests a group photo of 35 undocumented immigrants from around the world. The resulting photoshoot was one of the proudest days of the author’s life.

On the day the magazine is released, President Obama announces the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, otherwise known as DACA or the “Dreamer Act.” The right-wing press is immediately appalled at the legislation, which could provide as many as 850,000 undocumented young Americans amnesty on deportation. DACA does not cover everyone, including the author. Aged over 30, he is too old. He talks about the matter with Lola and hears her crying on the other end of the line. A week later, when boarding a domestic flight, he begins to worry that he will be caught and deported. Instead, the TSA agent thanks him for his work. Her brother is undocumented. She asks him to sign a copy of Time magazine.

In May 2017, the author appears on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. Carlson jokes about calling the authorities before they go on air. Fox News, the author asserts, “has molded immigration” (100) as a political topic in America. Fringe anti-immigration organizations with ties to white nationalism have been used as credible sources by the network, shaping public discourse. Fox portrays illegal immigrants are enemies, burdens on society, a drain on public programs, and thoroughly un-American. Furthermore, Fox assumes they are unwilling to become American. In doing so, Fox provided President Trump with “an issue to own and a kingdom to reign over” (101).

Despite his initial hesitation, the author has appeared numerous times on Fox News. He appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show the day DACA was expanded. The confrontation with O’Reilly haunts the author for weeks. He is similarly affected when, at the last minute, Laura Wilkerson is added to a Fox News interview. Wilkerson’s son was killed by an undocumented immigrant and, with the host, she discusses her anti-immigration stance and calls for tougher measures against illegal immigration. The author attempts to sympathize with Wilkerson’s loss, but she cuts him off, telling him to get in line and acquire legal residence. The author does not have the time to tell her that there was never any such line for people like him.

The author reflects on what it means to be an activist and whether he can consider himself one. Regardless of his own opinion, others see him as a pro-immigration activist, and this can lead to “attacks and demands from all sorts of people” (104). People demand that his arrest and deportation on a daily basis, particularly following Trump’s election. Typically, the author ignores such messages, but not all of them are negative. He has received positive responses to his work from unlikely sources. Now, he travels the country raising awareness of immigration issues and spends many tired hours in airports. He flies so much that he is occasionally upgraded to first class.

While boarding one plane, a man makes a comment about how “illegals fly first class” (105), and it deeply affects the author. He posts about the incident on Facebook, and after receiving positive comments, decides to talk to the man. The flight lands, and in the airport the author introduces himself. The man is named Eric, and though he did not mean to be rude, he had seen the author on television and thought that he was bragging about being illegal. The author corrects Eric, saying that he wishes he could become legal. Eric is stumped. They talk for 15 minutes and the author hands Eric a business card that contains a link to the Define American website. The author has not heard from Eric since.

In 2018, the author is speaking at a symposium on childhood stress. During a panel, a woman confronts him and says that she was offended by his comments. Her family came to America legally from South Asia and accuses the author of breaking the law. The author argues with her, and though he is cut off by the symposium organizer, he finds her afterward. The woman is an immigration lawyer, he discovers, but her awareness of the history and legality of immigration is lacking. He gives her his card and leaves.

The author does not identify as a Democrat or a Republican, nor as a liberal or conservative. Due to his undocumented status and because he is a gay person of color, he is typically considered a progressive. While he often receives hatred from those on the right, he has also been subject to “unrealistic expectations and demands of the left” (110). He considers himself separate from any unified political movement. The author’s admission of fraud has led other organizations to distance themselves from him. During one conversation with an activist, he is told that some activists wonder whether the author is simply taking another step in his career, calling his sincerity into doubt. The author finds this ironic, as the public confession to his undocumented status led to his career being threatened.

He quickly burns through his savings and must borrow money from friends. To get around this, he needs to find a way to make himself employable and does so by becoming an undocumented entrepreneur. His role as an activist is criticized by those in the movement, who refer to him as too privileged, an opportunist, or too elite and successful. These comments cut deeper than those from the right ever could. They are annoyed that his article has revealed many of the tricks of passing for a legal immigrant, such as how to acquire a driver’s license. While the activists have been fighting their entire lives, the author has spent most of his life lying. The author laments these internal squabbles and the bullying tactics.

The month after Donald Trump announces his candidacy for the Presidency, MTV releases a documentary titled: “White People, made in part with Define American.” It poses the question, “What is white?” and provides a range of confused, lost answers and plenty of denial. Myths such as students being denied scholarships because they are white are debunked; facts and statistics about life for the typical white American are provided, including that most white Americans live in vastly racially homogenous towns with mostly white friends. Most white Americans believe that discrimination against whites is “as big a problem as discrimination against minorities” (114). The author realizes that the majority of people feel excluded from America, even the privileged.

After the show airs, the author tells people he believes that Trump will win. They do not believe him. At a conference days after Trump’s election, the author notices the edgy, restless atmosphere. He is heckled for criticizing America, and the author responds with a James Baldwin quote that explains that it is because he loves America that he insists on criticizing the country. The author empathizes with the heckler. At times, he does not feel like a human. Instead, he feels “like a thing that can’t just be” (116).