Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
by Jose Antonio Vargas (narrator)
Find out more about this book and author:
Goodreads
Website
Published: 2018
Publisher: Dey Street Books
Genre: Memoir, Filipino
Hardcover: 256
Rating: 5
First sentence(s):
I come from a family of gamblers.
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
My two-bits:
This gets into the past and present situation in regards to undocumented citizens.
Unfortunately, certain things are still unresolved. But, there are people working on solutions at Define American which is a non-profit organization Jose founded (here).
Artwork:
by Jerome Reyes
This piece is currently displayed at the Yerba Buena Center and the first quote references Jose's mother...
(‘It might be cold there’).”
—Jose Antonio Vargas (b. 1981), journalist and filmmaker
From Jose Antonio Vargas, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,”
New York Times, June 22, 2011 (here)
* Listened to audiobook version.
