Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen

Dear America—Notes of an Undocumented Citizen is a collection of essays written by Jose Antonio Vargas, published in 2018. The book relates the author’s struggle of coming to the United States from the Philippines in an illegal manner and growing up in America without the full documentation that would have made him a legal immigrant.

As a 12-year-old boy in the Philippines, the author is surprised by his mother one morning. She rushes him to the airport and introduces him to an unknown man. The man takes the author on a flight and hands him over to his grandparents, Lola and Lolo. The author finds the new country strange. He learns about America through television, films, and magazines. At school, he begins to realize that he is not white, black, Hispanic, or Asian and so does not quite fit into any one demographic. He does well at school and sends frequent letters home to his mother. A few years later, he applies for a driver’s license and is told that his green card is faked. When he confronts his grandfather, he realizes that he is an undocumented person. His grandfather swears him to secrecy.

Around the same time, the author realizes that he is gay.