Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen

by Jose Antonio Vargas

First, it was a sign of rebellion and independence from my family, a way of rejecting Lolo’s strategy of working under-the-table jobs until I marry a woman and get my papers. Second, and more importantly, writing was a form of existing, existing through the people I interviewed and the words I wrote as I struggled with where my physical being was supposed to be. Writing was also a way of belonging, a way of contributing to society while doing a public-service-oriented job that’s the antithesis of the stereotype that “illegals” are here to take, take, take. I didn’t realize it then, but the more stories I reported on, the more people I interviewed, the more I realized that writing was the freest thing I could do, unencumbered by borders and legal documents and largely dependent on my skills and talent. Reporting, interviewing, and writing felt like the safest, surest place in my everyday reality. If I was not considered an American because I didn’t have the right papers, then practicing journalism—writing in English, interviewing Americans, making sense of the people and places around me—was my way of writing myself into America. In the beginning, writing was only a way of passing as an American. I never expected it to be an identity.