Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen is a political autobiography written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Antonio Vargas.
The book details Vargas’ experience as an undocumented immigrant who came to the U.S from the Philippines illegally at the age of twelve. Vargas first discovered his illegal immigrant status when he was a teenager applying for a driver’s permit and realized that his papers were fake. Since then, he kept his legal status a secret and went on to have a successful career in journalism.
He concealed his true status as an illegal immigrant because he knew this would limit the opportunities available to him in life. Indeed, Vargas goes on to use the book as a plea to America to reassess the true meaning of migration and citizenship. He urges the reader to consider the feeling of being effectively, stateless - Vargas himself may be ethnically Filipino but his home was in the US – a country that does not legally recognize him as a rightful citizen.
Vargas goes on to state how being the "most famous illegal" person in America challenges all pre-conceived notions about what it truly means to be a U.S resident.
