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A review by girlnouns
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
2.0
Since the book is non-linear, it is hard to understand and contextualize the events as they happen. I try to avoid critiquing book structure, but Dear America skips around and is told in small vignettes, which gets pretty tiring to read.
While I believe in the general sentiment that the United States' immigration policy is wack af and needs to be reformed to help undocumented folk, this book kinda left me with more questions than I came in.
1) I push back on Vargas' belief that immigrants have to provide value/work harder to earn citizenship. While it was mostly mentioned towards himself/reiterated about his journalism career, people don't have to create value to have rights.
2) I wish Vargas engaged with how the "left" critiques his politics more. A large portion of the book talks about how Republicans (obviously) have pushed back on immigrants/undocumented folk and how bad Obama/Clinton was through their deportations and harmful immigration policies (which I agree with), but he doesn't engage on more "left" critiques of himself/his policies. I'm surprised he isn't more radical, since he is undocumented and gay, yet he engages with the corrupt propaganda machine that is fox news and just calls himself "for progress". I think this article is a good response to his lack of political stance/questionable practices as a journalist - "An Open Letter to Jose Antonio Vargas " by Luis Serrano-Taha.
3) I don't know what to make of the "if just five people helped an undocumented person then they could be helped like I was" belief. Vargas's story is informative about his immigration experience, but his experience isn't scalable/widely applicable based on the fact that he had connections to wealthy people growing up and connections to powerful people now as an experienced journalist. I wish he addressed the luck that he had (full scholarship ride in college or even a community that paid for his school class trips???) that is not available to other undocumented folks.
I'm a US citizen and an ally to undocumented people, I'm very sympathetic to Vargas' story about finding out his status, how he gets targeted for being undocumented, and his struggles with his family. I won't ever know those feelings about homelessness and uncertainty. My review isn't trying to challenge his experiences. But his political ideologies around his "non-partisanship", his "I'm not an activist, I'm a journalist", his lacking acknowledgment towards undocumented activists or other marginalized folk are not something that I support.
I understand that he wants to tell a story about himself, his experience. However, when he talks about the undocumented experience on his wide platform, he should also listen to other undocumented folk and uplift their voices.
While I believe in the general sentiment that the United States' immigration policy is wack af and needs to be reformed to help undocumented folk, this book kinda left me with more questions than I came in.
1) I push back on Vargas' belief that immigrants have to provide value/work harder to earn citizenship. While it was mostly mentioned towards himself/reiterated about his journalism career, people don't have to create value to have rights.
2) I wish Vargas engaged with how the "left" critiques his politics more. A large portion of the book talks about how Republicans (obviously) have pushed back on immigrants/undocumented folk and how bad Obama/Clinton was through their deportations and harmful immigration policies (which I agree with), but he doesn't engage on more "left" critiques of himself/his policies. I'm surprised he isn't more radical, since he is undocumented and gay, yet he engages with the corrupt propaganda machine that is fox news and just calls himself "for progress". I think this article is a good response to his lack of political stance/questionable practices as a journalist - "An Open Letter to Jose Antonio Vargas " by Luis Serrano-Taha.
3) I don't know what to make of the "if just five people helped an undocumented person then they could be helped like I was" belief. Vargas's story is informative about his immigration experience, but his experience isn't scalable/widely applicable based on the fact that he had connections to wealthy people growing up and connections to powerful people now as an experienced journalist. I wish he addressed the luck that he had (full scholarship ride in college or even a community that paid for his school class trips???) that is not available to other undocumented folks.
I'm a US citizen and an ally to undocumented people, I'm very sympathetic to Vargas' story about finding out his status, how he gets targeted for being undocumented, and his struggles with his family. I won't ever know those feelings about homelessness and uncertainty. My review isn't trying to challenge his experiences. But his political ideologies around his "non-partisanship", his "I'm not an activist, I'm a journalist", his lacking acknowledgment towards undocumented activists or other marginalized folk are not something that I support.
I understand that he wants to tell a story about himself, his experience. However, when he talks about the undocumented experience on his wide platform, he should also listen to other undocumented folk and uplift their voices.