In Memoir, Jose Antonio Vargas Shares His Life As An 'Undocumented Citizen'
With Meghna Chakrabarti
Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas made headlines when he outed himself as undocumented. His new memoir is “Dear America.”
Guest
Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, and filmmaker. Founder and CEO of Define American, a nonprofit media and culture organization that focuses on immigration, identity and citizenship. Author of “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.” (@joseiswriting)
From The Reading List
Excerpt from “Dear America” by Jose Antonio Vargas
Excerpted from DEAR AMERICA by Jose Antonio Vargas. Copyright © 2018 by Jose Antonio Vargas. Reprinted by permission of Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
New York Times: “Opinion: What America Looks Like From a Jail in South Texas” — “Of all the ways I imagined the inevitable — being arrested, getting detained — I never envisioned sitting on the cold cement floor of a jail cell in South Texas surrounded by children.
“It was July 2014. The cell, as I remember it, was no bigger than 20 by 30 feet. All around me were about 25 boys, as young as 5, the oldest no more than 12. The air reeked. A boy across the room from me was crying inconsolably, his head buried in his chest. Most of the boys wore dazed expressions. It was clear they had no idea where they were or why they were there.
“The only source of entertainment came from Mylar blankets, flimsy metallic sheets that were supposed to keep us warm. Three boys played with a blanket as if it were a toy, crunching it up into a ball, passing it back and forth.”
NPR: “‘Dear America,’ Writes A Pulitzer-Winning Journalist — And Undocumented Immigrant” — “Jose Antonio Vargas is an activist, journalist and filmmaker. In 2008, he was part of a Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings.
“But the kind of recognition that would make most journalists proud worried Vargas. It could lead to revealing a secret at the heart of his life — a secret that he himself didn’t discover until he was 16.
“Vargas revealed his story in The New York Times Magazine in 2011, and has now written a book called ‘Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.’ It’s a memoir of his time in the U.S. — but also of the people who assisted him along the way.
“‘To me, that’s the story,’ Vargas says in an interview. ‘As much as we talk about immigration, and specifically illegal immigration, we rarely discuss that the reality is: There are countless Americans of all different backgrounds out there who help people like me every day. And for me, part of writing this book was to kind of really document that.'” [Copyright 2018 NPR]
