Author Jose Antonio Vargas spoke at WCC about his experience of discovering that he was living undocumented in the United States. His book “Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen” was this year’s Washtenaw Reads pick. Melissa Workman | Washtenaw Voice
By Catherine Engstrom-Hadley
Staff Writer
As Jose Antonio Vargas took to the stage, he started with a request: “If you want to call ICE on me, please wait ‘til after the lecture.”
It was a packed house in Towsley Auditorium for this year’s Washtenaw Reads event. Hosted by the Ann Arbor District Library, Washtenaw Reads is a community-driven program to promote reading and civic dialogue. 2020’s book pick was “Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen” by Vargas.
In his book, Vargas shares his experience of discovering he was in America illegally after being brought from the Philippines to live with his grandparents.
In 2011, against the advice of 26 immigration lawyers, he came out as an illegal immigrant on the front page of the New York Times. In his book, he tells his story of struggling with being an illegal immigrant, what it meant for him and what it meant to publicly tell his truth.
“My editor said to write the 20 most painful experiences of my life, so I turned in 22,” Vargas said. No stranger to writing, Vargas is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and playwright.
During the event, Vargas spoke of his own story, as well as his nonprofit group Define American.
“We are the stories we tell,” Vargas said, who works with a small staff to help television and movie writers create stronger characters.
Define American has helped create and improve immigrant and minority characters for TV shows and movies like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Party of Five,” “The Sun is Also a Star” and “Superstore.”
The character Mateo from “Superstore” was originally written to receive his citizenship after four episodes in the first season.
“The writers and producers simply did not know you can’t just magically make some legal, so we have been working with them,” said Vargas. Currently, Mateo is the only regularly featured undocumented character on television.
Vargas talked about the help he received from educators and mentors. One of them, his high school English teacher, was in the audience.
“If you can’t tell, I am a big fan of educators,” Vargas said, as his former teacher left the stage after a hug. “We haven’t seen each other in over twenty years.”
In August 2019, to his surprise, Vargas had an elementary school named after him, in the area where he grew up in as a child when he first arrived in the United States.
As the night came to an end, Vargas reflected on what freedom means for undocumented immigrants in the United States.
“If we, as undocumented people, can’t rely on the government for any kind of freedom, then where do we get it from? I think we have to get it from people, from each other,” he said.
“This idea that our freedom is tied to one another; this idea that if you are free, your job is to free someone else,” said Vargas.
Vargas left the audience with a question: “What are you willing to do? What are you willing to risk? If the freedom that we, as human beings, enjoy can’t come from this government, then in some ways, it has to come from you.”
