45 pages • 1 hour read
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
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Themes
The Search for Identity
The author’s search for identity is the dominant theme in the narrative. As an undocumented person, as a homosexual man, and as a racial minority, the author struggles to determine how he functions in society. After leaving the Philippines, his first encounter with identity comes when he is enrolled in an American school. There, he discovers that he is not white, not black, and not like the majority of the Hispanic and Asian students he encounters. Instead, he is located in the undetermined middle ground between a number of these identities. He is neither Asian nor Hispanic though is technicality a part of both identities. His nationality complicates his racial identity and it is through others’ racial struggles (particularly African American writers) that he begins to define himself in opposition to the hegemonic white American majority. The author’s first identity challenge is to determine his particular intersection of race and nationality in a strange new environment.
Once the author begins to understand his identity as a Filipino male, his next issue is attempting to determine his identity regarding his sexuality. Empowered by the media he consumes, he quickly realizes that he is a gay man. After a short struggle, he announces this sexuality to his classmates. Though the other people in his school are accepting of this newfound identity, he struggles to explain it to his grandparents. They initially reject his sexuality though eventually come to terms with it. This struggle for a defined identity informs the author’s eventual fight to be recognized as an undocumented person. One identity feeds into the other, providing him with a framework of how to explain and process his minority identity.
If the author’s struggle with nationality and sexuality are difficult to navigate, one of the easier battles is the author’s quest to define himself in relation to his profession. He discovers journalism early and quickly excels. He succeeds beyond most people’s wildest expectations. Very quickly, the author identifies himself as a journalist and uses what he has learned in this profession to help explain to others his identity as an undocumented person. In every respect, the quest for identity is intersectional. The author learns that he is not just a Filipino, a homosexual, or a journalist. Rather, he forges his own identity in an alien and often unaccepting society.
The Politics of Immigration
A persistent theme throughout the book is the extent to which immigration has become a politically charged issue. Throughout the narrative, the author points out many times that the nation of America has been built on immigrants. Despite this historical reality, attitudes toward immigration have become increasingly negative. The border has become gradually politicized and militarized, to the extent where American attitudes toward immigration are unrecognizable from those half a century ago. As proof of this, the author carries around a book by John F. Kennedy and refers to its passages on immigration and its importance. The book attempts to show the unassuming American reader than the country has not always taken an anti-immigration stance.
In addition to the gradual politicization of the border, the theme of politics in relation to immigration is not an issue that affects only the right or the left wing of American politics. Rather than writing as a Democrat or a Republican, the author frames immigration as a humanitarian crisis. The control of the American political system has switched back and forth between the parties in the decades since the author’s arrival, but he describes a rising importance of immigration in the discussions that define American politics. No party is willing to take an explicitly pro-immigration stance, and politicians on the left and the right are willing to disregard the humanity of immigrants in order to score political points.
In this regard, Dear America reveals a deeply divided America at a precipice of civil strife.
Passing
The idea of passing plays an important thematic role in the book. Passing, in the context of the author’s story, is defined as the ability to pass as an identity other than one’s own. While the author is an undocumented person, for instance, he can lie and pretend to be a fully legal resident of the United States. While he is a homosexual, he can pass as a straight man to most people. He cannot pass as white due to his physical appearance, but other undocumented immigrants can. Learning how to pass is how the author learns to operate in a foreign society. He passes as a legal resident, informed by the culture he consumes in the libraries, on the television, and through the music he listens to. Learning how to pass is, in effect, how the author learns how to survive in a system seeking to label him a criminal and an alien.
This theme of passing is informed by the various privileges that the author does and does not possess. For instance, his career as a journalist helps him to pass as a legal resident. It provides him with material wealth and references, as well as an education. It means that he does not suffer the constant threat of deportation or being labeled a drain on society, as is faced by immigrants who work in minimum wage positions. When he reveals his undocumented status, for instance, he has enough in savings to not only stop working for a short while but to start an organization designed to raise awareness for other undocumented people. His privilege allows him to act in a manner that is not possible for many; because the author passes for a typical middle-class legal resident, he is not challenged as often as those who do not share his privileges.
However, for all of the advantages and privileges that passing provides to the author, there are negative aspects. Passing as a legal resident means that the author is beset by anxieties on a regular basis. He is so committed to passing that, before his reveal, he does not tell many people the truth. He is terrified, worried that the truth will be revealed and that his passing abilities will fail him. His passing has to succeed every time; the government only has to succeed once. As a result, he finds his life consumed by anxiety and fear. Normal incidents affect him deeply. The traffic stop, for instance, becomes a deeply horrifying and embarrassing moment. At a certain point, passing is no longer possible. For all of the privileges it brings, it eats away at the author and threatens to ruin his life.
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