Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen

In the opening chapter, the author notes that he comes “from a family of gamblers” (13). When he is still a child, he leaves the Philippines in a rush to emigrate to the United States of America. Until that day, he spent almost all of his time with his mother. At the airport, he is introduced to a man and told that this is his uncle. With little warning, he says goodbye to his mother for the last time and goes to live with his grandparents. He remembers flying over the Philippines archipelago and conflates the thousands of islands of his home country with bodies of water in the US. The author leaves the Philippines in 1993, aged 12.

Television—specifically the Academy Awards and the Miss Universe pageant—shape the author’s nascent idea of American culture. Arriving in the Californian airport, he finds people speaking dozens of languages. The weather, too, has more variety than his home country. He is introduced to his grandparents; Lolo is his grandfather and Lola is his grandmother. His uncle is named Rolan and has lived in the US since 1991. Lolo is a naturalized citizen and has changed his name from Teofilo to Ted (after Ted Danson). A party convenes to celebrate the author’s arrival, where he meets more grandparents, uncles, and aunts. The author is showered with American gifts, including food and clothes. The author’s real father has been absent most of life, so Lolo will “become the father figure [the author] never had” (17).

The author enrolls at school. He confuses lines from the American national anthem (“Oh say can you see…”) with his own name (“Jose”). Amid all the American children, he stands out. Not fluent in English, he struggles to overcome his thick Tagalog accent. He brings the wrong kind of food for lunch, does not know how to play American sports, and talks about the wrong topics (such as how his childhood dog was once killed and eaten). Trying to explain everything to his mother is difficult: long distance phone calls are expensive. He writes letters (and later emails). Her arrival in America has been delayed. In one letter, he tells her about his new friends and his hectic school schedule. America, the author says, has “become more than a class subject [he] was trying to ace. America was an entire experience, and [he] wanted to do all of it” (20). Excelling in school is the only way he knows to prevent his mother from being too sad and lonely. Reflecting on the letters he sent as a child, the author does not recognize himself. Such a long separation has buried his emotional connection to his family.

The author meets Eleanor, a girl who is also from the Philippines. She tells him that he does not “really look Filipino” (22). The author reflects on the changing demographics in California: Asian and Hispanic populations increase, white populations decrease, and African American populations remain constant. The author’s school becomes a microcosm of this change. In the Philippines, the author had little conception of race. Aged 14, having moved to America, he struggles with the idea: he is considered Asian, a Pacific Islander, and Hispanic to varying degrees. He recalls the day of the OJ Simpson verdict (despite knowing nothing about OJ), how reactions differed along racial lines. One teacher, Mrs. Wakefield, discusses the complexities of race with the author and helps him navigate the tricky question of which group he belongs to. As a result, he is never sure how a Filipino is supposed to look or belong.

Filipinos, the author states, “fit everywhere and nowhere at all” (25). Though there are 115 million Filipinos around the world and 3.5 million in the US, Filipino culture is malleable and adaptable, due in part to the country’s colonial history. The Philippine islands were “discovered” and ruled by Spanish colonialists for more than 370 years until America took over and ruled for a further 50. This led to a prominence of European Catholicism and American culture. The Philippines has long endured a “codependent and abusive” (26) relationship with the United States, complicated by race. Americans have described Filipinos as black and Mongolian while forbidding Filipino men from marrying white women or visiting certain businesses.

The author is from a light-skinned Filipino family; his parents married young and his father left before the author learned to speak. For people from the author’s town of Zambales, getting to America involves joining the American navy, marrying an American, or being petitioned by a relative. The author’s grandfather was brought to America by his sister Florie, who had married an American and petitioned her brother’s arrival. Lolo and Lola departed for America in 1984, hoping—as many Filipinos did—that the journey would be a golden ticket to prosperity and an escape from poverty. Thus the author was raised by a single mother, her parents in America providing as much financial support as they could.

The author remembers moving to a house with running water, thanks to the remittances sent by his grandparents. To the author, his grandparents seemed inordinately wealthy. Only on arriving in America did he learn that this was not the case. He performs his chores diligently, determined to help his grandparents any way he can. Back in the Philippines, the author’s mother meets a man named Jimmy and they have a son together named Carl, whom the author has never met. The author describes his grandparents’ home as decidedly Filipino: speaking local languages, eating Filipino food, and fraternizing with other Filipinos. The author grows up in Mountain View, part of California now famed for its tech industry. The differences between the wealthy tech workers and the immigrant communities is stark.

Talking to a Mexican classmate, the author learns about the importance of green cards. The two boys share the name Jose and differentiate themselves by their country of origin: Mexican Jose and Filipino Jose. The author does not understand the concept of a green card but is aware of the anti-immigrant political issues that are sweeping California in 1994. The incumbent Republican governor has attacked illegal immigrant children as a drain on state resources. The author, still young, is unaware of the political reality of immigration: how the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act helped to create the idea of legal and illegal immigrants and how it benefited Asians at the expense of Latinos. Before 1965, there existed far fewer restrictions on immigration. The author does not know if he needs a green card. He only knows that he is not Mexican.

The next time the author thinks about his green card is when he is applying for a driver’s permit. He has not consulted his family about the application, but he visits the DMV with his school identification card and what he believes to be his green card. There, a woman tells him that his green card is fake. The author believes that the woman is wrong and that his grandfather will resolve the issue. When he asks his grandfather, Lolo admits that the green card is not real and instructs the author not to show it to people. The expression of shame on the man’s face has stayed with the author ever since. Questions plague the author; he is confused and angry; he cannot even return to the Philippines, as his passport is also fake. He is trapped in “a legal no-boy’s-land” (34). He phones his mother, learning that the “uncle” who had accompanied him to America was actually a smuggler. Lolo has always been worried that, on the initial application to bring the author’s mother to America, he listed her as single. This was a lie, one which has haunted him since. She has since been unable to legally immigrate to America; the author was sent ahead in an attempt to stall until he could become a legal citizen, perhaps by marrying an American woman. He refuses to entertain such an idea, thus beginning a life of lies.

One of the author’s main reasons for refusing to marry an American woman is a fact he has long hidden from the family: his homosexuality. When Lola overhears him talking on the phone, she tells him that she does not want him to go to hell. The author has discovered his homosexuality while talking online. Occasionally, these online chats would turn into real phone calls. The author lies about his name and age. By embracing his gay identity, he can better process the “illegal” aspect of his existence. He recalls seeing Ellen DeGeneres on the cover of Time magazine; it is a formative moment in understanding his sexuality. Her story of coming out was a comfort for the author, juxtaposed against the fear instilled by the murder of Mathew Shepherd. In October 1998, Shepherd had been brutally beaten and killed for being gay.

The author spends so long repeating the idea that there is nothing wrong with being gay that he accidently blurts it out one day in school while watching a documentary about Harvey Milk. There and then, the author reveals his sexuality for the first time and becomes the first openly gay student at his school. The revelation causes tension between the author and his grandparents, strict Catholics who are embarrassed about their grandson’s sexuality. The tension reaches a breaking point when Lolo kicks the author out of the house; he leaves with a backpack and $20. The author calls Peter, an older gay man he met online, and asks for a place to stay. Peter accepts. Whereas many would suggest that Peter took advantage of the author, the author believes that he took advantage of Peter.