45 pages • 1 hour read
Jose Antonio VargasDear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Paperwork
The symbolic meaning of paperwork is clear throughout the novel: it defines who is (and who is not) allowed to claim an identity within the United States. Paperwork, representing legitimacy, comes in many forms. It is a passport, a green card, a birth certificate, a driver's license, or one of a hundred other variants. Whatever the particulars of the paperwork, it comes to define the owner. It symbolizes an individual’s privileges and rights, particularly in relation to those who do not possess such paperwork. Items that seem inconsequential for certain people are a matter of life and death for others.
Paperwork reminds the author of the precarious nature of his life. As a result of the symbolic meaning of the various pieces of paperwork, the author is forced to confront the question of whether he can ever feel at home in a country where he is undocumented. Whenever the author finds himself in a situation in which his status might be questioned, paperwork is an ever-present issue. When the author is pulled over by a traffic cop, for example, he is asked for his paperwork. Though he is able to provide a driver’s license, the author is painfully aware that the deeper, symbolic meaning of the question of paperwork has placed him in a difficult and dangerous position. He is liminal, neither Filipino nor American. Even in instances where the author has the correct paperwork, he lives in fear that it might be questioned or doubted.
The frequent motif of paperwork also interrogates the notion of privilege as it is portrayed in the text. Even when the author reveals his undocumented status to the world, he begins to operate in a society in which his paperwork is transposed to his fame. He is permitted to continue in the United States because he is too famous to deport. In the Texas jail, this is evident: while the other immigrants are soon to be deported, the author has made the front page of CNN. In this respect, his paperwork and his documentation are tied to the privilege he has gained as a noteworthy journalist. The symbolic meaning of the paperwork remains, as it permits him privileges that are not afforded to other illegal immigrants.
Literature
The author’s journey through American culture is informed by the literature that he reads. The books he discovers—many written by prominent African Americans—contain essential cultural information that helps him to pass as a member of the society, and provide him with a discourse he can use to frame his struggle as an undocumented citizen. Thus, the symbolic meaning of literature in the book is important, as it represents the ability to to use hegemonic structures to rail against the majority.
The author arrives in the United States and finds himself in a household that is wealthier than any he has ever experienced in the Philippines. However, his grandparents are not wealthy in the American context. This forces the author to turn to the library in search of free and wide-ranging information about American culture. While his grandparents are heavily invested in Filipino culture and speak the local language at home, literature provides the author with insight and and access to power.
The works of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin also speak of struggles with which he can empathize, while something as seemingly innocuous as a Time magazine story about Ellen DeGeneres provide him with a vital understanding of his emergent sexuality. Literature becomes the author’s means of understanding the struggles in which he finds himself. The motif is repeated: whenever he is faced with a struggle—whether it is racial or sexual—he finds solace and comfort in the literature of the society.
The way African Americans write about their role in American society compels the author to become a writer (namely a journalist). In a metatextual sense, the fact that the audience is reading the author’s bestselling book is a demonstration of the importance of the literature that inspired him. The name on the cover of the book provides him with a justification for his existence. The fact that he can read his name on the cover of a book in America means that he can take a symbolic satisfaction from his journey toward self-realization. Literature provides him with a role in society and provides a tremendous amount of self-worth to a young man who spent much of his childhood lost and alone.
Journalism
In addition to literature, journalism plays and important role in the book. From a young age, the author is told that he is a person who is always asking questions. As he struggles to form a cohesive identity, the idea that he could become a journalist is not only an important part of his identity, but it provides him with a goal in life. The symbolic quality of journalism is that it provides the author with a means to convey his story to others and demonstrate to them why the plight of undocumented people needs to be considered. Journalism is not just a profession. It is a solution to many of the author’s most pressing problems.
At first, journalism is an intellectual pursuit. It is the only focus the author has in school and he gears his life toward it. When he struggles to apply to college, this goal of becoming a journalist becomes an important symbolic conduit for the kindness of others. Gradually, friends and mentors begin to surround the author. They all want to help him fulfil his ambition to become a journalist. Whether it is providing financial, legal, or moral support, these people demonstrate their kindness and their value in relation to the author’s stated goal. Journalism and the author’s ambitions allow the text to demonstrate that there are positive, kind people in the United States who are willing to operate in contradiction to their government’s stated policy. Journalism, in this respect, symbolizes the book’s theory that many people in America are willing to help undocumented people in many ways.
Journalism is also important in relation to the idea of “coming out.” It allows the author to dictate the terms of his reveal: he publishes his story in a newspaper, using all of the training and expertise he has accumulated. Journalism is a discourse that the author has mastered, and having written extensively about the gay community as a youngster, he understands how a coming out story can be powerful and politically affecting. The symbolic value of journalism in this context is that it provides the author with an opportunity to wrestle back control of his own narrative in the manner he knows best. The fact that the audience is reading the author’s book is a testament to the author's success in this regard.
