ABOUT THE BOOK

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen is an urgent, provocative and deeply personal account from Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who happens to be the most well-known undocumented immigrant in the United States. Born in the Philippines and brought to the U.S. illegally as a 12-year-old, Vargas hid in plain-sight for years, and went on to write for some of the most prestigious news organizations in the country while lying about where he came from and how he got here. After publicly admitting his undocumented status — risking his career and personal safety — Vargas has challenged the definition of what it means to be an American. Both a letter to and a window into Vargas’s America, Dear America is a transformative argument about migration and citizenship, and an intimate, searing exploration on what it means when the country you call your home doesn’t consider you one of its own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist and filmmaker, is the founder and CEO of the non-profit Define American. His work has appeared internationally in TIME, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle, the New Yorker, and the Washington Post, where he won a Pulitzer Prize as part of a reporting team. In 2014, he received the Freedom to Write Award from PEN Center USA. He directed the documentary feature Documented and MTV special White People, which was nominated for an Emmy Award. An elementary school named after him will open in his hometown of Mountain View, California, in 2019.

source: "Teaching Guide: Jose Antonio Vargas's Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen." harperacademic.com.

TEACHING AND LEARNING SOURCES