My Life As An Undocumented Immigrant By Jose Antonio Vargas

In the narrative essay, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,” journalist Jose Antonio Vargas recounts his childhood journey from the Philippines to the United States. He presents his accomplishments in his education and career as a journalist while living with his grandparents and having an illegal status in the United States. Throughout Vargas’ story, he explains the difficulties that he faced for not having the proper credentials to be in the United States. Building up his essay as a personal narrative, Vargas build the idea that just as any other immigrant he has to make tough decisions in order to survive. While on the process of constructing this idea he adopts a sympathetically tone to the readers. Which is backed up with the vivid …show more content…
He establishes the definition of an American in order to demonstrate how this title affects his life; he describes an American as person who prides themselves in working hard and reaching the goals that they set. He initiates this to understand the reason why he consider himself an American. Vargas stated “This is my home. Yet even though I think of myself as an American and considers America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own” (Vargas, 9); he wants us to understand that he shares the same values as any other American, but in America someone that is an American is someone that lives in the country legally with adequate legal papers declaring someone to be a citizen. Later on, he also describes how he lived in fear due to his legal status which leads him to make unlawful decisions, made in order to create a future for himself whom can live like any other person. He mentioned “This deceit never got easier. The more I did it, the more I felt like an impostor, the more guilt I carried — and the more I worried that I would get caught. But I kept doing it. I needed to live and survive on my own, and I decided this was the way” (Vargas, 20) showing us the difference between legal citizens in which do not have to fear anything and immigrants in which do and no one understands them since legal citizens have not lived an immigrant’s reality. …show more content…
Vargas recount the time when after he had the accident at the D.M.V where he found out he was illegal immigrant and states “my grandfather and I took the Social Security card to Kinko 's, where he covered the “I.N.S. authorization” text with a sliver of white tape. We made photocopies of the card. At a glance, at least, the copies would look like copies of a regular, unrestricted Social Security card” (Vargas,16), this moment in his life makes us, the readers, reflect on what Vargas had to do in order to have the same privilege of a normal life as someone who is legal, and making us wonder what other things occur in the life of these people. Even though this is a specific event in his life own life, Vargas brings the idea that once someone knows that a person is illegal they automatically of the stereotypes of them as if they are true about immigrants. Varga stated, “ There are believed to be 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. We’re not always who you think we are” (Vargas, 9) majority of people think if immigrants as criminals, but they do not know that not every immigrant is evil or that things are being misunderstood. This way, Vargas shows how he did make illegal decisions, but he never acted with bad intention; he is not a criminal. He compels us to try to