Jose Antonio Vargas earns his first Dazzler of the Day honor thanks to his untiring and ongoing fight for the rights of immigrants. He’s been nominated for Emmy and Tony awards, and has won the Pulitzer Prize. His memoir ‘Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen’ is the next book on my reading list, and a new book ‘White Is Not A Country’ is scheduled to be published in 2023. For more of his many accomplishments, check out his website here.
“This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like me find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home. After twenty-five years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom.” ?
