Books
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Advocates for Immigrant Justice (AIJ) at the Butler Center
is a dialogue and community-based initiative to center and advocate for the undocumented immigrant community. This year, we have incorporated a book club that is open to CC students, faculty and staff that focuses on people within the undocumented community that are often left out of the conversation. This includes undocumented laborers, Black, Asian Pacific Islander and people that don't fit within the "dreamer" narrative. We are excited to announce that our next book club read
is Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas. Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms. |
“This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book––at its core––is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself 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 25 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.”
—Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America
After 25 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.”
—Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America
Book Club Meetings (All are welcome!)
Block 7: Wednesday, April 9 at 12:30pm (Part I: LYING) Pages 1-43 and (Part II: PASSING) Pages 47- 174
Block 8: Wednesday, April 23 at 12:30pm (Part III: HIDING) Pages 177-230
Location: Worner 226 (second floor)
Lunch Provided!