Summary Of Jose Angel's Illegal

Undocumented? So what.

What? When people use their voices outcome powerful words and sayings. One may not understand that their use of words is powerful and have implications that affects all individuals. In the book, Illegal by, Jose Angel N. the readers read about how words people in the United States use to describe the author in American political discourse and how the laws that constrain the author are linked to specific vocabulary. In the forward section of the book the author talks about how phrases people use affects the undocumented community in the United States. As an example, Jose wrote that, “The language used to characterize undocumented immigrants has cast them almost exclusively in the form of lawbreakers” (xi). In that specific

I strongly agree that by not filling out the proper paperwork needed to become a citizen of the United States that one then does become a lawbreaker. However, I disagree with the idea of labeling undocumented people with a harsh term such as lawbreakers. Those immigrants who intentionally disobey the law, are crossing the border to better their life for themselves and their families. Jose also explains that in addition to being called a “lawbreaker” legal citizens will always see undocumented people in a certain view “The illegal newcomer will be stigmatized as a criminal and doomed to live “amid the shadows”’(xxi). Throughout the book, the audience is constantly reminded of how such vocabulary as, lawbreakers, undocumented and criminal affects the undocumented population, but more specifically the author himself. Even at the end of this book Jose still reflects about words that are associated with his status of being undocumented, “I am a trespasser and a criminal…and abyss of moral rectitude separates me from the law-abiding citizen” (94). His inner thoughts about certain words that are associated with his personal identity does further prove the point that words are a powerful tool and have strong connotations even when we do not

As we learned from the introduction of the book words such as, lawbreaker and criminal are powerful phrases when it comes to describing undocumented immigrants in the United States. When using the term lawbreaker and criminal a majority of the time most people associate those vocabulary words with the laws that one has disobeyed. However, in this book Jose allowed for the readers to make connections with words and the laws that affected the interaction that he had with people while living in Chicago. There are several insistences throughout the book in which the author has run-ins with the law regarding his legal status in the United States. The very first encounter that Jose experienced was when he was caught with his cousin in a house waiting to be taken to another part of the United States. The house they were waiting in was compromised, and the immigrants then were taken into the custody of law enforcement for their statements. Jose recalls that he was, “Kindly led to a desk where a blond officer sits. In a Spanish that impresses me, he asks me my full name and place and date of birth, whether I have tried crossing before and if I’ll try again afterward. I say no to both, and I don’t remember if he either makes me sign a document or takes my fingerprints” (6). This interaction that Jose had with law enforcement was nothing like what he had expected it to be like. He that if he was caught and arrested that he would expect “beatings, interrogations” (6) because he