I dream, therefore I am

OUTLAW: MY LIFE AS AN UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT

by Jose Antonio Vargas

This story was first published in the New York Times Magazine

One August morning nearly two decades ago, my mother woke me and put me in a cab. She handed me a jacket. ‘‘Baka malamig doon’’ were among the few words she said. (‘‘It might be cold there.’’) When I arrived at the Philippines’ Ninoy Aquino International Airport with her, my aunt and a family friend, I was introduced to a man I’d never seen. They told me he was my uncle. He held my hand as I boarded an airplane for the first time. It was 1993, and I was 12.