The Universal Experience of Homelessness

According to Jose Vargas, homelessness is an inherent and universal part of the experience of being an undocumented immigrant. The homelessness that he writes about is not necessarily physical or practical, but rather emotional and psychological. As he writes in the prologue: "This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like me find ourselves in" (2). With this quote, the reader understands from the very first pages of the book that when Vargas writes about homelessness, he is not writing about the literal lack of shelter. In this context, home is not merely a physical place, but also a state of mind and a state of being. The emotional and psychological homelessness of the undocumented immigrant manifests itself in several ways, all of which are outlined through Vargas's personal narrative.

First Vargas experiences...