Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dear America, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Citizenship, Belonging, and Identity
Family, Love, and Intimacy
Immigration Politics and Policy
Journalism, Storytelling, and the Power of Truth
Summary
Analysis
After watching so many American movies and beauty pageants, Jose Antonio Vargas was surprised to see a diverse, multilingual crowd when he landed at the Los Angeles airport. In California, he got used to dressing for the cold nights, and he went to live with his grandparents (Lolo and Lola in Tagalog) and his uncle Rolan. Lolo and Lola had been in the U.S. for almost a decade and recently received citizenship. Rolan had arrived just two years before Jose.
The difference between Vargas’s expectations of Los Angeles and the multicultural reality that he encountered reflects the tension between two visions of the United States: one as a racially and ethnically homogeneous nation (which it has never been) and one as a diverse, inclusive country. This is the tension at stake in contemporary debates about immigration. The fact that Lola and Lolo were U.S. citizens challenges the common misconception that everyone in a family shares the same immigration status. This shows how arbitrary and unnecessary the line between citizens, legal immigrants, and undocumented immigrants really is.
Themes
At his welcome party, Jose met Lolo’s siblings, Florie, Rosie, and David. Jose also met Florie’s husband, Bernie, and their kids, Bernie Jr. and Gilbert, who barely spoke Tagalog. He also met his Uncle Conrad, a former rice farmer who became a U.S. Navy officer. Over the following weeks, Lolo spoiled Jose: he gave him as much ice cream as he wanted, wrote his name on all his clothing, and became the father figure he never had.
Vargas’s welcome party shows that he has a loving extended family in the U.S., but it also reveals how his family has been split by immigration. For instance, Bernie Jr. and Gilbert’s lack of Tagalog suggests that they have lost an important part of Filipino culture and cannot communicate with other parts of their family.
Themes
