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
When the Post editor Kevin Merida called Vargas to congratulate him on winning the Pulitzer Prize, Vargas’s first response was fear: “What if anybody finds out?” News spread fast, even to the Philippines. And Lola called him, frightened. Vargas hung up on her, ran to the office bathroom, and cried. He realized that lying about his status was ruining his life—even his successes. He had to stop, but he didn’t know how. He was so, so tired of passing.
Fame makes hiding, passing, and lying much more difficult—which explains Vargas’s counterintuitive reaction to winning the Pulitzer and Lola’s panicked phone call. Meanwhile, Vargas’s sense of anxiety and despair shows that he was wrong to expect that working hard and contributing to his society would “earn” him his citizenship and make him feel at home in the U.S. He needed to find another way to resolve his sense of unbelonging and open up about his status.
Themes
