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
As he advanced as a reporter, Vargas started having to tell more lies and break more laws. As a summer intern for the Philadelphia Daily News, he pretended to have a driver’s license and then secretly traveled by taxi and subway. The next summer, in 2002, he got a similar internship at the Seattle Times. But the paper required him to prove his citizenship, and when he admitted that he was undocumented, it rescinded the job offer. He went to Seattle to meet the recruiter, but he doesn’t even remember what they talked about.
Because of his undocumented status, Vargas faced numerous challenges that his U.S. citizen colleagues didn’t. Not only did he struggle to find work and get a driver’s license, but he also had to hide his status from his employers, because he wasn’t technically eligible to work for them. As this chapter’s title suggests, then, he constantly had to weigh his journalistic ambitions against these risks.
Themes
Back in California, Rich Fischer and Jim Strand set him up with an immigration lawyer, who explained that his only option was leaving the U.S. for ten years and then trying to return legally. He considered it, but Rich told him to “compartmentalize it [and] keep going.” The next summer, he landed an internship at the Washington Post. But he needed to get a driver’s license for the job.
If he left the U.S. for ten years, Vargas wouldn’t even have a guaranteed path to return. Therefore, this wasn’t a serious possibility for him—and his legal options were effectively up. Rich Fischer’s advice to “compartmentalize it” shows how the only realistic way for many undocumented people to survive in the U.S. is by shutting out their deepest fears and uncertainties about their status. Thus, it’s little surprise that Vargas found being undocumented so emotionally challenging.
Themes
