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Part 1, Chapter 4: Not Black, Not White
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
Vargas describes Filipinos as an invisible population in the U.S. There are 105 million people in the Philippines and 3.5 million Filipinos in the U.S. But in the U.S., many Filipinos don’t consider themselves Asian, and Filipino culture isn’t as visible as other Asian cultures. Even though Filipinos do all sorts of jobs, Americans generally think of them as domestic workers. The Philippine islands were a Spanish colony for 370 years and then an American one for 50, which helps explain why so many Filipinos have moved to the U.S. But they have also long faced xenophobia, racism, and discrimination there.
Vargas suggests that Filipinos are invisible in part because they don’t fit into the U.S.’s narrow racial categories and in part because they are stereotyped as low-wage workers. He tries to combat this stereotype by showing how Filipinos’ place in the U.S. is really the result of a specific colonial history. Their collective experience of unbelonging in the U.S. parallels his specific feeling of unbelonging as an undocumented immigrant.
Themes
Vargas’s father was from a well-to-do Manila family, while his mother came from a working-class rural family. When her aunt Florie fell in love with an American Marine, Florie moved to the U.S. with him and then petitioned for Mama’s father, Lolo, to join her. After a decade-long wait, Lolo and Lola moved to California in 1984.
Vargas’s family’s path to the U.S. reflects many important features of the current U.S. immigration system. First, Florie’s marriage to a Marine shows how U.S. colonialism and militarism shaped the Philippines and became the foundation for migration between the two countries in the 20th century. Second, Lola and Lolo’s path to immigration shows how the U.S. prioritizes family migration—but only in certain narrow circumstances. Finally, Lolo and Lola’s long wait shows how slow and inefficient the system can be.
Themes
After Vargas’s father abandoned him and his Mama, Lola and Lolo started sending them money from the U.S. Therefore, as a child, Vargas always thought of Lola and Lolo as rich. But in reality, they barely scraped by working as a food server and security guard, renting a house from Florie, and sending what they could to Mama. When he joined Lolo and Lola in California, Vargas tried to help them out by doing household chores. Meanwhile, his Mama and her long-term boyfriend Jimmy had two more children, and Jimmy also went to work abroad and sent her what money he could.
The difference between Vargas’s perception of Lola and Lolo and the reality of their lives reflects the profound inequality between the U.S. and the Philippines. On the one hand, migration physically and emotionally split Vargas’s family. But on the other, they actually migrated precisely in order to take care of their family. Lola and Lolo went to the U.S. (and Jimmy also left the Philippines) not only to seek better lives for themselves, but also to support their loved ones.
Themes
Like most immigrant families, Lolo and Lola kept their traditions alive at home. They ate Filipino food, kept up with Filipino news, and stayed in touch with Filipino relatives. While one part of Mountain View is now home to major tech companies like Apple, Vargas lived in “the other Mountain View,” full of immigrants who struggled to survive and waited for the broken U.S. immigration system to reunite them with their families.
Unlike their grandson, Lolo and Lola didn’t feel a need to assimilate into American culture—after all, they migrated as adults and already had a clear sense of their identity. The two halves of Mountain View also reflect the two halves of America: the native-born citizens who do not have to deal with the immigration system, on the one hand, and the immigrants who get stuck in the system and are perpetually viewed as foreigners, on the other.
Themes
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