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Part 2, Chapter 12: Purgatory
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 always felt like The New Yorker was too sophisticated for him, but he knew that he had to write for it if he wanted to become “a serious writer.” That’s how he ended up interviewing Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook chose Vargas over many “more experienced and, frankly, better writers” because he actually knew how to use Facebook, and because he promised to be fair. He was about to turn thirty, and he was frightened and depressed—but he couldn’t tell anyone why. It was because his driver’s license was about to expire.
Vargas’s career continued to exceed even his own highest hopes, as his profile could fundamentally shift the way the American public perceived Zuckerberg. But again, despite wielding significant power in the public, Vargas was still fearful and depressed in private—and these feelings were only aggravated by his need to hide them. The fact that success threatened Vargas’s safety shows how U.S. immigration policy is designed to keep undocumented people invisible and voiceless.
Themes
When Zuckerberg asked Vargas where he was from, he said Mountain View. As usual, he never gave a complete answer. Despite his success as a journalist, he was afraid of the words “‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘my.’” He thought he hadn’t “earned” the right to write about himself yet, just as he hadn’t “earned” his citizenship. He was afraid of confronting his own feeling of confusion and loss, and he avoided getting close to people. He never felt like anywhere was home, so he spent his life on the move, in airports like the one where his whole story began.
Vargas realized that, while he deeply believed in stories’ power to persuade and change the world, he was also telling other people’s stories in order to avoid truly confronting his own. He suggests that, because his undocumented status constantly threatened his place in the U.S., it also destabilized his own sense of personal identity. In turn, this also seriously affected his ability to form deep personal relationships.
Themes
