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Part 2, Chapter 13: Thirty
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’s secrets and lies shaped his relationships. He made up excuses for why he couldn’t travel—but the real reason was that he wouldn’t be able to get back into the U.S. He never put up photos of his family, and sometimes he even said that his parents were dead. While he fought to get bylines in the newspaper, he also wanted to make himself invisible.
By keeping his undocumented status a secret, Vargas cut a core part of his identity out of his relationships. Because he lived in constant fear of being outed as undocumented, he couldn’t integrate his personal and professional lives at all. The more famous he became as a journalist, the further these two lives drifted apart and the more acute his pain became.
Themes
During their interview, Mark Zuckerberg struggled to talk openly about his past. But Vargas knew that he wouldn’t have been able to open up either. He remembered all the stories of young undocumented activists who were fighting for the DREAM Act, like Maria Gabriela Pacheco, or Gaby, who marched from Miami to Washington, D.C. in protest. Vargas wondered why he wasn’t as brave as Gaby. He realized that everyone has to “confront the central truth” of their lives in order to keep living. And for him, this meant writing his own life story.
The Zuckerberg interview and Gaby Pacheco’s activism both showed Vargas how keeping his immigration status secret was ultimately hypocritical. First, even though his job was to make people open up during interviews, he couldn’t do the same in his own life. Second, while he knew that he should have used his power and platform as a journalist to advocate on behalf of undocumented people, he couldn’t do so until he publicly acknowledged his status. Ultimately, by choosing to write his own story, Vargas decided to put his personal integrity and mental health above his safety and career. That said, his coming out would nevertheless propel him to even greater fame.
Themes
