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Part 2, Chapter 18: Who Am I?
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
Seconds before interviewing Vargas on his show, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said, “I should have called ICE. […] That would have been good TV.” This made Vargas nervous—but that was the point. Fox News has shaped immigration, Vargas argues, more than any news channel has shaped any political issue. As the most-watched cable channel in the U.S., it shapes how Americans view immigrants, and it normalizes far-right anti-immigrant organizations. In particular, it demonizes undocumented immigrants.
Vargas argues that Fox News’s influence on the American public is one of the primary reasons that U.S. immigration politics tends to be so hostile and dehumanizing. Carlson’s rhetoric specifically illustrates this. When he proposes that deporting Vargas would be “good TV,” he suggests that he values creating a spectacle for his viewers above Vargas’s life and livelihood. Specifically, he wants his viewers to see harm come to someone they view as an “enemy.” But he advocates for cruelty against Vargas because he doesn’t think Vargas shares the same rights that he does. Thus, Carlson’s stance on immigration seems to be that the government should deliberately attack immigrants in order for white people to enjoy themselves and feel powerful. He's not talking about policies that will improve the country for everyone; rather, he’s talking about revenge for an imaginary crime.
Themes
Vargas didn’t know if he should go on Fox News. But his friend and Define American cofounder Jehmu Greene (who appears on Fox herself) convinced him that was the only way to speak to people who didn’t already agree with him. When he goes on Fox, he always has to be careful not to lose his cool. This can be difficult—one time, the host Bill O’Reilly told him on air that he didn’t deserve to be in the U.S. This conversation bothered him for months. Another time, he appeared on Megyn Kelly’s show with Laura Wilkerson, who became an anti-immigration activist after an undocumented immigrant killed her son. Wilkerson repeatedly told Vargas that he should “get in line” to become a citizen—even though there simply isn’t a line. Vargas wanted to scream.
Vargas views going on Fox News as akin to taking a beating for the sake of the greater good. While the abuse he faces echoes the sense of guilt and unbelonging that he grew up with, he believes that this is worth the chance to persuade some people by putting a face on undocumented immigration. Meanwhile, his argument with Laura Wilkerson again shows how opposition to immigration in the U.S. isn’t really about facts or policy, but instead about different factions trying to hold onto power. When Wilkerson said she wanted Vargas to “get in line,” she wasn’t proposing any specific legal process for him to follow. She also didn’t propose improvements to make the U.S. immigration system fairer. Rather, she was expressing a generalized anger towards immigrants, and she viewed the immigration system as a way to restrain their power.
Themes
