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Part 2, Chapter 19: Inside Fox News
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 never thought of himself as an activist—but he ended up being seen as one, whether he liked it or not. People across the political spectrum constantly attack him on social media, especially by calling for his deportation. He tries not to take these personally, but it can be difficult. Sometimes, he gets positive messages, even from conservatives. Often, people recognize him in airports and coffee shops—most, but not all, are supportive.
For the first 30 years of his life, Vargas carried the private burden of feeling like he didn’t belong in the U.S., while passing as a citizen in his public life. But now, the dynamic is flipped: while he can finally be his authentic self in private, his right to exist in the U.S. is now always up for debate in public. Unsurprisingly, this dynamic reflects the way undocumented people are viewed in the U.S. in general—while everyone else is seen as automatically deserving of basic rights and legal protections, undocumented people’s rights are constantly subject to debate—and therefore their very humanity is, too.
Themes
In fact, Vargas spends most of his time traveling, doing events. He often gets flight upgrades. Once, a man recognized him at the gate, then saw him in first class and commented, “I didn’t know illegals fly first class.” Vargas wondered what the man was thinking, and why he said what he did. But when he landed in New Jersey, he talked with the man, Eric. Vargas explained that he got the upgrade for free, and that he wanted to get legal status but had no way to. Eric admitted that he had just gotten laid off and divorced. Vargas gave Eric his email address and a link to the Define American facts page.
Eric’s comments perfectly embody the common, dehumanizing prejudices that undocumented people face. Eric argues that, because Vargas belongs to (what he sees as) a lower class of American, he deserves to be in a lower class on the airplane. Meanwhile, the fact that Vargas isn’t in this lower class suggests that he is somehow taking advantage of the system. This fits into the stereotype that undocumented people get unfair advantages in the U.S. Stereotypes like this persist when people are ignorant of how undocumented people actually live. Vargas’s conversation with Eric shows that, once people are forced to see their undocumented fellow Americans as normal people, they can challenge their prejudiced beliefs. This is what keeps Vargas optimistic about his campaign’s chances of transforming policy and public opinion.
Themes
Vargas hasn’t just gotten attacked by Fox News viewers. When he served on a panel at an MIT conference on children’s mental health, during the Q&A section, a South Asian woman yelled that he was offending her by grouping “legal and illegal” immigrants together and not getting amnesty (which was last offered seven years before Vargas came to the U.S.). After the conference, Vargas talked to her. Astonishingly, she turned out to be an immigration lawyer. But she didn’t even know the history of U.S. immigration law. Struggling to respond with compassion, Vargas gave her a business card and left.
Like many Americans, the immigration lawyer seems to confuse what is legal with what is just. She assumes that she deserves to be in the U.S., but Vargas doesn’t (even though he never even chose to enter the country). But the reality might simply be that the system unfairly advantages people like her and unfairly disadvantages people like Vargas. Her surprising ignorance about basic features of U.S. immigration law also supports Vargas’s theory that educating people about history and policy is a key first step to changing the language Americans use around migration and citizenship.
Themes
