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Part 2, Chapter 3: An Adopted Family
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
During Vargas’s last semester of high school, Teresa Moore, a journalist who had edited his writing, convinced him to apply for a job at the San Francisco Chronicle. The job application form asked whether he was a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or alien with work authorization. He was none of those, but he needed that job, so he checked the box next to “citizen.” He promised himself that he would “earn this box.” But now, he doesn’t understand why people should have to “earn” their citizenship at all. He knew he was breaking the law. But he asks the reader what they would have done—and what they did to “earn” their citizenship.
Vargas challenges the reader to empathize with his decision to break the law—he suggests that most people would have done the same thing if it were necessary for them in order to follow their dreams. But most of his readers are likely U.S. citizens, who can take the opportunity to work in the U.S. for granted. Unlike Vargas, they didn’t have to prove their worth to “earn” their citizenship. Vargas therefore asks why some people are born citizens and others have to “earn” citizenship. In fact, he used to believe in this idea—that native-born Americans are inherently worthy of the advantages of living and working in the U.S., but immigrants are not. But now, he sees that it is really a myth that, when repeated in the public, encourages Americans to view immigrants as inferior and unworthy.
Themes
