Dear America: Part 3, Chapter 1: My Government, Myself Summary & Analysis

“Radical transparency” is Vargas’s version of authenticity—or living in line with his own values, rather than blindly following someone else’s. He refused to lie, hide, or pass anymore because he believed that nobody should have to lie, hide, or pass to live in a free society. While bold and possibly foolish, calling ICE is a logical extension of this idea. He refuses to live passively in fear, which amounts to accepting a subservient place in American society. Instead, he prefers to take matters into his own hands.

In his Senate testimony, Vargas honed in on the central question at the heart of immigration politics: what is “America” and who gets to claim it? This question is at the heart of most activists’ beliefs about the immigration system (on both sides of the political aisle). Why do people whose ancestors immigrated to the U.S. earlier count—when immigration was explicitly limited to white people—and later immigrants face more barriers? Why do native-born Americans deserve more rights and privileges than people like Vargas, who have spent the vast majority of their lives contributing to the U.S.? What moral difference makes Vargas worthy of being undocumented, while Lolo and Lola deserve to be citizens? However, the senators’ disappointing response suggests that they weren’t willing to grapple with this question directly—probably because their answer to it doesn’t determine the course of their lives, like it does for Vargas.