Jose Antonio Vargas
Jose Antonio Vargas
Jose Antonio Vargasis a journalist, filmmaker, and immigration rights activist. Born in the Philippines and raised in the United States from the age of twelve, he was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2008 for coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting online and in print. Vargas also has worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philadelphia Daily News, and The Huffington Post. He wrote, produced, and directed the autobiographical 2013...
NationalityFilipino
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth3 February 1981
When people call me illegal, calling me illegal says more about you than it does about me.
I have no control over what people call me. The only thing I have control over is my work, and that's really all I can be judged on.
I am not the 'illegal' you think I am, and immigration is not what you think it is,
The only reason I became a writer was so I could exist on a piece of paper.
Citizenship to me is more than a piece of paper. Citizenship is also about character. I am an American. We're just waiting for our country to recognize it.
For Filipino Americans, it's a battle for recognition, for identity in a culture where, for the mainstream, Asians tend to fade into a monochromatic racialized 'other.'
America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants.
I believe fundamentally in the kindness of the American people because I have been a beneficiary of it.
I'm a gay, undocumented immigrant; I have to be optimistic.
I'm sure the president doesn't enjoy being called deporter-in-chief.
In many ways, I think I've always overcompensated. I was always almost too careful, because I knew if anybody ever found any way to doubt my work, then they'd start picking my life apart, too.
I'm more than willing to go to places and talk to people who believe that I am an illegal alien who deserves to be jailed. I want to look them in the eye and say, 'What makes you think I'm any different from you?' I think for our generation, immigration rights is a civil rights issue.