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
I am undoubtedly one of the more, if not the most, privileged undocumented immigrants in America. And for us at Define American, which is this culture campaign group that I founded with some friends, culture trumps politics.
The film 'Documented,' a project of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Define American campaign, is about my families: the family I was blessed to be born into, and the family of friends, mentors and allies that I found when I moved to the United States at 12, a Filipino kid trying to make sense of my new home in America.
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.
The story of undocumented immigrants in this country is not just about undocumented immigrants. It's about the country as a whole, and it's about us being able to tell the truth about where we are with this issue because we haven't been telling the truth about where we are with this issue.
I've been uncomfortable dealing with my identity since I was 16 years old.
As I graduated from public schools and started working in newsrooms, I told myself that I am only the 'illegal' that my own country has not bothered to get to know.
People don't really assume that I'm Filipino. Of course, they're gonna think, 'Oh, are you some sort of Hispanic?' and you say, 'No, I'm actually not.' I get Korean or Chinese a lot.
I've always really wanted to make a film on what it means to be white in a country that's getting less and less white.
Technology and the Internet are not just changing politics here in the U.S. It's also happening abroad. In the Philippines, where I grew up, grassroots organizers used text messaging to help overthrow a president.
At the end of the day, stories connect us, not politics. And there's so many stories out there waiting to be told. It's just a matter of who's out there listening.
Culture is about humanizing people. You look at the African-American civil rights movement, you look at the LGBT rights movement - the culture changed before the politics did.
I wasn't supposed to be walking with Mark Zuckerberg. I wasn't supposed to be interviewing Romney's sons. Why was I doing it? Because I wanted to survive. I wanted to live. I wanted to earn what it means to be an American.
I worked for 'The Chronicle' in San Francisco, and immigration is a big issue in that region.
You have to do what you have to do. I wanted to work. I wanted to prove that I was worthy of being here... and I was gonna do whatever it took to prove that.