Jose Antonio Vargas
Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print - writing in English, interviewing Americans - validated my presence here.Collection: Teacher
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.Collection: Politics
Of all the questions I get asked as an undocumented immigrant in the United States, there are two - asked in various permutations via email, social media or in person - that chill me to the bone: 'Why don't you just make yourself legal?' And: 'Why don't you get in the back of the line?'Collection: Legal
You can call me whatever you want to call me, but I am an American. No one can take that away from me. No, no one can.
I'm not a minority: I'm a majority of one. We all are. To call someone a minority, you give them baggage, of not being full, or not being seen as full. All of us need to be seen as full human beings.
On the surface, I've created a good life. I've lived the American dream. But I am still an undocumented immigrant.
When it comes to fighting for citizenship that many people take for granted, there isn't anyone I would not talk to. When it comes to immigration, there isn't any question I will not answer.
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.
As you watch 'Documented' on CNN, I ask you, my fellow Americans: What do you want to do with me? What do you want to do with us? How do you define American?
A broken immigration system means broken families and broken lives.
When you're undocumented, you're supposed to keep your head down and be quiet and pay taxes, social security - even though people don't know that we do those things - and not say anything.
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.
For decades, I have cringed whenever someone called me 'illegal,' as if I'm an insect on someone's back. I found out I didn't have the right papers - that I was here illegally - when I tried to get a driver's permit at age 16. But I am not 'illegal.' No person is.
I'm a gay, undocumented immigrant; I have to be optimistic.
Laws are getting passed in states like Alabama that basically would punish American citizens who are 'harboring' people. Since the federal government hasn't been able to muster or to get comprehensive immigration reform passed, states are taking it upon themselves to police and enforce laws.
I think everybody could agree that our immigration system is broken. We have not told the truth about it.
The fact of the matter is, this country is not going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. What are we supposed to do with them? What are we supposed to do with these kids?
I am not a lobbyist. I am not a political activist. I am not a leader, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm a journalist, and I'm a filmmaker. I have an organization that's all about telling stories.
I'm sure the president doesn't enjoy being called deporter-in-chief.
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.
I think everyone deserves dignity.
As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics - culture is politics.
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.
When I was a kid, I resented my grandparents not speaking the perfect English I wanted to speak.
I guess, as a reporter, I always thought that my biggest strength was that I could get anybody to talk to me. I wasn't the best writer, but I could get people to talk to me.
It's not my job to worry about how Left, Right will react to something. My job is, am I creating something that connects people? That's my job.
Demographically speaking, young white people are not in the majority in this country; they're in the minority. My question is, if they're not the majority anymore, then what happens? How do things change? Or do they change at all?
Since I got to this country when I was 12, I've been obsessed with this idea of whiteness and blackness because I realized I was neither. For me, it was so important to me to make a film that focused on whiteness because you wouldn't have blackness if you didn't have whiteness.
When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people.
I found out that I was illegal when I was 16. I'm gay. I'm Filipino.
I've been uncomfortable dealing with my identity since I was 16 years old.
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.
After I arrived in Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang.
There were many factors as to why I decided to come out as being undocumented. One of them is because I look the way that I look; I don't look like the 'stereotypical undocumented' person.
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.
We cannot change the politics issue until we change the culture around it; until we talk about what parents do for their kids as an act of love. That's a cultural conversation.
To me, politics is culture. I became a journalist, and later a filmmaker, to get to know my new country and my volatile place in it as a gay, undocumented Filipino-American.
As a newcomer to America who learned to 'speak American' by watching movies, I firmly believe that to change the politics of immigration and citizenship, we must change culture - the way we portray undocumented people like me and our role in society.
I did not realize how broken I was until I saw how broken Mama was.
I am more than an immigration activist.
Undocumented people get arrested all the time. I get arrested, and it's front-page news. I feel guilt.
I want to be as creatively disruptive as possible. I want to be radically transparent in a way that isn't showboating.
I traffic in empathy. I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone.
Facebook's headquarters is a two-story building at the end of a quiet, tree-lined street. Zuckerberg nicknamed it the Bunker. Facebook has grown so fast that this is the company's fifth home in six years - the third in Palo Alto. There is virtually no indication outside of the Bunker's tenant.
In 2005, MTV Networks considered buying Facebook for seventy-five million dollars. Yahoo! and Microsoft soon offered much more. Zuckerberg turned them all down.
Facebook's privacy policies are confusing to many people, and the company has changed them frequently, almost always allowing more information to be exposed in more ways.
In 2007, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would become a 'platform,' meaning that outside developers could start creating applications that would run inside the site. It worked.
One day when I was 16, I rode my bike to the nearby DMV office to get my driver's permit. Some of my friends already had their licenses, so I figured it was time. But when I handed the clerk my green card as proof of U.S. residency, she flipped it around, examining it. 'This is fake,' she whispered. 'Don't come back here again.'
While in high school, I worked part time at Subway, then at the front desk of the local YMCA, then at a tennis club, until I landed an unpaid internship at 'The Mountain View Voice,' my hometown newspaper.