The DREAMers are the safe ones, right? It's okay to advocate for the DREAMers because they're the English-speaking, college-educated ones, right? It's so interesting that I set out to document DREAMers, but what I ended up doing was actually documenting the experience of, the reality and truth of, the moms and the parents.

Jose Antonio Vargas

Categorized in : Interesting Reality Mom

America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants.

Jose Antonio Vargas

black white america

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.

Jose Antonio Vargas

waiting character country

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.'

Jose Antonio Vargas

battle identity culture

There's always to me a universality - one of the things I learned early on as a journalist and a writer is that there's a universality in specifics. The more specific you get, the more universal it can be.

Jose Antonio Vargas

journalist

Together, undocumented people like me and our relatives, friends and allies wait for broader immigration reform, not just for Dreamers but also for undocumented workers of all ages and backgrounds who contribute to our economic security and prosperity.

Jose Antonio Vargas

dreamer waiting people

I am not the 'illegal' you think I am, and immigration is not what you think it is.

Jose Antonio Vargas

illegal immigration thinking

When people call me illegal, calling me illegal says more about you than it does about me.

Jose Antonio Vargas

calling doe people

To be in America illegally is actually a civil offense and not a criminal one.

Jose Antonio Vargas

offense criminals america

I remember the first thing I did when I found out I was illegal was to get rid of my thick Filipino accent. I figured that I had to talk white and talk black at the same time, like Charlie Rose and Dr. Dre. If I can talk white and black then no one is ever going to think that I'm "illegal."

Jose Antonio Vargas

white rose thinking

You have to stand for something bigger than yourself.

Jose Antonio Vargas

something-bigger-than-yourself stand-for-something bigger

For some people, I got away with something. And you know what? That's a fair thing to say, for them. I'm not saying I agree with that, but I can see how they can say that. But it's a matter of just like...you know, I'm really fortunate. As a journalist, I don't have to agree with you to talk to you. My job is to figure out why you think the way you think. I want to get to the root of why you think the way you think. That's what I find most fascinating as a storyteller.

Jose Antonio Vargas

like-you people thinking

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.

Jose Antonio Vargas

call-me i-can people

To me, it's just that social media is allowing people to be in charge of their own narratives.

Jose Antonio Vargas

narrative media people

Immigration is by far the most controversial yet least understood issue in America. Frankly, given the way we're talking about immigration, given the emphasis, the overemphasis on border security, I would argue that we're not on the same page when we debate this issue. We're doing far too much debating and not enough conversing.

Jose Antonio Vargas

debate immigration arguing

There isn't anybody I won't talk to about immigration - at least once.

Jose Antonio Vargas

immigration

If I could, I'd go city by city, county by county, town by town, and talk to people to explain to them what immigration is really about - that this is not about me, this is not about us, this is not about us taking something from you. This is not about us being a threat to you. This is not about Democrat or Republican, and this is not really about border security. But in some ways our politics, and in many ways our politicians, have gotten in the way.

Jose Antonio Vargas

republican immigration people

I'm not excusing the illegal act. I am here illegally. I'm here illegally, without authorization. That's a fact. That's nothing you can call the Orwellian cops about. But I am a human being, so therefore I am not illegal. That's also a fact.

Jose Antonio Vargas

orwellian cop

I always felt like I had the word "illegal" tattooed on my forehead.

Jose Antonio Vargas

tattooed foreheads illegal

As you can imagine, there were people who were like, "Why are you being the PC cop?" or, "This is Orwellian to tell people to stop using the word 'illegal' to refer to people." Well, I just want people to think it through.

Jose Antonio Vargas

cop people thinking

The only reason I became a writer was so I could exist on a piece of paper.

Jose Antonio Vargas

pieces paper reason