Jose Antonio Vargas Quotes
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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.
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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?'
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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.
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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.
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When I was a kid, I resented my grandparents not speaking the perfect English I wanted to speak.
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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?
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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?
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When I was younger, I didn't understand how a mother could put her son on a plane and just say, you know, 'Here you go, I'll see you later.' And she never followed, she never came.
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I believe fundamentally in the kindness of the American people because I have been a beneficiary of it.
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When I'm writing, I can always play around with tense. I can always make past present. I can always kind of manipulate, and I can always be delusional in a way that's completely self-serving. With film, it's like, the camera can't really lie. It can manipulate to a certain extent.
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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.
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I am more than an immigration activist.
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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.
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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.
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I want to be as creatively disruptive as possible. I want to be radically transparent in a way that isn't showboating.
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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.
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Film in many ways is very literal.
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I'm a journalist, and I'm a filmmaker. I have an organization that's all about telling stories.
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I'm a gay, undocumented immigrant; I have to be optimistic.
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Undocumented people get arrested all the time. I get arrested, and it's front-page news. I feel guilt.
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I worked for 'The Chronicle' in San Francisco, and immigration is a big issue in that region.
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My mother made a choice. And when I was younger, I judged her for making that choice. Then I got older and got to be an adult, and I realized that was the ultimate sacrifice that any parent and any mother could possibly make.
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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.
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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.