Jose Vargas Quotes & Sayings

I have no control whatsoever on how people perceive me from the Right or the Left. All I have control over is who I say I am. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics - culture is politics. — Jose Antonio Vargas

In 2005, MTV Networks considered buying Facebook for seventy-five million dollars. Yahoo! and Microsoft soon offered much more. Zuckerberg turned them all down. — Jose Antonio Vargas

A friend said to me I'm like a walking New Yorker article. It's true! That's how I write. That's how I think. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I like Q&A's better than articles sometimes because I feel like I'd rather hear somebody actually talk or wrestle with ... — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I can't marry my way into citizenship like straight people can. I can get married in the state of New York where I live, but because of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government, which hands out visas, won't recognize my marriage. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Film in many ways is very literal. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I'm a journalist, and I'm a filmmaker. I have an organization that's all about telling stories. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I am more than an immigration activist. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I found out that I was illegal when I was 16. I'm gay. I'm Filipino. — Jose Antonio Vargas

You have to stand for something bigger than yourself. — Jose Antonio Vargas

When I was a kid, I resented my grandparents not speaking the perfect English I wanted to speak. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I remember the first article I ever wrote, and I saw my name in the paper, and I already knew I was undocumented, and I was thinking: 'How can they now say I don't exist?' — Jose Antonio Vargas

I think everyone deserves dignity. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I don't think there's any other issue out there that young people are more passionate, and more ahead in, than global warming. — Jose Antonio Vargas

One of the things I had to really wrap my head around is I have no control over what people call me: advocate, activist, gay, Filipino, undocumented person, gay person with an Asian face and Latino name. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I'm sure the president doesn't enjoy being called deporter-in-chief. — Jose Antonio Vargas

The Internet is changing the way we think of our relationship with government; it has the potential to bring to life what Abraham Lincoln said about the presidency being an instrument of the people. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Undocumented people get arrested all the time. I get arrested, and it's front-page news. I feel guilt. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

All I've ever done since I was 17 is tell stories. You know, I'm a storyteller. And that's what I'm going to keep on doing, especially now, kind of embracing and making sure that we tell immigration. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I think the hardest stories we tell are always the ones about ourselves. And as a journalist, I was taught that I'm never supposed to put myself in the story. So I spent what, 11, 12 years of my life writing about other people so I don't have to face my own life. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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

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

Left-leaning bloggers have had a tremendous impact on the Democratic Party. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Independent of politics, the changing narrative on immigration is directly correlated to the fact that we have new technologies that are allowing people to talk to each other and tell their own stories and organize themselves. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Everyone has an opinion when it comes to immigration - strong, intense opinions. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I am not a lobbyist. I am not a political activist. I am not a leader, as far as I'm concerned. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I want to be as creatively disruptive as possible. I want to be radically transparent in a way that isn't showboating. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I think everybody could agree that our immigration system is broken. We have not told the truth about it. — Jose Antonio Vargas

America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants. — Jose Antonio Vargas

On the surface, I've created a good life. I've lived the American dream. But I am still an undocumented immigrant. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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

I'm a gay, undocumented immigrant; I have to be optimistic. — Jose Antonio Vargas

A broken immigration system means broken families and broken lives. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I am not the 'illegal' you think I am, and immigration is not what you think it is, — Jose Antonio Vargas

I believe fundamentally in the kindness of the American people because I have been a beneficiary of it. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

When people call me illegal, calling me illegal says more about you than it does about me. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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? — Jose Antonio Vargas

The more successful I got, the more scared I got. My name was all over Google. I had a Wikipedia page I was terrified to look at. And so I just snapped. I thought, 'If I'm going to come out with this, I'm going to do it in a big way. And not just for myself. This can't just be my story.' — Jose Antonio Vargas

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? — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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.' — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I worked for 'The Chronicle' in San Francisco, and immigration is a big issue in that region. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

The last thing reporters and editors want to be told is what to do and how to write. They don't want to be some politically correct, Orwellian, kind of like "you're telling me how to write about ... ?" — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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?' — Jose Antonio Vargas

I did not realize how broken I was until I saw how broken Mama was. — 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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I've been uncomfortable dealing with my identity since I was 16 years old. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I grew up in newsrooms. I've been in newsrooms since I was 17 years old. Journalism has been like my church; it's been like my identity. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

You know, I'm one of millions of undocumented people in this country who are living kind of under the shadows. And in many ways, coming out, it was my way of - at the end of the day, I think we have to tell the truth about this immigration system. And because of that, I had to tell the truth about myself. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

In Tagalog, we call undocumented people 'TNT,' which means tago ng tago, which means 'hiding and hiding.' So that's literally what undocumented means in Tagalog. And that kind of tells you how Filipinos think of this issue, and really any culture, right? — Jose Antonio Vargas

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? — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I'm not a politician. I'm not a policy wonk. I was a political reporter, but that's not really what turns me on. What turns me on is how people perceive the issue and how people see people like me. — Jose Antonio Vargas

My being gay is not a social issue; it's a fact. It's not something to be debated. It's a reality. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas

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. — Jose Antonio Vargas