• Pulitzer-Winning Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas on “Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American” | Democracy Now!
    http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/2/pulitzer_winning_journalist_jose_antonio_vargas

    As comprehensive immigration reform has languished in Congress, undocumented immigrants have increasingly come forward to share their stories in order to call attention to the need for a change in federal laws. One of the leading voices has been Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. In 2011, he outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in an essay published in The New York Times Magazine. He chronicles his experience in the new film, “Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American.”
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    JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: I lived the American dream, building a successful career as a journalist, but I was living a lie.

    I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t told a lot of people. I’m actually an undocumented immigrant.

    Immigration is stories. So here’s my story. My grandparents legally immigrated from the Philippines in the mid-1980s. My grandfather decided that he was going to get his grandson to come to America. One morning, my suitcase was packed. I was 12. It’s been 18 years since I’ve seen my mother. So, I’m launching a whole campaign about what it means to be an American and the fact that I am an American. There are 11 million undocumented people in this country.

    In 2010, undocumented people paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes.