Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“Documented” first aired on CNN in July 2014. Since then, Jose Antonio Vargas has been an outspoken critic of deportation and has a large twitter presence on the subject. Hollywood on the Potomac did a feature on it for Washington Life. To keep the dialogue going, here is the interview:
“First of all, THIS is my country,” said Jose Antonio Vargas emphatically when asked what he would do if he were deported back to his country. “This is where I grew up. This is what I call my home.”
We sat down with Vargas prior to the private screening of “Documented” at The Newseum, a film by an ‘undocumented’ American’ as he prefers to call his situation as opposed to illegal or alien or both for that matter. “I’m here illegally, but as a person, I’m not illegal because human beings can’t be illegal,” he pointed out.
“Alien, that’s such an odd term. “It’s fascinating how we’ve always wanted to make other people feel like ‘other people’ – the Irish, the Italians, Eastern Europeans, Jews and now Latinos and Asians today. I actually think that’s one of the most tragic things that has happened in our country,” he emphasized, “is you have young people who grow up in America kind of internalizing that word – being called an illegal.”
His story: He was born in the Philippines. He found out when he went to the DMV at age sixteen to get his drivers license and presented his green card to the woman at the booth she promptly informed him it was fake. He thought she was lying. “This was in the 1990’s and I’m Filipino so I was like, well, clearly I’m not, clearly, she’s lying to me. When I came home from the DMV, my grandfather confirmed she was right. The papers that he had paid $4,500 to get me here were fake.”
Courtesy of Production
Jose Antonio left home at the age of 12 at the behest of his grandfather who wanted to secure a better life for him in this country. “I think my memory of the Philippines has always been like fish and banana trees and the beach. When I moved to America and I realized that I was ‘illegal’ when I was sixteen, I think I since stepped onto a beach maybe only once in Hawaii when I was a junior in high school having always associated it with being in the Philippines.”
He spent his teenage years and his twenties being scared, even though he was working for The Washington Post going to the White House to cover a State dinner on occasion and even receiving a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. Then he let go of his fears and outed himself in 2011. He was prepared to be picked up by the INS, but it never happened. So why are we hear talking to him in America in 2014?
“I saved up money, I kind of packed some stuff as a contingency plan.” he said. “I expected everything. What I did not expect for was silence.” He did the TV circuit and then called Time Magazine’s Rick Stengel to suggest he write his own story on why he hadn’t been deported. “I actually had to call the government myself and I’m like, ‘Hi, I’m Jose’ Vargas. I’m writing a cover story. I haven’t heard from you’ and the woman on the line was very confused. I said I needed a comment, I was on deadline and she said, “No comment. We can’t comment on your case.”
“I actually think that answer is kind of a metaphor for how the majority of Americans think of us. You all know we’re here. You know we’re driving on the same freeway. You know we go to the same Starbucks, the same Walmart. We go to the same school, the same church, so what do you want to do with us?”
“I actually think in some odd way my government seems to be more scared of me than I am of it,” he continued. “If they want to deport me, it’s not like I’m hiding.”
Jose Antonio Vargas, Janet Yang and Joe Green
He, along with the panelists FWD.us founder Joe Green, Executive Producer Janet Yang (The Joy Luck Club) and Grover Norquist urge Congress to have an honest conversation about this issue, allow people to step out from the shadows and say that ‘we’re here, we’re paying taxes, we’ve contributed, we speak English so give us some sort of process.’ “You know how people say get in the back of the line? Most people don’t know that there is no line,” concluded Vargas. “There is no process. Can you give us the line and tell us what rules to follow?
When you go to see Documented, skip the mascara, but bring the kleenex. The trailer here.
