Activist and author Jose Antonio Vargas explored his journey as an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines and how he’s used his identity to advocate for immigration rights throughout America in a talk Thursday night at Swift Hall.
Vargas was invited by Northwestern’s Kaibigan, Asian Pacific American Coalition, Rainbow Alliance, and the Undergraduate Radio, Television and Film Students Association in a fall speaker collaboration. Early attendees of the event received copies of Vargas’ memoir, “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.”
SESP junior and APAC co-President Hamin You said as a first generation and low-income student at a private institution, he understands the importance of holding speaker events that appeal to the immigrant community.
“I feel like the immigrant story — the undocumented immigrant story — ties into a lot of our own identities,” You said. “Although my parents did get their citizenship a couple years back after staying here for like 20 years, I think this is something that’s highly relevant to building community here and making sure these stories are heard.”
Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a member of The Washington Post team that covered the 2007 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University shooting. In 2011, Vargas founded Define American, a nonprofit organization dedicated to showcasing immigrant experiences through storytelling.
Vargas detailed his experience in an essay in The New York Times Magazine as an undocumented immigrant, which later evolved into a feature story on undocumented immigrants for Time and the filming of “Documented,” a documentary he directed.
Vargas was born in the Philippines but moved to America at 12 years old. Four years later in 1997, he discovered he was considered undocumented. In Tagalog, the term for “undocumented” is tago nang tago, which translates to “hiding and hiding.”
“I think Filipinos are figuring out what are we exactly?” Vargas said. “What were we before (the Spanish and the Americans) all came? What are we hiding?”
Vargas said he is still undocumented today. He said the American legal system places limitations on him, including prohibiting him from voting in the 2024 presidential election.
The event was hosted only a day after Donald Trump was announced as the president-elect of the United States. As immigration and border control was a prominent issue of Trump’s campaign, Vargas mentioned these topics during his presentation.
“Whenever I talked about immigration, the question was always, ‘Well, are they going to replace us?’ That was the subject,” Vargas said. “I think Trump really capitalized on that, and in this country right now, I bet you, if we were to talk to anyone, they could tell you the difference between Thai food, Chinese food and Vietnamese food, and cannot tell you the difference between Vietnamese culture, Thai culture and Chinese culture.”
Vargas said because the U.S. is in a misinformation crisis, reliable information and media literacy are more important than ever.
He said in Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement, educators don’t teach the civil rights movement and called attention to the importance of learning about American history.
“The media is not a slice of the pie. It’s the whole pan,” Vargas said. “I think we have a responsibility to make sure that we don’t fall into a ‘United States of Amnesia’ when it comes to really recognizing the history of the country.”
In light of the election results, Medill senior Erin Palmero said she attended the event as a safe space to debrief and learn as she had never met an undocumented individual before.
Palmero added that Vargas’ story emphasized the privilege of choice citizens of America unconsciously have.
“It really just opened my eyes to how limited his choices are and the fact that he is here because he had limited choices as well,” Palmero said. “His family bringing him here, and he had no choice in that, and he has to deal with the consequences of that.”
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