Top 120 Quotes & Sayings by Jose Antonio Vargas - Page 2

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

Left-leaning bloggers have had a tremendous impact on the Democratic Party.

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.

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

Immigration is by far the most controversial yet least understood issue in America. Frankly, given the way we're talking about immigration, given the emphasis, the overemphasis on border security, I would argue that we're not on the same page when we debate this issue. We're doing far too much debating and not enough conversing.

The DREAMers are the safe ones, right? It's okay to advocate for the DREAMers because they're the English-speaking, college-educated ones, right? It's so interesting that I set out to document DREAMers, but what I ended up doing was actually documenting the experience of, the reality and truth of, the moms and the parents.

No amount of success - whatever that means, quote-unquote success - no amount of success replaces the reality of being separated from my family for this long.

As you can imagine, there were people who were like, "Why are you being the PC cop?" or, "This is Orwellian to tell people to stop using the word 'illegal' to refer to people." Well, I just want people to think it through.

I feel like people expect me to give them easy answers, but there aren't really easy answers. There are only harder questions. And unless we get to the harder questions part, about what this conversation is really about...of course I want an immigration bill to pass. I want people to have a driver's license and work permits and green cards and passports. But this conversation transcends this bill. We're not going to have a perfect bill. This is politics. I feel like my job is instead of giving people easy answers, my job is to actually to ask people to probe deeper.

The hardest stories we tell are always about ourselves. How do you explain that you have been missing your mother for 20 years? I don't know how to explain that to you. I wasn't even sure I wanted to film that, because I don't know how I felt about it. I didn't want to put her through it, and I frankly wasn't ready. Because since I was 16, I just had created my own life for myself, you know? I left when I was 12. I'm 32. And I have gotten to know my mother more through editing her and looking and watching and editing her footage, you know.

I always felt like I had the word "illegal" tattooed on my forehead.

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

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.

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.'

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.

The only reason I became a writer was so I could exist on a piece of paper.

Something is fundamentally amiss when you refer to a person as illegal. Bottom line. That's why we so easily talk about this like we're talking about plants or crops. These illegals. My God, man, it's so tragic to me traveling around this country, this country that is getting more and more Latino, and you hear people use the words "illegal" and "Mexican" interchangeably. Interchangeably. Without blinking an eye.

I've done everything I've done in America with the limitations I have.

A broken immigration system means broken families means broken lives. That's what is at stake.

When people call me illegal, calling me illegal says more about you than it does about me.

I'm not excusing the illegal act. I am here illegally. I'm here illegally, without authorization. That's a fact. That's nothing you can call the Orwellian cops about. But I am a human being, so therefore I am not illegal. That's also a fact.

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.

To this day writing is the most painful thing to do.

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.

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.

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.

You have to stand for something bigger than yourself.

I am not the 'illegal' you think I am, and immigration is not what you think it is.

I remember the first thing I did when I found out I was illegal was to get rid of my thick Filipino accent. I figured that I had to talk white and talk black at the same time, like Charlie Rose and Dr. Dre. If I can talk white and black then no one is ever going to think that I'm "illegal."

We're talking about America - a country that's been built on the back of cheap labor. That's addicted to cheap labor. Talk to the Chinese and Irish who built the railroads. Talk to the black people who built the South. So what is the US-Mexico conversation really about?

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.

There isn't anybody I won't talk to about immigration - at least once.

The immigration bill is going to pass. We're going to have a bill. It's going to get through the Senate. I think the fundamentals are there and the foundation is strong and the bill is going to happen. The House is going to be trickier, but I think it's going to happen there too.

I got here when I was 12, I found out I was undocumented when I was 16, I became a journalist when I was 17, and all I ever did was write other stories to run away from myself.

To be in America illegally is actually a civil offense and not a criminal one.

There's always to me a universality - one of the things I learned early on as a journalist and a writer is that there's a universality in specifics. The more specific you get, the more universal it can be.

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...?"

When you watch the way some of the commentators talk about this, it makes it seem as if people are crossing the border every second. How much money have we spent on the border? Why? And who's really exploiting whom?" And then he gets quiet. But I think just airing these out and having a face-to-face conversation about it helps both of us internalize what the conversation is really about. I don't think we have that in the public sphere.

Like other undocumented people in this country, I want a green card, and I want a driver's license, and I want a passport. What, to me, is the immigration bill? It's a green card, a driver's license, and a passport. That's what it's about to me, tangibly. That I could see my mom. That I could drive. Is there anything more American than driving? That I could get a green card and be able to - right now, I'm just like freelancing and working as an independent contractor. It's hilarious. I'm unhirable.

The No. 1 question I get is, "Do you believe in an open-borders policy?" I'm like, wait a second: What does that really mean? When you say open-borders policy, do you mean that - this is like the US-Mexico border? We put up a sign that says "Keep Out," then 10 yards in we say, "Job Wanted." Is that what people mean by open borders? So that usually shuts people up. But that's the truth.

I think I've always been paranoid.

The greatest gift that we have as human beings is our ability to empathize. That's why I think personal stories matter so much. That's someone's mom. That's someone's daughter. That's someone's son.

America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants.

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.

Film, as any immigrant will tell you, television and movies is the way we make sense of America when we first got here.

For some people, I got away with something. And you know what? That's a fair thing to say, for them. I'm not saying I agree with that, but I can see how they can say that. But it's a matter of just like...you know, I'm really fortunate. As a journalist, I don't have to agree with you to talk to you. My job is to figure out why you think the way you think. I want to get to the root of why you think the way you think. That's what I find most fascinating as a storyteller.

If I could, I'd go city by city, county by county, town by town, and talk to people to explain to them what immigration is really about - that this is not about me, this is not about us, this is not about us taking something from you. This is not about us being a threat to you. This is not about Democrat or Republican, and this is not really about border security. But in some ways our politics, and in many ways our politicians, have gotten in the way.

Giving people like me a green card, a passport, and a driver's license? That's not going to be the end of the immigration conversation and debate in this country. It's like saying we elected Barack Obama president, so all of the racial problems are done. Right? I mean in some ways, the immigration conversation is just starting. Which is why when we started this campaign, we didn't call it Define Immigrant, we called it Define American. That's the question. That's what's at stake.