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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 am not a lobbyist. I am not a political activist. I am not a leader, as far as I’m concerned. – 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’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
Undocumented people get arrested all the time. I get arrested, and it’s front-page news. I feel guilt. – 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
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
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
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
As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics – culture is politics. – 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
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
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’m a journalist, and I’m a filmmaker. I have an organization that’s all about telling stories. – 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
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
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
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
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