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" Everyone has an opinion when it comes to immigration - strong, intense opinions. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

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" Technology and the Internet are not just changing politics here in the U.S. It's also happening abroad. In the Philippines, where I grew up, grassroots organizers used text messaging to help overthrow a president. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" I am more than an immigration activist. "

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

" 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

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

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" On the surface, I've created a good life. I've lived the American dream. But I am still an undocumented immigrant. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" In many ways, I think I've always overcompensated. I was always almost too careful, because I knew if anybody ever found any way to doubt my work, then they'd start picking my life apart, too. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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. "

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

" Laws are getting passed in states like Alabama that basically would punish American citizens who are 'harboring' people. Since the federal government hasn't been able to muster or to get comprehensive immigration reform passed, states are taking it upon themselves to police and enforce laws. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" You have to do what you have to do. I wanted to work. I wanted to prove that I was worthy of being here... and I was gonna do whatever it took to prove that. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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. "

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

" A broken immigration system means broken families and broken lives. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" I found out that I was illegal when I was 16. I'm gay. I'm Filipino. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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? "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" I wasn't supposed to be walking with Mark Zuckerberg. I wasn't supposed to be interviewing Romney's sons. Why was I doing it? Because I wanted to survive. I wanted to live. I wanted to earn what it means to be an American. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" I remember the first article I ever wrote, and I saw my name in the paper, and I already knew I was undocumented, and I was thinking: 'How can they now say I don't exist?' "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" As a newcomer to America who learned to 'speak American' by watching movies, I firmly believe that to change the politics of immigration and citizenship, we must change culture - the way we portray undocumented people like me and our role in society. "

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

" Undocumented people get arrested all the time. I get arrested, and it's front-page news. I feel guilt. "

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'm a journalist, and I'm a filmmaker. I have an organization that's all about telling stories. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" You know, I'm one of millions of undocumented people in this country who are living kind of under the shadows. And in many ways, coming out, it was my way of - at the end of the day, I think we have to tell the truth about this immigration system. And because of that, I had to tell the truth about myself. "

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

" As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics - culture is politics. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" One day when I was 16, I rode my bike to the nearby DMV office to get my driver's permit. Some of my friends already had their licenses, so I figured it was time. But when I handed the clerk my green card as proof of U.S. residency, she flipped it around, examining it. 'This is fake,' she whispered. 'Don't come back here again.' "

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