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" I have no control whatsoever on how people perceive me from the Right or the Left. All I have control over is who I say I am. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Me
Control
Say
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" 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
Country
Immigrants
Story
" I'm a gay, undocumented immigrant; I have to be optimistic. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Immigrant
Gay
Optimistic
" 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 Can
Writing
Play
" I've been uncomfortable dealing with my identity since I was 16 years old. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Identity
Years
Old
" You can call me whatever you want to call me, but I am an American. No one can take that away from me. No, no one can. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Want
American
Away
" 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
Age
Someone
Person
" When you're undocumented, you're supposed to keep your head down and be quiet and pay taxes, social security - even though people don't know that we do those things - and not say anything. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Say
People
Quiet
" When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Think
Believe
Hate
" 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
You
Country
Important
" 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
Possible
Disruptive
Way
" 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
Writing
Myself
People
" 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
American
Live
Survive
" 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
View
Mountain
School
" After I arrived in Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Culture
Love
Home
" 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
People
American
Police
" 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
Far
I Am
Leader
" 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
Minority
Human
You
" 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
Start
My Life
Life
" 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
America
Group
I Am
" I traffic in empathy. I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Alone
Try
People
" 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. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Take For Granted
Fighting
Talk
" A broken immigration system means broken families and broken lives. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Broken
System
Immigration
" 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
Legal
Me
Media
" 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
Know
My Own
Country
" 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
How
Creating
React
" 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
Society
Change
Politics
" 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
Less
Make
White
" Facebook's headquarters is a two-story building at the end of a quiet, tree-lined street. Zuckerberg nicknamed it the Bunker. Facebook has grown so fast that this is the company's fifth home in six years - the third in Palo Alto. There is virtually no indication outside of the Bunker's tenant. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Quiet
Building
Home
" 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
Fact
Immigrants
Going
" 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
You
Work
Worthy