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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

Done

Doing

Immigration

" 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 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. "

" My being gay is not a social issue; it's a fact. It's not something to be debated. It's a reality. "

" 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

Help

Technology

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I did not realize how broken I was until I saw how broken Mama was. "

" I'm sure the president doesn't enjoy being called deporter-in-chief. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" When I was a kid, I resented my grandparents not speaking the perfect English I wanted to speak. "

" 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

Thought

Strength

" 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

Teacher

Myself

" 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. "

" I am more than an immigration activist. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

Than

Immigration

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

" 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. "

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

" I think everybody could agree that our immigration system is broken. We have not told the truth about it. "

" To me, politics is culture. I became a journalist, and later a filmmaker, to get to know my new country and my volatile place in it as a gay, undocumented Filipino-American. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

Know

Gay