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" 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

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" We cannot change the politics issue until we change the culture around it; until we talk about what parents do for their kids as an act of love. That's a cultural conversation. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

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

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

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

Jose Antonio Vargas

" Culture is about humanizing people. You look at the African-American civil rights movement, you look at the LGBT rights movement - the culture changed before the politics did. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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

" 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 am more than an immigration activist. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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

" 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

" At the end of the day, stories connect us, not politics. And there's so many stories out there waiting to be told. It's just a matter of who's out there listening. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" Film in many ways is very literal. "

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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 want to be as creatively disruptive as possible. I want to be radically transparent in a way that isn't showboating. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

" 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

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

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

" 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

" I'm more than willing to go to places and talk to people who believe that I am an illegal alien who deserves to be jailed. I want to look them in the eye and say, 'What makes you think I'm any different from you?' I think for our generation, immigration rights is a civil rights issue. "

Jose Antonio Vargas

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

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

" 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

" 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

" I've been uncomfortable dealing with my identity since I was 16 years old. "

Jose Antonio Vargas