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" I've been uncomfortable dealing with my identity since I was 16 years old. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Identity
Years
Old
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" As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics - culture is politics. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
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" Everyone has an opinion when it comes to immigration - strong, intense opinions. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Opinions
Opinion
Immigration
" I believe fundamentally in the kindness of the American people because I have been a beneficiary of it. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
American
Believe
People
" 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
" The more successful I got, the more scared I got. My name was all over Google. I had a Wikipedia page I was terrified to look at. And so I just snapped. I thought, 'If I'm going to come out with this, I'm going to do it in a big way. And not just for myself. This can't just be my story.' "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Look
Myself
Name
" 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
" 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
" 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
Up
Technology
" I'm sure the president doesn't enjoy being called deporter-in-chief. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Sure
Being
Enjoy
" When I was a kid, I resented my grandparents not speaking the perfect English I wanted to speak. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Kid
Grandparents
Speak
" 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
Time
Green
Friends
" 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
Facebook
Down
Buying
" I'm a journalist, and I'm a filmmaker. I have an organization that's all about telling stories. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Stories
Telling
Organization
" 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
Myself
Day
" 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
Look
Think
People
" 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
" Undocumented people get arrested all the time. I get arrested, and it's front-page news. I feel guilt. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
People
I Feel
Guilt
" 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
You
Say
Some
" 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
Change
People
White
" I think everyone deserves dignity. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Everyone
Dignity
I Think
" 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
" 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 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
Creating
Start
Run
" 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
Politics
Culture
Change
" 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
" 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. "
Jose Antonio Vargas
Relationship
Government
Life
" 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