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Health & Fitness

Jose Antonio Vargas: In Immigration Debate, Citizenship Is More Than A Piece of Paper

On June 29, journalist and filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas delivered the keynote speech at De Anza's 2013 commencement ceremony. His primary message, however, was an unexpected one.

Education and mentorship are standard fare at graduation ceremonies. At De Anza College’s 46th annual commencement ceremony on June 29, journalist and filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas invoked both to the approximately 500 graduates assembled that morning. But the central message of his keynote speech was an unexpected one: that people should not take their citizenship for granted.

 

Despite all his success, it is the one thing he does not have, at least not on paper.

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Vargas was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team at The Washington Post that covered the Virginia Tech shootings. He has profiled Mark Zuckerberg for The New Yorker. He launched The Huffington Post’s technology and college sections. He co-produced a documentary about HIV/AIDS in Washington, DC.

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He is also an undocumented immigrant — one of an estimated 11 million in this country, according to his speech.

Since 2011, when he revealed this about himself in a shocking essay he wrote for The New York Times Magazine, he has been initiating and maintaining dialogues about the nature of citizenship in the U.S.

But, as Vargas explained in his speech, his journey started long before that.

Vargas’ mother sent him from the Philippines to live with his grandparents in the United States when he was 12 years old. He went to Mountain View High School and, at the age of 16, he tried to obtain a driver’s permit at the local D.M.V. office, only to discover that his documents were fake. His grandfather had purchased them.

Vargas said that he would not have made it to where he is today had it not been for the mentors in his life. In his New York Times Magazine essay, Vargas discussed mentors ranging from his grandparents, who made it possible for him to come to the U.S., to former Mountain View High School principal Pat Hyland and choir director Jill Denny, who helped him succeed and go to San Francisco State University.

Even now, these individuals continue to play important roles in Vargas’ life, and in the past he has acknowledged that, had it not been for these mentors, many of his accomplishments would have been far more difficult, if not impossible, to attain.

It was partly for this reason, and partly because he has had the opportunity to do what he does, that Vargas referred to himself as “the most privileged undocumented immigrant in America.” Because he had the privilege of receiving such extensive mentorship as he grew up, Vargas asked all the 500-plus graduates in the stands to take a moment to think of the mentors in their own lives, and said that “we owe these mentors a great deal of gratitude.”

 

Since “coming out” in that essay as being an undocumented immigrant, he founded an organization called Define American in order to spark discussions about the DREAM Act and other issues surrounding immigration, citizenship and related subjects. Vargas participates in the national dialogue about immigration and citizenship by traveling the country and speaking at a variety of events — in fact, he called himself a “walking, uncomfortable dialogue” by virtue of his undocumented status and the questions he asks.

But while opening his keynote speech at De Anza’s stadium, Vargas tried to eliminate some of the labels by which others refer to him.

 

“I am not a leader,” Vargas said. “I am not an organizer. What I am is a writer and a filmmaker who spent more than a decade working as a journalist. I ask questions, I seek answers, I connect the dots and I tell stories.”

 

Vargas then talked about the importance of community colleges and the fact that he grew up in nearby Mountain View.

 

“Community colleges here in the Bay Area and across the country are often the underappreciated backbone of our country’s higher education system,” Vargas said to a round of applause from the crowd.

“And to me, this is all the more special because it’s a homecoming of sorts.”

 

Vargas also brought up the De Anza community’s own efforts to support undocumented students and advocate immigration reform through a club called the Integral Movement for AB540 Student Success. AB540 was a bill passed into law in California that allows students to pay in-state tuition regardless of their immigration status if they spent at least three years in and will graduate from high school in the state and will pledge in an affidavit to apply for permanent residency as soon as possible.

Both of De Anza’s 2013 President’s Award winners, Angelica Esquivel and Shaila Ramos, were involved in IMASS, as Vargas pointed out.

 

“Angelica, Shaila and I are part of this growing movement of Americans ‘coming out’ as undocumented,” Vargas added. “But we’re not really ‘coming out.’ We are just letting you in. We are coming out to tell our fellow Americans that citizenship is more than a piece of paper.”

 

Although Vargas focused on education and mentorship during his speech, his primary message was bigger than that.

 

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Vargas said. “Don’t settle. Don’t be satisfied working for an institution. Be your own institution. Your commencement here this morning has little to do with the diploma, this piece of paper, you’re about to get. Your commencement is in many ways only the beginning of something. Make it count.

 

“Take big risks and please, I beg of you, do not take your citizenship for granted.”

Vargas’ speech received mixed reactions from the graduates. For some, it was unclear why Vargas had been the commencement speaker. Graduate Kayla Fischer said she was extremely interested in issues of immigration reform and that she enjoyed hearing Vargas’ story, but she did not know why he had been chosen to give the keynote speech.

 

“It was not that relevant to graduating,” Fischer explained.

Others, like graduate Patrick Aguayo, felt a personal connection to Vargas and thought he had been chosen as the keynote speaker because of De Anza’s unique atmosphere and the current debate over immigration reform legislation.

“De Anza’s always been a place where anybody from anywhere could come succeed in a timely fashion,” Aguayo said.


Vargas’ speech does come at an important moment in the Congressional response to calls for immigration reform. The Senate recently passed a package of immigration legislation that, among many other provisions, would make it easier for immigrants to obtain citizenship, but the House is preparing its own legislation that does not have the same provisions, setting up a showdown over the so-called “path to citizenship.”

 

Following his speech, Vargas explained the distinction between discussing immigration and citizenship, saying that he and other undocumented immigrants are Americans even if they do not necessarily have the right papers. Being American is something many people struggle to earn, he said. He added that this idea of citizenship is what made his speech appropriate for a commencement ceremony.

“I’m not really talking about immigration; I’m talking about citizenship and what that means,” Vargas said.


Ultimately, Vargas said he wants the graduates and others to realize that “citizenship is not something you take for granted when some people fight for it — I’ve been fighting for it since I was 16 … That’s part of the entrepreneurial American spirit.”
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