Jose Antonio Vargas

Jose Antonio Vargas (born February 3, 1981) is a journalist, filmmaker, and immigration rights activist.

In 1993, when Vargas was twelve, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in the U.S. without obtaining authorization for him to stay in the country permanently; his grandparents were naturalized U.S. citizens.

In Mountain View, California, he attended Crittenden Middle School and Mountain View High School.

He did not learn of his immigration status until 1997 when, at age 16, he attempted to obtain a California driver's license with identity documents provided by his family that he then discovered were fraudulent.

He kept his immigration status secret, pursuing his education and fitting in as an American with the help of friends and teachers.

He used a Filipino passport and false documents that included a green card and a driver's license to help him avoid deportation.

His high school English teacher introduced him to journalism, and in 1998 he began an internship at the Mountain View Voice, a local newspaper.

He later became a copy boy for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Unable to apply for traditional financial aid due to his status, with the help of his high school principal and school superintendent, Vargas secured a private scholarship to attend San Francisco State University, where he earned a degree in political science and Black Studies.

In the summers during college he interned for the Philadelphia Daily News and The Washington Post.

Vargas came out as gay during his senior year of high school in 1999, a decision he later described as "less daunting than coming out about my legal status".

He spoke out against the Defense of Marriage Act, calling it an immigration issue that disadvantages people similar to him from "marry[ing] my way into citizenship like straight people can".

In 2004, immediately after graduation from San Francisco State, he was hired by the Style section of The Washington Post to cover the video game boom.

He became known for his anecdotal coverage of the HIV epidemic in Washington.

In 2007, he was part of the Washington Post team covering the shootings at Virginia Tech, whose work earned a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

When Vargas made a pitch for an assignment as a politics reporter for the Post, he told his editor, "You need someone to cover the presidential campaign who has a Facebook account and who looks at YouTube every day."

In "Students Make Connections at a Time of Total Disconnect" on April 17, 2007, Vargas reported on the role of technology in student experiences during the Virginia Tech shootings.

He described graduate student Jamal Albarghouti running toward the gunshots when he heard them, taking out his cell phone to take a shaky, one-minute video that later was aired on CNN.com.

"This is what this YouTube-Facebook-instant messaging generation does," Vargas wrote.

"Witness. Record. Share."

The article also discussed the role of Facebook, which students used to keep in touch during the event.

Albarghouti returned to his apartment to find 279 new Facebook messages, Vargas recounted, and another student, Trey Perkins, faced a similar inundation.

Vargas contributed to the article "'Pop, Pop, Pop': Students Down, Doors Barred, Leaps to Safety," which was published on April 17, 2007.

Through interviews with eyewitnesses, the story recounted the events of the Virginia Tech shootings.

He also contributed to the article "That Was the Desk I Chose to Die Under," which ran in The Washington Post on April 19, 2007.

Born in the Philippines and raised in the United States from the age of twelve, he was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2008 for coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting online and in print.

Vargas has also worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philadelphia Daily News, and The Huffington Post.

Vargas went on to cover the 2008 presidential campaign, including a front-page article in 2007 about Wikipedia's impact on the 2008 election.

He also wrote an online column entitled "The Clickocracy" on the Post's website.

Vargas authored or contributed to three Washington Post articles about the Virginia Tech shootings that were awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

His coverage was adapted into a 2010 documentary entitled, The Other City.

In a June 2011 essay in The New York Times Magazine, Vargas revealed his status as an undocumented immigrant in an effort to promote dialogue about the immigration system in the U.S. and to advocate for the DREAM Act, which would provide children in similar circumstances with a path to citizenship.

A year later, a day after the publication of his Time cover story about his continued uncertainty regarding his immigration status, the Obama administration announced it was halting the deportation of undocumented immigrants age 30 and under, who would be eligible for the DREAM Act.

Vargas, who had just turned 31, did not qualify.

Vargas is the founder of Define American, a nonprofit organization intended to open up dialogue about the criteria people use to determine who is an American.

He has said: "I am an American. I just don't have the right papers."

He wrote, produced, and directed the autobiographical 2013 film Documented, which CNN Films broadcast in June 2014.

In September 2018, his memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published by Dey Street.

In July 2022, he was appointed to the California State University Board of Trustees by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Vargas was born in Antipolo in the Philippines.