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By: Sam Jackson

Jose Vargas, Pulitzer Prize winner, spoke in front of SFCC students on May 11 about the struggles of being an undocumented American.

Vargas was born in the Philippines and came to the United States at age 12. When he was 16 he confirmed that he indeed was an illegal immigrant. He is known for being a renowned journalist, filmmaker, and immigration rights activist. Though Vargas was able to confirm his illegal identity at an early age he had been living a lie until recently he decided to come out. At age 30 he announced to the world that he is undocumented and admitted to all the fraud he committed because of that. Vargas was able to get into the White House with a fake Social Security number, won the Pulitzer Prize, and paid his taxes all while being undocumented.

“Let’s be really honest about this, you are looking at the most privileged undocumented immigrant in America,” said Vargas. “So while hundreds of people will get arrested everyday just for driving without a license, while people get detained everyday … For the past 5 years I’ve done more than 600 events in 48 states.”

His job now is to educate people on immigration in order to understand how complicated it actually is. According to Vargas, when he revealed his secret, Obama had been deporting over 400,000 immigrants a year.

“So I figured hey President Obama knows who I am … so come get me,” said Vargas. “And nothing even happened.”

Vargas was ready to be arrested and ready to be deported. But months passed by and nothing happened. He even called the government, Homeland Security, looking for a response as to why he hasn’t been deported yet.

“No comment, is what the lady from Homeland Security said. No comment,“ said Vargas.

Since Vargas is not currently arrested or deported, he is working on many projects in order to further the truth about immigration. He is traveling the U.S speaking to different crowds about Define American, and uses “#emergingus” to allow other people to spread awareness on the issue and share their stories.

“Race and immigration intersect with each other. They just do, ” said Vargas. “Why don’t we embrace equality?”

While Vargas was speaking at SFCC the crowd of students there were incredibly diverse and active listeners. Yet, the room was only a little more than half full. It cost $15,000 to have Vargas here including his transportation and hotel fees.

“We potentially have students here without papers. We brought in Jose in order to continue that conversation in regards to undocumented citizens,” said Heather McKenzie Waite, Director of Student Funded Programs.

To know more about Jose Vargas and his project Define American go to www.defineamerican.com