Jose Vargas tells of life as a high-profile undocumented immigrant
Jose Antonio Vargas last visited Milwaukee in 2008 when he was a reporter for The Washington Post on the campaign trail with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Freezing rain and bad weather derailed the trip to De Pere, so the campaign returned to Milwaukee, where Clinton stopped at Miss Katie's Diner and ate jalapeño peppers at the El Rey market, he said in a telephone interview from his home in New York City.
On Thursday the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter returned to Milwaukee — this time as the most high-profile undocumented immigrant in the country.
He talked at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union about Defining American, a website designed to elevate the conversation about immigration, citizenship and identity in a demographically changing America. He also talked about growing up in the United States, becoming a successful journalist and, like 11 million others, having no way of getting legal papers.
It was his 4,000-word essay in The New York Times Magazine in June 2011, "My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant," that brought him national and worldwide attention.
It told about how when he was 12 his mother sent him from the Philippines to California to live with his grandparents for a better life.
It told about how he studied, learned to speak English and loved his new life. But at 16 when he went to get a driver's license, he learned that his green card was fake.
"I convinced myself that if I worked enough, if I achieved enough, I would be rewarded with citizenship. I felt I could earn it," he wrote.
He went to college and built a career as a journalist, believing at first that he could "write myself into being an American."
He worked as a reporter for The Washington Post, the Philadelphia Daily News, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Atlantic and Rolling Stone.
At the Post he was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings.
But covering the 2008 presidential campaign helped him deal with his reality.
"The 2008 campaign was the most surreal time of my life," he said. "I was on the campaign trail for two years of my life driving around and, at any point, I could get stopped. I gave people my Social Security number and nobody checked. I felt like a walking time bomb."
He decided: "Either someone would write my story, or I would write it myself."
After writing a profile of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for The New Yorker — the magazine he had always wanted to work for — he decided he was done.
In the 21/2 years since he came out as undocumented, he's spoken at 190 events in 38 states. He's testified before a congressional committee where he asked a Senate committee: "What do you want to do with me?"
He's also started a nonprofit and the website Define American, and produced and directed the film "Documented," about his life and immigration.
"We forget we are arguing about pieces of paper — documents that belong to people, but the human angle is so important," he said.
Hasn't been deported yet
Of course, the first question he's asked in most appearances is why he's not been deported.
"I called ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) myself and told them, but they had no comment," he said. "From the beginning I was prepared to be arrested and deported. I did not prepare for the stunning silence from the government."
Although he's 32, he missed by four months the cutoff for applying for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows children brought to the U.S. to apply for deferred action from deportation for a period of two years.
Right now there's no way to get legal status. A gay man — he came out in high school — he could now marry a gay citizen in New York.
"I'm working on it," he said.
Unlike millions of others who hide fearfully in the shadows, he can talk about his status. He realizes: "I'm the most privileged undocumented immigrant in the country."
He's hopeful but unsure that immigration reform will pass this year. In the meantime, the conversation on immigration needs to be broadened to include everyone, not only Latinos and Asians, he said.
So, he waits. He hasn't seen his mother in 20 years.
As a consequence of his coming out, the State of Washington revoked the driver's license he had legally acquired there.
"I still really want a driver's license," he said.