May 08 2014
Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas on his New Film, “Documented”
For over two decades, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas kept an enormous secret from those working around him: he was an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines.
In 2011, Vargas decided to out himself in the New York Times Magazine. In his new film Documented, Vargas tells the story of his journey through the government’s immigration system and his battle to become a citizen.
In speaking with the press Vargas says he didn’t want the film to focus on the politics of immigration; instead he wanted to shed light on, how as a culture, we comfortably interchange the words “Mexican” and “undocumented,” despite the fact that there are over a million undocumented Asians and people from other countries and continents.
Vargas makes the case that undocumented immigrants contribute to the welfare of the country, paying billions of dollars in state and local taxes each year.
GUEST: Jose Antonio Vargas was part of The Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings online and in print.
Documented will be screening in Los Angeles from May 9-15 at the Landmark Regent Theater.
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