Jose Antonio Vargas: Difference between revisions

Jose Antonio Vargas (born February 3, 1981)^[2] is a Filipino American journalist living and working in the United States. He is known for his coverage of HIV, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the influence that politics and the Internet have on each other.^[3] In 2008, Vargas was part of the team which won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.^[2] Born in the Philippines, and raised in the United States from the age of 12, Vargas has worked for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post.

In a June 2011 essay in The New York Times Magazine,^[2] Vargas wrote that he is an "undocumented immigrant".^[4] He describes coming to the US at the age of 12, unaware until the age of 16 that his immigration status was not valid. He states that he revealed his status in order to promote dialogue about what he feels is a broken immigration system in the United States, and advocate for the DREAM Act, which would help children in similar circumstances have a path to citizenship available to them.^[2][4] He was quoted as saying "I’m an American, I just don’t have the right papers".^[5]

Vargas was born in Antipolo,^[6] the Philippines. In 1993, when Vargas was a child of 12, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in the United States without obtaining authorization for him to stay in the country permanently.^[2] He grew up in Mountain View, California, and attended Crittenden Middle School and Mountain View High School. Vargas did not learn of his immigration status until 1997, when he attempted to obtain a California driver's license with fraudulent identity documents provided by his family. He kept his immigration status secret, pursuing his education and trying to fit in as an American, with the help of friends and teachers, using false documents including a green card, Filipino passport, and a driver’s license that helped him to avoid deportation and remain in the US.^[2] Vargas came out as gay in high school in 1999, a decision he describes as being "less daunting than coming out about my legal status".^[2]

In 1998, he began an internship at the Mountain View Voice, a local newspaper, and he later became a "copy boy" for the San Francisco Chronicle. Vargas attended San Francisco State University, gaining a degree in Political Science and Black Studies. He interned for the Philadelphia Daily News and for The Washington Post.^[7]

In 2004, immediately after graduating from San Francisco State he was hired by The Washington Post ^[7] Style section, at first to cover the video-game boom. He became known for his anecdotal coverage of the HIV epidemic in Washington.^[8] His coverage of this issue was adapted into a documentary called The Other City, released in 2010.^[9] In 2007, he was part of the Washington Post team covering the Virginia Tech shootings, earning a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

When Vargas made a pitch for himself 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." Vargas went on to cover the 2008 presidential campaign,^[8] including a 2007 front-page article on Wikipedia's impact on the 2008 election.^[10]

He also wrote an online column called "The Clickocracy" on the Post’s website.^[3]

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.^[11]

In "Students Make Connections at a Time of Total Disconnect," from April 17, 2007, Vargas reported on the role of technology in students’ experiences during the Virginia Tech shootings.^[12] He described graduate student Jamal Albarghouti running towards the gun shots when he heard them, taking out his cell phone to take a shaky, one minute video that would later air 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.com, 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.^[13] Through interviews with eyewitnesses, the story recounts 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.^[14] Vargas was able to gain an interview with an eyewitness to the shootings by approaching him through Facebook, he explained to GMA News. “I got him on the phone, we talked for about 25 minutes, and he was the only eyewitness we had on the story, so it was a critical part of it," Vargas explained.^[6]

In July 2009, Vargas left the Post to join The Huffington Post, part of an exodus of young talent from the paper.^[15] Arianna Huffington introduced herself to Vargas at a Washington Press Club Foundation dinner after overhearing someone mistake him for a busboy.

Vargas joined Huffington Post as Technology and Innovations Editor where he created a "Technology as Anthropology" blog and launched the Technology vertical in September 2009 and the College vertical in February 2010.^[16]

Vargas's articles on the AIDS epidemic in the nation's capital inspired a feature-length documentary, The Other City, which he co-produced and wrote. Directed by Susan Koch and co-produced by Sheila Johnson, it premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival^[17] and aired on Showtime.^[18]

In September 2010, Vargas profiled Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in an article for The New Yorker.^[19][20]

In 2011, Vargas wrote an essay for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, in which he revealed that he is an "undocumented immigrant".^[2] Vargas's essay received much media attention and was at the top of the Times "most-emailed" list the week it was published.^[4] He received the June 2011 "Sidney" award for his essay, an award given by The Sidney Hillman Foundation to the "outstanding piece of socially-conscious journalism" published each month.^[21]

In 2011, he founded "Define American",^[22] a project aimed at facilitating dialogue about the DREAM Act and immigration issues, which would allow such individuals a path to citizenship through education or service in the military.^[2] The organization also invites undocumented immigrants to share their experiences via video.^[23][24]

In 2012 Vargas worked with filmmaker Chris Weitz on a group of four short documentaries entitled Is this Alabama?, about the effects of Alabama's severe anti-immigration legislation.^[25]

• Column archive at The Huffington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Jose Antonio Vargas at IMDb

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