Documented

Showings

Mary D. Fisher Theatre Wed, Sep 24, 2014 4:00 PM
Mary D. Fisher Theatre Wed, Sep 24, 2014 7:00 PM
Mary D. Fisher Theatre Thu, Sep 25, 2014 4:00 PM
Film Info
Event Type:Film
Release Year:2013
Run Time:90 minutes
Production Country:United States
Original Language:English
Trailer:http://youtu.be/FElg8E16LeU
Cast/Crew Info
Director:Jose Antonio Vargas

Description

In 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in the New York Times Magazine. “Documented” chronicles his journey to America from the Philippines as a child; his public struggle as an immigration reform advocate; and his journey inward as he reconnects with his mother, whom he hasn't seen in 20 years. A broken immigration system leads to broken families and broken lives. 

Jose Antonio Vargas began his immigrant journey at age 12, when he was sent to the United States from the Philippines by his mother to live with his grandparents in Mountain View, California. After attending San Francisco State University, Vargas pursued a print journalism career – landing jobs at newspapers in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington D.C. for the Washington Post – all the while, managing to keep his true citizenship status a secret.

In 2008, Vargas was awarded a Pulitzer as part of the team of Washington Post journalists who reported on the 2007 shooting massacre at Virginia Tech University. Vargas began working on “Documented” shortly before “outing” himself as undocumented in a ground-breaking New York Times Magazine essay, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” He then traveled around America, telling his story in solidarity with the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country.

“Against the advice of lawyers, I wrote, in detail, what I had to do to live and survive in America: hide in plain sight as I worked as a journalist for more than a decade; lie on government forms to get jobs while paying taxes and contributing to Social Security (undocumented workers provide billions in both); grow estranged from my mother in the Philippines who put me on a plane to the United States in 1993. In outing myself, I risked everything and prepared myself for anything,” said Vargas.

“What I was not prepared for, however, was silence, especially from politicians in Washington, where immigration has become the third rail of American politics, often framed in partisan, polarizing terms, mostly subjected to elections, and tied to the future of political parties.”

“To us who are directly affected by the political standstill, immigration is urgent and personal. Immigration is about our families.”