Jose Antonio Vargas was born in the Philippines; when he was twelve, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in Mountain View, CA Jose first learned of his immigration status he was 16 and tried to obtain a California driver’s license.
Jose’s high school English teacher introduced Jose to journalism as did an internship at the Mountain View Voice. He earned a degree in political science and black studies at San Francisco State University. Later, he was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.
In a June 2011 essay in The New York Times Magazine, Vargas revealed his status as an undocumented immigrant in an effort to promote dialogue about the immigration system in the U.S. He wrote, produced, and directed the autobiographical 2013 film Documented, which CNN Films broadcast in June 2014.
Vargas founded Define American, a nonprofit organization to open dialogue about criteria people use to define who is an American. His memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published In 2018. Vargas announced in January 2025 that he had obtained a 3-year O-1 “extraordinary ability” visa; it is not a path to citizenship but is renewable, which he hopes to do.