Actions are illegal, never people | Jose Antonio Vargas | TEDxMidAtlantic

good morning it's a real honor to be at the TEDx mid-atlantic this morning and I think even more so because the first person in my life who I've heard the name Ted 2 was my grandfather Ted salinas he would have been 77 years old this month unfortunately he died five years ago he would have been very proud to be here because of my grandparents my grandfather my grandmother who have made enormous sacrifices that's why I'm here my grandfather immigrated legally to the u.s. in 1984 worked as a security guard when he became an American citizen in 1990 they couldn't pronounce his Tagalog name yellow fellow so he changed the Ted after Ted Danson from cheers sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name so he figured that was the way to go because grandparents are not allowed to petition their grandchildren he found another way to get his eldest grandson in America he saved up four thousand five hundred dollars which is a lot of money for a security guard four thousand five hundred dollars to get me to America and to get papers like a passport and a green card this was in 1993 then four years later like any 16 year old I go to the DMV to get my driver's permit and that's when I realize that the green card that my grandfather Ted had given me was actually not real that it was fake that I'm what people call an Eagle alien that I'm not supposed to be here but luckily for me the following year I discovered this thing called journalism my English teacher said I was asking too many annoying questions and I should do this thing called journalism so I went to a journalism camp and it was really interesting a shock really to see my name you know when you write a story there's a thing called a byline so to see my byline you know on a piece of paper you know 17 years old and I thought wait up a second look if I don't have the right papers to be in America what if I'm on the paper I thought maybe I could just you know like just write my way into America so I started doing that when I was 17 the first news story I ever covered was actually a fire that ended up having happening right on the block where I grew up so that's why I got sent to cover the fire and in the next 14 years I ended up writing for the San Francisco Chronicle I worked for five years at the Washington Post living here in Washington DC just a few blocks from here and it was a little a little bit kind of like catch me if you can meets Edgar Allan Poe's tell-tale heart looking at the Washington Monument working just a few blocks from the White House going to press conferences Capitol Hill interviewing Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich writing about politics given that my life has been played political football with all my life and knowing that the Washington Monument and the Capitol and all these buildings in this great powerful city didn't belong to me and that they weren't at all had nothing to do with me so after about fourteen years of doing this I kind of figured enough was enough I landed the biggest assignment of my life writing assignment was writing for The New Yorker profiling Mark Zuckerberg and you know I learned everything I learned everything I know about writing from reading The New Yorker so this was to me the assignment and at one point I was interviewing mark I had about five interviews with him and Mark is a pretty sociable guy he actually are one point turned to me and said Jose dude like where are you from I think that's when I realized that I was kind of done you know I could have just simply said I'm from Mountain View which is like right next door to Palo Alto where we were at but where you're from at that point in my life when I thought I had succeeded succeeded my way into America contributing to my country that I call my home paying taxes trying to be an upstanding citizen and yet I can't go to Mexico for a friend's wedding I haven't seen my mom for 19 years because I can't go to the Philippines because I won't be able to come back so that was the moment that I realized that I'd had enough and that I was going to come forward and do it in the most public way possible it's a horrible photo hey which was in the pages of the New York Times and what an essay called my life as an undocumented immigrant and the headline was outlaw and this was really the first time in my career in my writing reporting career that I've written about immigration I spent 14 years ignoring it and for the past year and a half since that you know two summers ago I've gone to about 25 states I'm going to Alabama on Monday done about 80 to 90 events with Democrats Republicans young people older people I was just in Illinois yesterday I'm in Wisconsin before that and what's been fascinating to me is this is immigration is quite simply the most controversial yet least understood issue in America people simply do not know how it works and I can tell you that and outline that for you by kind of the six top questions that I get from people have traveled around the country and become a walking uncomfortable conversation question number one so you're not Mexican not all undocumented people are from Mexico although my name is Jose Antonio Vargas but that's because Spain went to the Philippines in 1521 stayed for 300 years and all that but I don't want to get all history books on people um so you're not Mexican and I tell them no I am NOT and that actually not everybody was undocumented is Mexican a million of the 11 million undocumented people in this country are actually from Asia and Pacific Islander like me Philippines China Korea about 800,000 from South America 300,000 actually from Europe undocumented French polish Irish German people and actually 65 percent of people who are here end up without papers undocumented I've been here for more than ten years so unlike what you see sometimes on cable shows we didn't just cross the border yesterday ended up waiting for a job outside a Walmart that's the first question the second question um and this is a really interesting one why don't you just make yourself legal because I'm a masochist and this is like so much more fun I am because I can't there was no way during the Iowa caucuses I actually surprised Governor Romney by showing up to a rally in Cedar Rapids holding that sign up thank you I I wasn't there to protest I wasn't there to be disrespectful I just wanted to say that I'm not an illegal alien I am an American without papers and this lovely lovely man William Oglesby who's a Romney supporter came to me and said you know why don't you just make yourself legal and I said you know sir I can't I can't just marry my way into this like Sandra Bullock in the proposal because I happen to be gay there is a thing called the Defense of Marriage Act so even though I can get married in the state of New York where I live or Massachusetts in Iowa the federal government which handles immigration wouldn't recognize the marriage but to me that question really underscores that people don't know that when politicians say people like me should get back should get in the back of the line there is no line if you told me where the line was in the corner of Turkey thin.you I'll see you there like right now but there's no line the third question it's an even more horrible picture the third question is do you think you belong in a special class of people who can break any law you want this really mild-mannered polite gentleman conrad sass knows a lawyer came to a civility roundtable that was hosted at my hometown in Mountain View California where I grew up it's a great meeting because they're Republicans they were Democrats and he showed up with my New York Times essay in hand underlined which scared me and then very politely he came to me and said mr. Vargas I don't understand how you think you can just get a driver's license from the state of Oregon when you're not supposed to look if I did that I'd be in jail like do you think you're better than me and you know he asked it in such a polite curious way he wasn't at all being disrespectful and I said you know sir I got the license because the Washington Post said that I couldn't show up in Washington DC without a darvis license and I really wanted the job because I really wanted to pay taxes and I wanted to contribute but more than that people like me get licenses because I had to cover the Iowa caucuses and there's no buses in Iowa people like me get a license because you know we got to drop off the kids to school we have to get groceries and we have to go to work we get the license because you know I have a big news we're human beings like you and he said oh I never thought about it like that before and then a few months later we talked in the phone and he said he had written a letter to the congressman his congressman and his president and said that we really need comprehensive immigration reform and this is one of those questions that's really to me the most provocative which is what part of a tea goal don't you understand we can talk about the legality aspect of it which is that it's actually legally inaccurate to refer to somebody as an illegal because to be in this country without papers is a civil offense not a criminal one we can talk about the fact that the term is really imprecise as I stand here right now there are tens of thousands of students across America who were here without papers and I would hate to think that they're sending their classrooms listening to us talk about them and internalizing the word illegal and really to me the biggest point is it's incredibly dehumanizing and pejorative and comes with it so many different connotations negative all of them that were criminals that we're not supposed to be even you know within the block that you live in or the school that you go to actions are illegal never people and something is terribly wrong when we refer to people as illegal the other question is why haven't you gotten deported um I do not know I don't know if ice the HS is waiting outside for me but I don't know why I haven't gotten deported all I can tell you is in the past four years a million people have been deported in fiscal year 2011 nearly 400,000 people were deported and not me and other people young people who have come forward and have declared themselves undocumented and unafraid I remember watching a YouTube video from Chicago or group from kids most of the Latinos in downtown Chicago saying we're undocumented and unafraid and I'm sitting in an office in New York City thinking how dare I not join them what a coward I was for not saying anything so that's one of the reasons why I came out which is the last question why do people like me come out which is a really interesting phrase I've come out twice in my life the first time was when I was a junior in high school we were watching the documentary the life in terms of Harvey Milk and one of the last few lines Western Harvey Milk said if a bullet gentlemen if a bullet should enter my brain let it break through a closet door and I was sitting in the back of room 101 and I don't know what happened to me I raised my hand and I said nothing that uh I'm gay and I ran out of the room and my girlfriend found out during brunch that was the first time the second time took 14 years longer and people like me are coming out and here's the interesting thing we're not really coming out we're just letting you in so when I haven't gotten deported I contacted editor Time magazine and said can I write a cover story and why I haven't gotten deported thankfully Rick Stengel and all of his compassionate heart agreed and that more than that he let us have a cover photo of 36 undocumented young people from 15 different countries there's Gabby Pacheco of Ecuador who was three college degrees from miami-dade College and she wants to be a special education teacher there's Roy Nayeem who was born in Israel and he got here when he was four and he's been volunteering for nonprofits his whole life there's car Cesar Vargas who graduated Law School and who's one of three lawyers right now we're actually trying to get their states to admit them to practice law and the guy next to me to my left is Victor from Alabama who crossed the border from Mexico when he was six years old and he wants to be a teacher and right now in the state of Alabama Alabama actually out Arizona Arizona passing the toughest immigration law in the country where it's a felony to do a business with the government like going to college or getting a driver's license so here's really the big question more and more people like me will come out because sometimes you risk your life in order to free yourself from it so the question is what are you going to do all the American citizens people sitting here how do we solve this issue how are you going to help us thank you so much for having me here today you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 168,258

Rating: 4.4419079 out of 5

Keywords: social change, illegal, United States (Country), ted x, immigrant, tedx talks, global issues, ted talk, ted, media, lifestyle, ted talks, equality, immigration, activism, tedx, USA, English, tedx talk, tedxmidatlantic, rights, psychology, culture, reform, journalism, politics, community

Id: tmz9cCF0KNE

Length: 16min 49sec (1009 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2012