Immigration Activists: Politics Aren't the Problem, Culture Is

US News & World Report

By Tierney Sneed

April 11, 2014

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/04/11/immigration-activists-rally-behind-documented-from-jose-antonio-vargas

With his documentary film “Documented,” journalist-turned-immigration-activist Jose Antonio Vargas doesn’t want just to change the politics of the movement to overhaul the United States' current immigration system. He wants to change the culture that surrounds it.

“We have to change how we look at these people and how we talk about these people,” he said at a Q&A after a special Washington, D.C., screening of the film Thursday at the Newseum.

Vargas was joined on a panel at the screening by an eclectic crew: filmmaker Janet Yang of “The Joy Luck Club,” who served as a “Documented” executive producer; anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist; and Joe Green, Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard roommate and the head of Facebook’s tech industry lobbying shop, FWD.us, which also sponsored the event. They agreed with Vargas’ sentiment that perception, not policy, is holding a legislative immigration overhaul back.

“People get the politics of it wrong because they hear some loud voices and some ugly voices and assume they are important voices," Norquist said. "But they can slow things down by scaring the dimwitted.”

Vargas is a poster boy for the so-called DREAM Act, legislation that would provide a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Born in the Philippines, Vargas’ grandparents – U.S. citizens – smuggled him into California when he was 12. He only learned he was not legally living in the country when he was 16.

Vargas went on to have a successful career in journalism, writing for the The Huffington Post, The New Yorker and The Washington Post – where he won a Pulitzer Prize – until he came clean about his undocumented status in a 2011 New York Times Magazine essay. The film starts in the weeks before the essay's publishing, as Vargas prepares for his national “coming out,” and follows him as his activism efforts take off in its wake.

But rather than appeal to the mind with a policy lesson (though there is some policy talk), ”Documented” tugs at the heart, spending ample time on the strain Vargas’ situation has put on his relationship with his mom whom, stuck in the Philippines, Vargas has not seen in 20 years. It also includes Vargas’ more quotidian encounters with people who don't understand or even vehemently oppose his lack of legal status.

“What happens in the best of movies – you can’t help but have your views change by the basically unveiling of human interactions and how we see things,” Yang said.

Vargas’ turn to filmmaking is not surprising considering the role he says American pop culture played in his childhood, which is also explored in the film.

“Before I knew what a Democrat or a Republican was, I learned to speak and be American by watching television and movies. It was the first thing I gravitated to,” Vargas said.

“Documented” joins a broader effort by the immigration activist community to change opinions about the issue through art, music and film. And it has gained some traction: The Latin rock band La Santa Cecilia often sings about immigration and includes a member who is undocumented. The group won a Grammy this year, and singer Aloe Blacc re-released a version of his hit song “Wake Me Up” with a video portraying families torn apart by immigration issues.

Vargas said he plans to apply for a Writers Guild of America membership, which, if he is accepted, would make him the first undocumented member. There, he would like to reach out to the industry and see “how can we talk to screenwriters, producers and directors to better integrate immigrants – documented and undocumented – in storylines, in the same way they integrated LGBT characters?”

Pop culture has been credited for swiftly changing public opinion on same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues, with even Vice President Joe Biden saying the TV show "Will and Grace" "probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far."

Of the role culture has had in debates over gay rights, Vargas said, “We are at a moment where the CEO of Mozilla can be fired in 24 hours for making that donation [to the anti-gay marriage initiative Proposition 8]. The culture had completely shifted before politics happened. You have the exact reverse with immigration.“

With all this talk about culture, what got little mention from the panel was Congress, where a comprehensive immigration proposal passed by the Senate has yet to be voted on by the House. And the film advocates blamed  the media, not lawmakers, for the current standoff.

“The structures to have a pro-immigrant culture are already there,” Norquist said, referring to members of the business community and religious groups whose leaders – but not necessarily members – have rallied to the cause. “We just need to get television cameras and microphones in front of these leaders more often, because they are there.”

“Documented” is currently touring the U.S. in screenings like Thursday’s event, and will premiere in New York theaters May 2 before rolling out in cities nationwide.

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com