Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and Tony-nominated theatrical producer. A leading voice for the human rights of immigrants, he founded the non-profit media and culture organization Define American, named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. His best-selling memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published by HarperCollins in 2018. Most recently, he co-produced Heidi Schreck’s acclaimed play What the Constitution Means to Me, which opened on Broadway in Spring 2019 and has received two Tony Award nominations.
In 2011, the New York Times Magazine published a groundbreaking essay Jose wrote in which he revealed and chronicled his life in America as an undocumented immigrant. A year later, he appeared on the cover of Time worldwide with fellow undocumented immigrants in a follow-up cover story. He then produced and directed Documented, a documentary feature film on his undocumented experience. Broadcast on CNN and streamed on Netflix, the film received a 2015 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Documentary. Also in 2015, MTV aired White People, an Emmy-nominated television special he produced and directed on what it means to be young and white in a demographically changing America.
Among accolades Jose has received are the Freedom to Write Award from PEN Center USA and honorary degrees from Colby College and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Passionate about the role of arts in society and promoting equity in education, he serves on the advisory board of TheDream.US, a scholarship fund for undocumented immigrant students.
A product of the San Francisco Bay Area, Jose is a proud graduate of San Francisco State University (‘04), where he was named Alumnus of the Year in 2012, and Mountain View High School (‘00). An elementary school named after Vargas will open in his hometown of Mountain View, California in Fall 2019.