Vargas returns to SF Bay Area

MANILA, Philippines—Jose Antonio Vargas, a Filipino American journalist and Pulitzer Prize awardee for “Breaking news Reporting”, will be returning to San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon valley for a series of meetings and events on immigration.

The events are part of his cross-country tour focused on promoting Define American’s work, which includes the launch of a Stories platform in which the advocates ask undocumented and documented immigrants to define “American”.

As part of the tour, there will be a “Define American/Immigrant” which will be held on March 30  at 4:30 at the Seasons Marketplace at Landess which is the first Filipino mall in the United States.

In a statement, Vargas said, “Immigration is an issue that engulfs the Fil-Am community like no other, and I’d like to take this opportunity to have an honest and provocative conversation with Filipino Americans and interested community leaders in the Bay Area.”

Vargas wrote an essay for The New York Times in June 2011 wherein he admitted to being an undocumented immigrant. Vargas said he revealed his status to promote dialogue about what he feels in a broken immigration system in the United States and advocate for the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act–a bill that would allow grant citizenship to illegal immigrants who came to the United States if they go to college or serve in the military.

Likewise, a town hall meeting, organized and hosted by the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA)– Region 8’s Santa Clara County chapter, chaired by Ben Menor, aims to showcase the organization’s mission to serve the community particularly Filipinos, through a public awareness event. The upcoming town hall meeting is the first of a series of “Community Voices” events which is part of NaFFAA’s Community Empowerment program.

Meanwhile, the Define American movement has obtained videos from eminent personalities such as Stephen Colbert, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

NaFFAA is one of the community-based organizations that advocates for the “Define American” movement, together with Vargas’s legal team, the Filipino American Legal Defense and Education Fund, headed by JT Mallonga, Esq., who is also the NaFFAA National Vice Chair. Since  July 2011, NaFFAA has focused on using Twitter as an online advocacy medium, providing news and opinion editorials through NaFFAA’s daily curated newsletter, “#DefineAmerican Daily.” Timely updates can be found at https://bit.ly/mH1vu5, based on the tweets of @JoseIsWriting (Jose Antonio Vargas) and the hashtag #DefineAmerican.