By Aubrey Amila and Max English
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jose Antonio Vargas shared an important lived experience with Cal State Monterey Bay (CSUMB) students last week.
“Find your core of support,” Vargas told a group of 33 students at the Otter Student Union (OSU) Ballroom. “It is just as important as getting your degree. You gotta go find them.”
Vargas, originally from Rizal, Philippines, emigrated at age of 12. Seeking a better life, he lived in the United States with his grandparents until he was 16 when he attempted to get his driver’s license. At that time, his family made him aware that he was never eligible for documentation and he had been living a “lie” since. In the 27 years after, he has been living undocumented and unapologetically.
Jose Antonio Vargas is now a notable author, Pulitzer-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and Tony-nominated theatrical producer. In his very first appearance on campus, Vargas shared his pride in being the first undocumented person to be appointed as a California State University (CSU) trustee.
“What brought me to this event was the topic of being an undocumented citizen,” said Maria Torres, a third-year psychology major, who recalls how it has been a struggle for most of her family who came from Mexico to get papers.
Vargas brought up the importance of dream centers such as UndocuSuccess and the Otter Cross Cultural Center in a university setting and compared it to when he was in college in the early 2000s. “There was nothing. There was no support, we couldn’t talk about it. Even if you did talk about it, people did not know how to help you. It almost felt like it was something you could not say out loud,” said Vargas. The CSU system has about 10,000 undocumented students. These dream centers can be a safe haven for these students to ask questions and seek further resources.
Vargas passionately highlighted a question for fellow CSU trustees and university officials: “How do we make sure that students can use their degrees so they can make a living out of it?” This question was especially daunting, as undocumented students often have greater difficulty finding employment than students with documentation.
Having read his memoir a dozen times, Evie Holl, is a fourth-year global studies major focusing on cultural intersectionality and is currently a study abroad advisor. She said that the themes she connected to personally were shared queerness, the idea of what “home” is and finding identity. She connected to Vargas’ idea that “home is the people who make it home.”