One Undocumented Immigrant's Quest to Reinvent the Media

SAN DIEGO -- If you distrust the media complex, don't just resent it. Reinvent it.

Jose Antonio Vargas took that challenge to heart. The 35-year-old thinks of himself as an American without documents. But, as he shows with every project he undertakes, he is also a journalist without boundaries.

Since coming out as an undocumented immigrant in June 2011 in a soul-baring essay for The New York Times Magazine, Vargas has filmed several documentaries, spoken at dozens of universities, written for major publications and appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

The Pulitzer Prize winner describes his newest venture, #EmergingUS, as a media startup that "lives at the intersection of race, immigration and identity in a multicultural America."

Vargas' timing is perfect, given that, as the professional storyteller is well aware, we're in the middle of an election year that could define what it means to be an American.

This journalist of color is not fond of the politically correct assumption that Americans should be segregated into different ethnic silos.

For someone who came to the United States from the Philippines when he was 12 years old, immigration isn't just a Latino issue. And police violence isn't just a concern for African-Americans. These topics bleed into one another. As Americans, our experiences are all intertwined.

But #EmergingUS is not just another website. Rather, Vargas says, it's a "new digital platform that will produce original videos, essays, articles, podcasts, slideshows and more -- all in an attempt to understand the new American identity."

Driving this project are two questions that Vargas and his team of reporters, photographers, and videographers want to answer every day: "Who are we?" and "Who are we becoming?"

Those are challenging questions. But then again, Vargas is in the business of challenging people and things, including the immigration system, white privilege, traditional notions of race and ethnicity, and fellow journalists.

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