![Vargas Joseantonio Aif2018](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/e93bb39d-3e02-4e38-b324-57db43569dba/Vargas_JoseAntonio_AIF2018.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C1000&w=290)
Jose Antonio Vargas
Founder and CEO, Define American; Journalist; Filmmaker
Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker, and voice for the human rights of immigrants. He is founder and CEO of Define American, a media and culture nonprofit fighting injustice and anti-immigrant hate through storytelling. Vargas produced and directed the 2013 documentary feature film, Documented, about his own undocumented experience, which he had first written about in the New York Times Magazine in 2011 and then in a TIME magazine cover story. He produced and directed White People, an Emmy-nominated MTV special about being young and white in contemporary America. An advisory board member of TheDream.US, Vargas’s memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, will be published fall 2018.
Previously
![What Is It Like to Be Inside the American Immigration System Today?](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/9a00dfa5-5cef-4522-9a78-aafe0d6a24d8/42377647294_3984ed270e_o1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C688%2C8256%2C4644&w=400)
While Congress looks less and less likely to take on any meaningful move on comprehensive immigration reform, hundreds of thousands of people live in limbo every day. Many of...
![Undocumented Citizen: An American Story](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/e60a728a-075c-4b57-acd1-dfde0315779d/42353418434_42b2137196_o1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C125%2C3000%2C1688&w=400)
What does it mean to be American, and how is that story best told and understood? New York Times columnist David Brooks sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and un...
![Afternoon of Conversation](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/87b70fad-0d96-4044-af48-c1587494a31a/29200985798_8a4509f12e_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C229%2C6720%2C3782&w=400)
For our annual signature event in the Benedict Music Tent, the 2018 Aspen Ideas Festival hosts former secretary of state John Kerry in a candid conversation about geopolitics...
![Defining "American" and the Art of Activism](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/531479fa-9dec-4b86-93eb-2c4a237db008/41257729120_c0b0161fa5_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C344%2C8256%2C4644&w=400)
Activist Dolores Huerta, recipient of the 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, founder of the nonprofit media and cul...
![The Emergent Chorus: Collaborative Creativity, Simple Tech, and Giving Voice to the Voiceless](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/nulld70cdf28-2e96-4b29-8a47-5b07b38dfebf/27702260750_143a095894_h.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C72%2C1600%2C901&w=400)
Journalists Michele Norris, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Amar Bakshi have all worked to create global megaphones for sharing experiences and stories that too often go unnoticed. N...
![Deep Dive: Art and Immigration—Culture and Dividing Lines](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/null361a85c8-6222-4096-b0eb-911dc72bef04/27347706983_d8f6408669_h.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=117%2C0%2C1386%2C780&w=400)
Debating immigration is a perennial favorite in presidential elections, perhaps never more so than in 2016, when border walls and banning Muslims push the boundaries of what p...
![2016 Young Adult Forum](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/null165d13ef-a99b-4059-9c05-67eb72b6996d/28923175514_f36a968a32_h.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C67%2C1600%2C901&w=400)
We’ve selected some of the brightest minds on the Ideas Festival stage to participate in an afternoon of Big Ideas for young people: an interactive afternoon that will include...