Jose Antonio Vargas on Redefining American Identity
City Club welcomes award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas, in conversation with Marissa Madrigal, to discuss the place of storytelling to humanize the conversation around immigration, citizenship, and identity. They will cover topics, including:
- How citizenship is defined in the U.S. amidst demographic change
- The diversity of immigration stories, his own and others
- Media representations of immigrants, especially entertainment media (tv and film)
- Using media for social change
- The role of culture in shaping policy and law
Speaker:
Jose Antonio Vargas seeks to share diverse narratives, including his own, about who migrants and immigrants are. In 2008, he was a rising young star in journalism who won a Pulitzer Prize as part of the Washington Post team that covered the Virginia Tech shootings. He has devoted himself to changing the cultural and policy conversations about immigration through filmmaking and activism. He has founded two organizations: Define American and #EmergingUS, the first-ever media property owned by an undocumented immigrant. Vargas has won many awards, including a Public Service Award from the National Council of La Raza, the country’s largest Latino/a advocacy organization; the Salem Award from the Salem Award Foundation, which draws upon the lessons of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692; and the Freedom to Write Award from PEN Center USA. Jose Antonio Vargas occupies the 2017-18 Wayne Morse Chair at the University of Oregon.
Moderator: 
Marissa Madrigal grew up in Los Angeles, Mexico City and Ridgefield, Washington. Since her arrival at Multnomah County in 2006, Marissa has worked to ensure all residents have access to their government. Marissa served as interim Multnomah County Chair for ten months in 2013 after an opening was declared by the Board of Commissioners following the previous chair's resignation. Now she is Chief Operating Officer, overseeing day-to-day operations at the county and making sure Chair Kafoury is well informed.
Special Thanks to the University of Oregon's Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, whose mission includes “promoting education and research to advance justice and democracy."