in Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum on October 18, 2014.
A Hispanic Happenings Reflection on:
DOCUMENTED: a film by an illegal immigrant undocumented American
By the Rev. Lyda Pierce | Photos by Jesse N. Love
Part I: About “Documented”
The classroom full of teenagers in California was suddenly silent. The only noise was the screeching of the marker lid as the man in front of the room twisted it back and forth and back and forth.
I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t told a lot of people,” said Jose Antonio Vargas.
Vargas is a celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning alumna of Mountain View High School, about an hour from San Francisco. He had gotten his start in this school, editing the school paper, The Oracle, and then gone on to write for the New Yorker, the Washington Post, Huffington Post and the New York Times. He’d come back home to tell his story to this journalism class.
After a few moments, Vargas continues:
I am an illegal alien – person.
Sort of.…..
I mean, I am. I just don’t like to use the word illegal alien, the phrase.
Vargas is often called Hispanic or Latino but he does not come from Latin America. He was born in the Philippines where his mother raised him. But life was hard, as she was not able to find a job. They depended on help from her parents who had immigrated to the US. When he was 12 years old, his grandfather paid a smuggler to bring him to the US. His mother agreed to let him hoping he would have a better life than she could give him.
When Vargas reached 16, he went to get a driver’s license like many of his Mountain View classmates but the California Department of Motor Vehicles would not accept his application. His identification was fake, a fact he had not been aware of. At that point he learned that he was undocumented, an illegal alien.
But why didn’t his grandfather just bring him legally? Why didn’t his mother just come with him?
This movie tells Vargas’ story and provides some answers to these questions. We see his mother, who like many parents in poverty, gives up life with her son so that he can have a better life. We see his grandparents who love him, worry about him and had hoped he would live quietly in some manual labor job and never be discovered as undocumented. But Vargas didn’t choose that route. He fought to be seen as American and achieved much. He appeared to be living the “American Dream” but he was living in fear of his secret being discovered.
The struggle to push for immigration reform becomes real as Vargas “comes out” nationally: telling his story in the New York Times, on the cover of Time magazine and before Congress.
Jose Antonio Vargas’ story in “Documented” takes the conflict over immigration from the political and philosophical arenas to the human one. It is understandable, frustrating, sad and even funny as Vargas’ side comments made me laugh. But when he “came out” as undocumented to the group of high school students, no one laughed. This was real life.
Why did Vargas come out? He could have kept his fear in check, his immigration status a secret and his dream life moving along. But he watched other undocumented immigrants standing in front of Immigration Offices and Detention Centers chanting, “undocumented and unafraid,” as they came out of the shadows to risk themselves in calling for immigration reform. He couldn’t stay quiet and hidden any longer.
Perhaps he had heard this message from Luke:
Luke 12:48b CEB
We see Vargas on the phone late at night just before the president’s big announcement is made. The details were being shared with a few who had worked so hard. Everyone is excited and hopeful. Vargas hears the news.
President Obama is going to provide Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, called DACA. The president cannot change laws but has to lead on how to administer the laws. He cannot grant citizenship or residency apart from the laws. But he can decide that certain well-behaved young immigrants will not be deported during a period of two years, and that they can come out of the shadows, hold a job and live without fear of deportation during that time. That gives Congress time then to work on comprehensive immigration reform.
But there are limits. It is not a blanket amnesty. It isn’t amnesty at all. Rather it is a temporary deferral of deportation. It has been a blessing to some 600,000 young people who have applied for and received DACA. It has allowed these people to come out of the shadows and participate fully in their communities, working and studying without fear. Depending on the state each one lives in, it has allowed many to get driver’s licenses and apply for scholarships.
When the announcement comes, Vargas learns that he is too old. An applicant had to be under 31 as of June 15, 2012 (the date of President Obama’s announcement). Vargas was already 31.
As I write this we are expecting another presidential executive order. President Obama has said that within the next few days he will offer some further steps in responding to the needs of undocumented immigrants. There are many guesses about what this will be. It may be the enlarging of the deferred action to include children who were too young to meet the previous limits, perhaps parents of children who are U.S. citizens, residents or maybe also those who have DACA status currently. By the time you read this, you probably already know what the announcement was.
The President has also made it clear that he is eager to work with Congress in developing a comprehensive reform. What he does in the next few days will be only a temporary administrative reprieve to help some people live more fully while Congress works on a reform. Any reform will supersede the president’s administrative action. Whatever the president announces, we can expect a loud, furious reaction from those who are more interested in building walls than diverse communities.
We, as the church, are asked to see the world and all its people with God’s love. We are to work for good in the country we live in, but in ways that create a world of justice and peace. We are all God’s children, and all of us are immigrants, or come from immigrants. Even Native Americans came across from Asia at one time.
Leviticus 19:33-34, CEV
Matthew 25:35c, CEB
As a church we have many ways of welcoming the stranger. Palabra Viviente, a church of immigrants in Everett, welcomes other immigrants, Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, to share their building. Moses Lake UMC is reaching out to neighbors with a part-time community worker. St. Francis United Methodist Church is part of a renewed movement of churches that have declared themselves sanctuaries. United Methodists in Phoenix, Arizona are providing hospitality to immigrant minors and families. Dios Viviente in Seattle regularly visits the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma to help connect immigrants released on bail connect to their families. United Methodist Women and hundreds of other UMC members across the country participate in call-in days to congressional leaders and the White House.
I recommend watching Documented no matter your political perspective. Watch and ask what the message is for us as the church living in the United States with immigrants all around us, and as part of us, part of the church.
While immigration reform is discussed in Congress, the White House, the media and our churches, Jose Antonio Vargas and his mother have not seen each other in person since August 3, 1993.
Documented | DACA | PNW: Immigration Resources | Sanctuary Church Movement | Possible Executive Action
