3 questions to ask yourself about US citizenship

At age 16, journalist and filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas found out he was in the United States illegally. Since then, he's been thinking deeply about immigration and what it means to be a US citizen -- whether it's by birth, law or otherwise. In this powerful talk, Vargas calls for a shift in how we think about citizenship and encourages us all to reconsider our personal histories by answering three questions: Where did you come from? How did you get here? Who paid?

Four years after arriving
in the United States,

like any typical 16-year-old,

I went to get my driver's permit.

After I showed the clerk
my immigration papers, my green card,

she told me it was fake.

"Don't come back here again," she said.

That's how I found out
I was in America illegally.

And I'm still here illegally.

I'm a journalist and filmmaker.

I live in stories.

And what I've learned

that what most people
don't understand about immigration

is what they don't understand
about themselves:

their families' old migration stories
and the processes they had to go through

before green cards and walls even existed,

or what shaped their understanding
of citizenship itself.

I was born in the Philippines.

When I was 12, my mother sent me
to live with her parents,

my grandparents,

or, as we say in Tagalog, lolo and lola.

Lolo's name was Teofilo.

When he legally emigrated to America
and became a naturalized citizen,

he changed his name from Teofilo to Ted,

after Ted Danson
from the TV show "Cheers."

Can't get any more American than that.

Lolo's favorite song
was Frank Sinatra's "My Way,"

and when it came to figuring out
how to get his only grandson, me,

to America,

he decided to do it his way.

According to Lolo, there was no easy
and simple way to get me here,

so Lolo saved up 4,500 dollars --

that's a lot of money for a security guard

who made no more than
eight dollars an hour --

to pay for the fake green card

and for a smuggler to bring me to the US.

So that's how I got here.

I can't tell you how many times
people tell me that their ancestors

came to America "the right way,"

to which I remind them,

America's definition of "the right way"

has been changing ever since
the first ship of settlers dropped anchor.

America as we know it
is more than a piece of land,

particularly because the land that now
makes up the United States of America

used to belong to other people
in other countries.

America as we know it is also
more than a nation of immigrants.

There are two groups of Americans
who are not immigrants:

Native Americans, who were
indigenous to this land

and who were killed in acts of genocide;

and African Americans,
who were kidnapped, shipped and enslaved

to build this country.

America is, above all, an idea,

however unrealized and imperfect,

one that only exists because
the first settlers came here freely

without worry of citizenship.

So, where did you come from?

How did you get here?

Who paid?

All across America,
in front of diverse audiences --

conservatives and progressives,

high school students
and senior citizens --

I've asked those questions.

As a person of color,
I always get asked where I'm from,

as in, "Where are you from from?"

So I've asked white people
where they're from from, too.

After asking a student
at the University of Georgia

where he was from,

he said, "I'm American."

"I know," I said,
"but where are you from?"

"I'm white," he replied.

"But white is not a country," I said.

"Where are your ancestors from?"

When he replied with a shrug,

I said,

"Well, where did you come from?

How did you get here? Who paid?"

He couldn't answer.

I don't think you can talk
about America as America

without answering those
three core questions.

Immigration is America's lifeline,

how this country has
replenished itself for centuries,

from the settlers and the revolutionaries
who populated the original 13 colonies

to the millions of immigrants,
predominantly from Europe,

who relentlessly colonized this land.

Even though Native Americans
were already here

and had their own tribal identities
and ideas about citizenship,

they were not considered US citizens
until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.

The landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act
that Black Americans fought for

inspired the 1965
Immigration and Nationality Act,

which ended America's
race-based exclusionary system

that had lasted for 40 years.

I could go on and on here,

but my point, my larger point, is this:

How much do any of us,

whether immigrants
of the past or the present,

know of these crucial parts
of American history?

How much of this history makes up
the actual US citizenship test?

Have you ever seen it?

It's a mostly oral test,

and government officers ask applicants
up to 10 of the 100 questions.

To pass, applicants must get
at least six answers right.

I looked at the test recently,

and I was aghast at the questions posed

and what constitutes acceptable answers
to the glaring omissions.

There's a question about
the Statue of Liberty and where it is.

There's no question about Ellis Island,

about the United States
as an immigrant nation

and the countless anti-immigrant
laws that were passed.

There's nothing about
Native American history.

There's a question about
what Martin Luther King, Jr. did,

but largely, there's inadequate
and irresponsible contexts

about African Americans.

Here's an example.

Question number 74
under the American history section

asks applicants to "name one problem
that led to the Civil War."

There are three acceptable answers:

slavery,

states' rights,

economic reasons.

Did my Lola and Lolo get that question?

If they did get the question,

do they even understand
the history behind it?

How about my uncles
and aunties and cousins

and millions of other immigrants
who had to take that test

to become Americans?

What do immigrants know
about America before we get here?

What kind of citizenship
are we applying for?

And is that the same kind of citizenship
we actually want to be a part of?

Come to think of it --
I've been thinking a lot about this --

what does dignified citizenship look like?

How can I ask for it when I
just arrived here 26 years ago,

when Black and Native people

who have been here in America
for hundreds of years

are still waiting for theirs?

One of my favorite writers
is Toni Morrison.

In 1996, a year before I found out
I was in the country illegally,

my eighth-grade class was assigned
to read "The Bluest Eye,"

Morrison's first book.

Instantly, the book challenged me
to ask hard questions.

Why does Pecola Breedlove,

this young Black girl
at the center of the book,

why did she want blue eyes?

Who told her to want it?

Why did she believe them?

Morrison said she wrote the book
to illustrate what happens

when a person surrenders
to what she called "the master narrative."

"Definitions," Morrison said,
"belong to the definers, not the defined."

Once I realized that I was here illegally,

I convinced myself that if I was not
a legal citizen by birth or by law,

another kind of citizenship was possible.

Citizenship as participation:

I engage.

I engage with all kinds of Americans,
even Americans who don't want me here.

Citizenship as contribution:

I give back to my community
in whatever ways I can.

As an undocumented entrepreneur --
and yes, there is such a thing --

I've employed many US citizens.

Citizenship as education:

We can't wait for others
to educate us about the past

and how we got to this present.

We have to educate
ourselves and our circles.

Citizenship as something
greater than myself:

We are, I think,
individually and collectively,

rewriting the master narrative of America.

The people who were once defined
are now doing the defining.

They're asking the questions
that need to be asked.

A core part of that redefinition

is how we define
not only who is an American

but what constitutes citizenship.

Which, to me, is our
responsibility to each other.

So consider your own personal narrative

and ask yourself:

Where did you come from?

How did you get here?

Who paid?