Undocumented Immigration and the 2012 Election

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who publicly disclosed his undocumented status in a 2011 New York Times Magazine essay and founded Define American, spoke eleven days before the 2012 election. He screened a Define American video about a Pitzer College student and her undocumented best friend, then discussed the teachers who shaped him, covering the 2008 campaign while undocumented, Latino and Asian voting power in swing states, Alabama's immigration law, deferred action, and parallels between immigrant and gay rights. Audience members, including a voter-registration organizer and a woman from Ecuador, questioned him.