How Do You Define American?

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist  Jose Antonio Vargas will share his thoughts on the definition of being American at the Malley Center in Santa Clara University on May 17 at 7 p.m.

In 2011 he publically admitted that he immigrated to the U.S. illegally from the Philippines at age 12, sending shockwaves through the media world. Now, Vargas is determined to help change the conversation about immigration reform and will offer his thoughts on what is needed to fix our country.    

Vargas, who won a Pulitzer in 2008 for his coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings for the Washington Post, has doffed his reporter’s hat to focus on his new project, “Define American,” which aims to stimulate a national discussion on immigration. Most recently, Vargas was a senior contributing editor at the Huffington Post, where he launched the Technology and College verticals. He was previously a national political reporter for the Washington Post, where he earned national attention for his innovative, in-depth coverage of the Internet's impact on politics.

In addition to his Pulitzer-prize winning reporting on the Virginia Tech massacre, Vargas received widespread acclaim for his profile of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for the New Yorker, his story on Al Gore for Rolling Stone magazine, and a documentary he wrote and produced on the AIDS epidemic in Washington, D.C., among others.

Vargas received a B.A. in Political Science and Black Studies from San Francisco State University.