3 questions to ask yourself about US citizenship | Jose Antonio Vargas

TED Talks Daily

TED

Creativity, Ted Podcast, Ted Talks Daily, Business, Design, Inspiration, Society & Culture, Science, Technology, Education, Tech Demo, Ted Talks, Ted, Entertainment, Tedtalks

4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2020

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. Today on the show, Immigrant Rights Advocate
0:08.7	Jose Antonio Vargas. Here's his big idea. What we don't understand about immigration is what we don't
0:15.3	understand about ourselves. In his TED 2020 talk, he shares his personal story about where he came from and what it's
0:22.8	like to immigrate to America to help us think more deeply about who we are and what citizenship
0:28.5	really means.
0:32.5	Four years after arriving in the United States, like any typical 16-year-old, I went to get my driver's permit.
0:40.4	After I showed the clerk my immigration papers, my green card, she told me it was fake.
0:45.9	Don't come back here again, she said.
0:49.2	That's how I found out I was in America illegally, and I'm still here illegally. I'm a journalist and filmmaker. I
0:56.6	live in stories, and what I've learned, that what most people don't understand about immigration
1:03.0	is what they don't understand about themselves. Their families' old migration stories and the
1:09.0	processes they have to go through before green cards and
1:11.7	walls even existed, or what shaped their understanding of citizenship itself. I was born in the
1:18.4	Philippines. When I was 12, my mother sent me to live with her parents, my grandparents, or as we say in
1:23.9	Tagalo, Lolo and Lola. Lolo's name was Tiofilo.
1:29.0	When he legally immigrated to America
1:31.3	and became a natural life citizen,
1:33.5	he changed his name from Thiofilo to Ted
1:36.3	after Ted Danson from the TV show, Cheers.
1:40.0	Can't get any more American than that.
1:42.4	Lolo's favorite song was Frank Sinatra's My Way.
1:46.2	And when it came to figuring out how to get his only grandson, me to America, he decided to do it his way.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.