Undocumented Americans urged to open up and tell their stories online

Jose Antionio Vargas, seated in front, and some of the participants who told their stories to Define American. 

JUST IN TIME for the July 4th weekend when Americans will celebrate our nation's birthday, Jose Antonio Vargas, perhaps one of the best well-known undocumented Americans, is calling for all of the undocumented, their friends and families to tell their stories - borrowing the parlance of the LGBT community - to come out.

In an unprecedented national effort to improve the perception of undocumented immigrants, Define American launched its Coming Out campaign yesterday - calling on undocumented immigrants to empower themselves by publicly announcing their immigration status to friends, family and their communities.

Define American is a media and culture campaign using the power of story to transcend politics and shift conversation around immigration, identity, and citizenship in America.

Whatever your background or beliefs, the campaign is about asking how we define what it means to be American, and elevating the conversation about how we engage as citizens, says Vargas, who came to the United States from the Philippines when he was 12-years old.

To start, the conversation is about immigration.

Our immigration system is broken, and fixing it requires a conversation that's bigger and more effective than the one that we've become accustomed to.

"I've come out twice in my life - first, as a teenager, to tell my classmates that I am gay; second, as an adult, to tell the country I grew up in that I am an undocumented American. While both risky in their own ways, each resulted in a kind of personal liberation that changed the perceptions of my friends, co-workers, and those close to me. We ‘come out’ to let people in,” said Vargas, Define American founder and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

On the heels of last week’s landmark ruling on marriage equality, the campaign draws inspiration from Harvey Milk’s call on closeted LGBT Americans to come out, as well as the courageous coming out of undocumented youth (also known as DREAMers) across the country in the past few years. The effort aims to empower undocumented Americans by joining a broad online community and owning their immigration stories. 

The campaign will be centered around an innovative online platform that gives those coming out the opportunity to record their personal story and share it through Define American’s website. For those concerned about the risks of coming out, the site includes legal resources provided by the National Immigration Law Center. 

In addition to the storytelling tool, Define American has created a video featuring undocumented Americans of diverse ages and ethnic backgrounds declaring their immigration status publicly.

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Define American is a media and culture campaign using the power of story to transcend politics and shift conversation around immigration, identity, and citizenship in America.

Whatever your background or beliefs, our campaign is about asking how we define what it means to be American, and elevating the conversation about how we engage as citizens.

To start, the conversation is about immigration.

Our immigration system is broken, and fixing it requires a conversation that's bigger and more effective than the one that we've become accustomed to.

Learn more about the Define American team.
The request from Define American is simple: Let's talk

For more stories, click here.

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