Jose Antonio Vargas reflects on the meaning of Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous speech 50 years ago, connecting it to the civil rights struggles of African Americans and to the dreams of undocumented immigrants today. For him and thousands like him “Immigrant rights are civil rights. The struggle continues. The dreams — and DREAMers — live on.”
Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Founder of Define American. He was sent to the United States as a child from the Philippines when he was only 12-years-old and learned about his undocumented status when he tried to get his driver’s license at the age of 16. Having lived and worked in the US for 20 years, he considers the United States his home.
Vargas became an immigration reform activist after openly writing about his undocumented status in 2011 New York Times Magazine essay.
Here is an excerpt from his blog, published by kind permission of Define American. He describes his dreams today.
‘I Have A Dream’: An Undocumented Immigrant Version, 28 August 2013 | Jose Antonio Vargas
Surely all Americans are thinking of Dr. King’s 1,670-word speech today, and creating their own versions. As one of our country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants — many of us Americans in all but paper — here is mine.