Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Vargas reveals he’s an undocumented immigrant

Jose Antonio Vargas, who wrote for the Washington Post and shared a Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings, came out as an undocumented immigrant in a New York Times Magazine story that went live this morning.

He came to the United States from the Philippines when he was 12, and was raised in Mountain View, Calif., with his grandparents. Vargas did not know he was an undocumented immigrant until he was 16 and rode his bike to the D.M.V. to try to get his learner’s permit and his green card was rejected.

He decided to write the story after hearing the stories of undocumented students lobbying for the passage of the DREAM Act. The story is worth reading in full.

Here’s Vargas telling his story at Define American: