Mediaboss Marketing

COLUMBIA Jose Antonio Vargas is calling for major immigration change on a national level, and he's including MU. It's the incremental progressions that really count, he said during his speech Thursday night in Jesse Hall.

The nationally recognized filmmaker and immigration activist has put himself at the forefront of the immigration-reform movement by launching campaigns, speaking to crowds and attending political events. On Thursday, he made his way to Jesse Hall to speak about his journey and what it means to fight his battle.

Vargas came to America when he was 12 years old. He grew up here, went toschool here, attended college here and has worked as a journalist here with nationally recognized publications.

But his life in America was an undocumented one, and that took a toll on him, he said Thursday. So about five years ago, he said he decided to "liberate himself from his own fears."

"Against the advice of about 27 lawyers, I wrote in journalistic detail everything I had to do to stay here in this country as an undocumented immigrant," he said. "And then I waited."

"I heard from Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly but nothing from the government."

Vargas said he knows his public declaration was a taunt: "Come and get me." But so far, no one has.

"I spent my entire 20s and teenage years being so scared of this government," he said. "Now I find that maybe they're even more scared of me than I am of them."

That fear Vargas talked about is what he said drove his decision to stop living under the burden of his own identity and to create an unavoidable obstacle in the way of America's immigration avoidance.

Vargas said he's forcing difficult conversations about immigration and revealing that undocumented Americans are within the country and a part of it.

"More than ever, we need you to be allies," Vargas told the crowd.

"If we don't acknowledge that respect is not something that is happening here on our campus on a daily basis, we cannot get past that," Head said. "There are so many students, like myself, who are uncomfortable on this campus every single day."

"Those of us with privilege have to speak up," Head said.

In bridging the conversations about immigration and racism, both Head and Vargas said people must engage outsiders in the conversation or nothing will ever change Americans must preach beyond the choir.

Original post:
Immigration reform activist Vargas calls for allies at MU ...