Speakers Forum presents Jose Antonio Vargas

The Fresno City College Speakers Forum presents Jose Antonio Vargas on Wednesday, April 10 at 11 am in the Old Administration Building Auditorium. A leading voice for the human rights of immigrants, he will recount his compelling story of being an undocumented youth growing up in the United States to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Admission is free.  A book signing will follow in the OAB West Courtyard.

Vargas was born in the Philippines and came to the United States when he was twelve. He revealed his status in 2011 in a groundbreaking essay published by the New York Times Magazine.  He chronicled his experience in the best-selling memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.  His second book, White Is Not a Country, will be published this year.

In 2007, he was part of the Washington Post team covering the shootings at Virginia Tech, whose work earned a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. Among his accolades, he has been nominated for an Emmy Award and a Tony award as a producer for television and the stage, respectively.

A product of the San Francisco Bay Area, he is a proud graduate of San Francisco State University ('04), where he was named Alumnus of the Year in 2012, and Mountain View High School ('00). An elementary school named after Vargas opened in his hometown of Mountain View, California in August 2019.

Vargas serves on the advisory board of TheDream.US, a scholarship fund for undocumented immigrant students; and, in 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed him to the Board of Trustees of California State University.

This event is sponsored by Building Healthy Communities.