The filmmaker attends a Mitt Romney presidential campaign rally in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
In a statement published on documentedthefilm.com, Vargas said: “Every day, an estimated 1,100 immigrants are deported. The US government has deported nearly 2 million immigrants in five years—a record. But not me. I am privileged to still be in America, my home, and privileged to put Documented on the screen. To me, politics is culture. I became a journalist, and later, a filmmaker, to get to know my adoptive country and my volatile place in it as a gay, undocumented, Filipino American. As a newcomer to America who learned to ‘speak American’ by watching movies, I firmly believe that to change the politics of immigration and citizenship, we must change culture—the way we portray undocumented people like me and our role in society.