Documented

Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in the United States. He would seem the embodiment of the American dream, having made it from young Filipino immigrant to successful professional. But Vargas had a secret, which he shared with the rest of the world in a piece for in 2011: he was an "undocumented" immigrant, a nice way of saying he was in the country illegally. His mother had sent him to the U.S. when he was just 12, hoping he might have a chance at a better future. Vargas established the Define American project and joined the Dreamers, a group fighting for legal recognition of the approximately 11 million U.S. residents who, like Vargas, crossed the border at a young age and made a life for themselves there. Footage of the lectures and other activities the journalist undertakes for the Dreamers combine with memories of his youth and his grandparents, with whom he grew up, musings on what it means to be an American, and footage of his family in the Philippines. For Vargas, legality would facilitate a reunion with his mother; she can't visit him in the States, and without papers he can't leave the U.S., unless it's for good.