Jose Antonio Vargas, who has said he is the “most privileged” illegal immigrant in America, may get an Oscar nomination and is reportedly working on a new film about “whiteness.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Vargas’s film, Documented, which chronicles his experiences as an illegal immigrant in the United States and has been promoted by the likes of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to push for amnesty legislation, could “factor into this year’s Oscar race.”
Vargas came out as an illegal immigrant in the New York Times Magazine in 2011 after having won a Pulitzer Prize while at the Washington Post. In 2012, he appeared on the cover of Time with other illegal immigrants. This year, he was briefly detained in McAllen, Texas before being released with a “notice to appear.”
Vargas’s next film will reportedly “tackle quote-unquote ‘whiteness’ in America–what it means to be young and white in post-Obama America.”
“We’re gonna start filming this fall. I’m doing it for a network–I can’t say which one yet. I always get asked where I’m from, so I’m gonna turn the tables around and ask, ‘Where are you from?’ White is not a country,” he told the outlet.
He also revealed that George W. Bush’s White House did not check his immigration status when he covered a 2005 state dinner at the House. He said, “when I gave them my Social Security number–because you have to give your Social Security number when you go to the White House–I was sure somebody was gonna check.”