Defining American

I am a 42-year-old man. I am a proud father of Adrian, a 13-year-old boy who is the light of my life. I am a husband. I am a communicator, a former journalist, an immigrant and a proud American.  That’s how I define myself.

My day on Wednesday, June 22 began with viewing a You Tube video where Jose Antonio Vargas, a 30-year-old, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist came out as an undocumented immigrant. He challenged all of us to answer the question, What is an American? 

As I watched the video I listened to the vivid details of Jose’s story. I listened to Jose tell the world how at the tender age of 12, almost Adrian’s age, he was put on a plane in the Philippines by his mom, headed to the United States.  I heard him talk about making a life in the United States and working extremely hard to make his dreams come true. I listened to him tell us all about going from newsroom to newsroom and getting to The Washington Post. 

As Jose’s story continued,  I found myself wiping away tears that were rolling non-stop down my cheeks.  I found myself connecting to Jose’s story.  I will never know what it must be like to be an undocumented immigrant, to wonder every day whether it will be the last in this country. I do however know many people in a similar situation as that of Jose.  Some are laborers, some are students. They are people from all walks of life that still stop me on the street to tell me their stories, like they did when I anchored for Univision.

They are the lady that was scammed by an immigration consultant, who promised to help her get “her papers” and did nothing other than steal thousands of dollars from her.  They are a young man that I once played soccer with, who told me how he had to leave his country because he had to join his father and come to the U.S. to work and send money back home to help the family.  They are the 15- and 16-year-old girls working in the agricultural fields of the Central Valley that I talked to for a documentary about the realities farmworkers face.

Jose’s story made me and many of my friends cry because we understand the injustice of our immigration laws. We cried because we know that our friends in church, at the soccer field and in our children’s schools are Americans—even if they don’t have the “proper documents” to certify them as such.  America is about our values, and I define most of the people I have met in my life in this country that have shared with me their status as undocumented immigrants as hard-working, God-fearing Americans.

Please visit www.DefineAmerican.com for more information about Jose’s story and his efforts to support the Dream Act and comprehensive immigration reform.

Pablo Espinoza is an Elk Grove resident since 1998. He was born in Ecuador and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He spent 15 years as a broadcast journalist in Texas and California and is currently a media consultant for the California state legislature.