Come Out at Work: As Undocumented

If you want to change the world, that is.

We’re reminded of the pain and anguish that can be part of revealing your true self at work. While exposing our vulnerabilities often makes us stronger, it can also come with great risk. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas knows first hand, and in the New York Times he recently asked the journalistic questions to himself and published the story of coming out as an undocumented American.

Born in the Philippines, at the age of twelve Vargas was sent by his mother to live in America with relatives.  He earned a merit-based scholarship to California State University San Francisco, and through diligent work–and sometimes illegal means–as a first year student he gained employment at The San Francisco Chronicle. Vargas built on this experience, and procured journalist roles at other preeminent media outlets such as The Philadelphia Daily News, The Huffington Post and The Washington Post.

But his identity as an undocumented immigrant took unsustainable amounts of energy to hide. In the Times, he recounts:

About four months into my job as a reporter for The Post, I began feeling increasingly paranoid, as if I had “illegal immigrant” tattooed on my forehead — and in Washington, of all places, where the debates over immigration seemed never-ending. I was so eager to prove myself that I feared I was annoying some colleagues and editors — and worried that any one of these professional journalists could discover my secret. The anxiety was nearly paralyzing. I decided I had to tell one of the higher-ups about my situation. I turned to Peter.

By this time, Peter, who still works at The Post, had become part of management as the paper’s director of newsroom training and professional development. One afternoon in late October, we walked a couple of blocks to Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Over some 20 minutes, sitting on a bench, I told him everything: the Social Security card, the driver’s license…

Peter was shocked. “I understand you 100 times better now,” he said. He told me that I had done the right thing by telling him, and that it was now our shared problem. He said he didn’t want to do anything about it just yet.

Vargas goes on:

It was an odd sort of dance: I was trying to stand out in a highly competitive newsroom, yet I was terrified that if I stood out too much, I’d invite unwanted scrutiny. I tried to compartmentalize my fears, distract myself by reporting on the lives of other people, but there was no escaping the central conflict in my life. Maintaining a deception for so long distorts your sense of self. You start wondering who you’ve become, and why.

The emotional horror of working in the closet, and yearning to come out–in Vargas’ case, as undocumented–can be debilitating. Getting married might seem to solve the issues he’s facing, yet he’s gay and striving to be true to himself and to the world, so as a means to citizenship it’s not an option. Marriage between gay people remains illegal in most states, and in most countries. Still, the world continues to evolve.

Flash forward to the present, Vargas is working actively with the undocumented immigrant part of himself in order to change the world. He’s founded Define American, an organization established to prompt deeper discussions about what it means to be American; he wants people to explore with him the essential issues of immigration, illegal and otherwise. Watch the group’s inaugural video, in which Vargas describes his plight:

It’s an incredibly personal story, with significant implications on his professional life.

So begins the conversation on the fundamental meaning of citizenship relative to place of birth. How do you expect it to play out in your workplace?

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