Alum Jose Antonio Vargas to Speak at Iowa State

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY NEWS SERVICE -- Born in the Philippines, Vargas was 12 when his mother sent him to the U.S. to live with his grandparents. He embraced all things American and watched TV to “cultivate a homegrown accent.” When he was 16, Vargas learned he did not have the proper credentials to be in the U.S. Nevertheless, he excelled in school, graduated from San Francisco State University and became a successful journalist. Vargas has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Daily News, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker. In 2006, he wrote a series on HIV/AIDS in Washington, D.C., that inspired “The Other City,” a documentary he co-produced and wrote. Vargas was part of the Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer for coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.