Date:
Tuesday, February 6, 2018, 5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location:
Longfellow Hall, Graduate School of Education
Title: "Immigration, Activism, and DACA: An Evening Presented with Askwith Forums."
Speaker: Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; founder and CEO, Define American
Moderator: Joy-Ann Reid, political analyst and host of “AM Joy,” MSNBC
Introduction: Roberto G. Gonzales, professor of education, HGSE
Moderator: Joy-Ann Reid, political analyst and host of “AM Joy,” MSNBC
Introduction: Roberto G. Gonzales, professor of education, HGSE
On September 5, 2017, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Obama policy that shielded nearly 800,000 young people from deportation. In light of DACA’s termination and new concerns over immigration policy, Professor Gonzales will kick off a multi-week series on DACA, immigration reform, and community responses to restrictionist policies. Reid will interview Vargas about the politics and policies of immigration, the termination of DACA, and the meaning of American in this current political moment.
Presented in conjunction with:
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Askwith Forum, a series of public lectures at the Harvard Graduate School of Education featuring a wide range of topics, initiated by faculty, students, and alumni that aim to address the highest-priority challenges facing education
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Define American, a nonprofit media and culture organization that uses the power of story to transcend politics and shift the conversation about immigrants, identity, and citizenship in a changing America
Please note that seating is on a first come, first seated basis.
All DACA Seminar events are Free and Open to the Public, No registration is required
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All DACA Seminar events are Free and Open to the Public, No registration is required
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About Jose Antonio Vargas:
Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker, and media entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Define American, the nation’s leading non-profit media advocacy organization that uses storytelling to humanize the conversation around immigration, citizenship, and identity in a changing America. He also founded #EmergingUS, a production company that focuses on race, immigration, and the emerging American identity. As a creator and curator of stories, he produces the annual Define American Film Festival, a traveling event that showcases content and conversations focused on America’s changing demographics.
In June 2011, the New York Times Magazine published a groundbreaking essay he wrote in which he revealed and chronicled his life in America as an undocumented immigrant. A year later, he appeared on the cover of TIME magazine worldwide with fellow undocumented immigrants as part of a follow-up cover story he wrote. He then produced and directed Documented, a documentary feature film on his undocumented experience. It world premiered at the AFI Docs film festival in Washington, D.C. in 2013, was released theatrically and broadcast on CNN in 2014, and received a 2015 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Documentary. Documented is now available on various digital platforms.
In July 2015, MTV aired, as part of its “Look Different” campaign, White People, an Emmy-nominated television special he produced and directed on what it means to be young and white in contemporary America.
The media’s evolution and the rise of the digital era has guided his career. He has written for daily newspapers (Philadelphia Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle) and national magazines (Rolling Stone, The New Yorker), and was a senior contributing editor at the Huffington Post, where he launched the Technology and College sections. Prior to that, he covered tech and video game culture, HIV/AIDS in the nation’s capital, and the 2008 presidential campaign for the Washington Post, and was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the Virginia Tech massacre. In 2007, Politico named him one of 50 Politicos to Watch. His 2006 series on HIV/AIDS in Washington, D.C. inspired a documentary feature film, The Other City, which he co-produced and wrote. It world premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and aired on Showtime. He has appeared on an array of television programs, including: Good Morning America, Real Time with Bill Maher, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Univision’s Aqui y Ahora, and the Filipino Channel’s Balitang America.
Among accolades he has received are: The Salem Award from the Salem Award Foundation, which draws upon the lessons of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692; the Freedom to Write Award from PEN Center USA; and honorary degrees from Colby College and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Passionate about the role of arts in society and promoting equity in education, Vargas is a member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee, and serves on the advisory board of TheDream.US, a scholarship fund for undocumented immigrant students.
He is a very proud graduate of San Francisco State University (‘04), where he was named Alumnus of the Year in 2012, and Mountain View High School (‘00).
About Joy-Ann Reid:
Joy-Ann Reid is a political analyst for MSNBC and host of “AM Joy,” which airs Saturdays and Sundays from 10 A.M. ET to noon ET. She is also the author of the book “Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons and the Racial Divide” (William Morrow/Harper Collins 2015), co-editor of “We Are The Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama” (Bloomsbury USA), and a columnist at The Daily Beast.
Reid was previously the host of “The Reid Report,” a daily program that offered Reid’s distinctive analysis and insight on the day’s news. Before that, Reid was the Managing Editor of theGrio.com, a daily online news and opinion platform devoted to delivering stories and perspectives that reflect and affect African-American audiences. Reid joined theGrio.com with experience as a freelance columnist for the Miami Herald and as editor of the political blog The Reid Report. She is a former talk radio producer and host for Radio One, and previously served as an online news editor for the NBC affiliate WTVJ in Miramar, FL.
During the 2004 presidential campaign, Reid served as the Florida deputy communications director for the 527 “America Coming Together” initiative, and was a press aide in the final stretch of President Barack Obama’s Florida campaign in 2008. Reid’s columns and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, New York magazine, The Guardian, the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, South Florida Times and Salon.com.Reid graduated from Harvard University in 1991 with a concentration in film, and is a 2003 Knight Center for Specialized Journalism fellow. She currently resides in Brooklyn with her husband and family. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @JoyAnnReid and “like” her on Facebook at Joy Reid Official.