Above: Photo shows, from left: Jose Antonio Vargas; Sarahi Uribe, ACLU-NCA Board member, and ACLU-NCA President John Wimberly, Jr. Photo by Bing Cardenas Branigin

Photo shows, from left: Jose Antonio Vargas; Sarahi Uribe, ACLU-NCA Board member, and ACLU-NCA President John Wimberly, Jr. Photo by Bing Cardenas Branigin

Vargas Receives 2012 ACLU Edgerton Award

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas was chosen as the recipient of the 2012 Edgerton Award by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of the Nation’s Capital (ACLU-FNC). He received the award last April 16 during the 50th Anniversary of the Bill of Rights in Washington, D.C.

Vargas is the founder of “Define American,” which seeks to elevate the conversation on immigration. He has been a journalist for over a decade. While at the Washington Post, he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech.

Born in the Philippines, he came to the United States at age 12. Vargas wrote the groundbreaking essay, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,” for the New York Magazine in the summer of 2011.