Jose Antonio Vargas in conversation with Jerome Reyes

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Screening Room
November 29, 2018

This featured project is part of the larger Abeyance Public Art Commission for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

This full conversation combines an artist talk of the Abeyance billboard, which uses a quote from a New York Times article written in 2011 by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, where he remembers the parting words of his mother, Emilie Salinas, uttered in Tagalog, as he left the Philippines at age twelve to begin a life in the United States—an undocumented immigrant in search of what his mother hoped would be a better life.

Vargas reflects on his 2018 book Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, as Vargas joins Reyes for their first on-stage conversation together. This charged dialogue spans thoughts on migration, race, documentation, and ultimately a new, hopeful language needed in America. With insightful, reflective, and entertaining moments, the conversation ends with audience Q&A.

https://ybca.org/whats-on/vargas-reyes

Full HD Video Conversation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVo3UswULnY&feature=youtu.be