Review of “Documented,” Jose Antonio Vargas’ Documentary

Documented is an absolutely gripping story of a thoroughly American experience, depicting family hardships, individual struggle and what it means to truly be “American.” Jose shares his story of growing up in the Fillipines, coming to the U.S. at 12, finding his place as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and, ultimately, as a man whose very existence challenges our ideas about undocumented immigrants and the system he is trapped in.

From the grandparents who raised him, to the teachers and community members who all but adopted him, to the mother he hasn’t been able to see in 18 years because of our current broken immigration system, “Undocumented” is an at times painfully honest and open look at the everyday tragedies of our immigration laws, and begs the audience to ask themselves to “define American.”