The film 'Documented,' a project of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Define American campaign, is about my families: the family I was blessed to be born into, and the family of friends, mentors and allies that I found when I moved to the United States at 12, a Filipino kid trying to make sense of my new home in America.
As you watch 'Documented' on CNN, I ask you, my fellow Americans: What do you want to do with me? What do you want to do with us? How do you define American?
When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people.
All I've ever done since I was 17 is tell stories. You know, I'm a storyteller. And that's what I'm going to keep on doing, especially now, kind of embracing and making sure that we tell immigration.
Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print - writing in English, interviewing Americans - validated my presence here.
There were many factors as to why I decided to come out as being undocumented. One of them is because I look the way that I look; I don't look like the 'stereotypical undocumented' person.
People don't really assume that I'm Filipino. Of course, they're gonna think, 'Oh, are you some sort of Hispanic?' and you say, 'No, I'm actually not.' I get Korean or Chinese a lot.
I found out that I was illegal when I was 16. I'm gay. I'm Filipino.
I'm a journalist, and I'm a filmmaker. I have an organization that's all about telling stories.
To me, politics is culture. I became a journalist, and later a filmmaker, to get to know my new country and my volatile place in it as a gay, undocumented Filipino-American.
Technology and the Internet are not just changing politics here in the U.S. It's also happening abroad. In the Philippines, where I grew up, grassroots organizers used text messaging to help overthrow a president.
For decades, I have cringed whenever someone called me 'illegal,' as if I'm an insect on someone's back. I found out I didn't have the right papers - that I was here illegally - when I tried to get a driver's permit at age 16. But I am not 'illegal.' No person is.
I wasn't supposed to be walking with Mark Zuckerberg. I wasn't supposed to be interviewing Romney's sons. Why was I doing it? Because I wanted to survive. I wanted to live. I wanted to earn what it means to be an American.
I'm more than willing to go to places and talk to people who believe that I am an illegal alien who deserves to be jailed. I want to look them in the eye and say, 'What makes you think I'm any different from you?' I think for our generation, immigration rights is a civil rights issue.
While in high school, I worked part time at Subway, then at the front desk of the local YMCA, then at a tennis club, until I landed an unpaid internship at 'The Mountain View Voice,' my hometown newspaper.
Film in many ways is very literal.
I have no control whatsoever on how people perceive me from the Right or the Left. All I have control over is who I say I am.
As I graduated from public schools and started working in newsrooms, I told myself that I am only the 'illegal' that my own country has not bothered to get to know.
I can't marry my way into citizenship like straight people can. I can get married in the state of New York where I live, but because of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government, which hands out visas, won't recognize my marriage.
When it comes to fighting for citizenship that many people take for granted, there isn't anyone I would not talk to. When it comes to immigration, there isn't any question I will not answer.
