Film in many ways is very literal.

I am more than an immigration activist.

I think everyone deserves dignity.

It’s less about coming out and more about letting people in. I learned that you come out to let people in. The reality is that the closet doesn’t only hide you from strangers, the closet also hides you from people you love.

A friend said to me I’m like a walking New Yorker article. It’s true! That’s how I write. That’s how I think.

I’m not a politician. I’m not a policy wonk. I was a political reporter, but that’s not really what turns me on. What turns me on is how people perceive the issue and how people see people like me.

I grew up in newsrooms. I’ve been in newsrooms since I was 17 years old. Journalism has been like my church; it’s been like my identity.

I came to the realization that I refuse to let a presidency scare me from my own country. I refuse to live a life of fear defined by a government that doesn’t even know why it fears what it fears. Because I am not a citizen by law or by birth, I’ve had to create and hold on to a different kind of citizenship... Citizenship is showing up. Citizenship is using your voice while making sure you hear other people around you. Citizenship is how you live your life.

What would you have done? Work under the table? Stay under the radar? Not work at all? Which box would you check? What have you done to earn your box? Besides being born at a certain place in a certain time, did you have to do anything? Anything at all? If you wanted to have a career, if you wanted to have a life, if you wanted to exist as a human being, what would you have done?

For Filipino Americans, it’s a battle for recognition, for identity in a culture where, for the mainstream, Asians tend to fade into a monochromatic racialized ‘other.’