“Help us tell America’s story.” With those five words, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas sums up what he hopes to accomplish with Emerging Us, a new digital media platform. Vargas, who is an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines, has set up a Beacon Reader page to raise money for this ambitious project, which he is creating in collaboration with the Los Angeles Times.
“In the next 50 years, immigrants and their descendants, largely Latinos and Asians, will make up 88 percent of U.S. population growth,” the Beacon Reader page reads. “…But the public space where we tell our stories – the media – isn’t keeping up. The coverage we see about race, immigration, and identity only begins to answer the question of who we are as a nation.”
As those who have normally been in the margins move to the mainstream, Emerging Us wants to be there to capture it all. So far, Vargas has raised $80,000 – eight percent of the total goal – and there are still more than 50 days left. Check out the trailer above, and donate here.