You have to stand for something bigger than yourself.

Like other undocumented people in this country, I want a green card, and I want a driver's license, and I want a passport. What, to me, is the immigration bill? It's a green card, a driver's license, and a passport. That's what it's about to me, tangibly. That I could see my mom. That I could drive. Is there anything more American than driving? That I could get a green card and be able to - right now, I'm just like freelancing and working as an independent contractor. It's hilarious. I'm unhirable.

I have no control over what people call me. The only thing I have control over is my work, and that's really all I can be judged on.

We're talking about America - a country that's been built on the back of cheap labor. That's addicted to cheap labor. Talk to the Chinese and Irish who built the railroads. Talk to the black people who built the South. So what is the US-Mexico conversation really about?

A broken immigration system means broken families means broken lives. That's what is at stake.

One of the things I had to really wrap my head around is I have no control over what people call me: advocate, activist, gay, Filipino, undocumented person, gay person with an Asian face and Latino name.

There's always to me a universality - one of the things I learned early on as a journalist and a writer is that there's a universality in specifics. The more specific you get, the more universal it can be.