Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless

Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League

An undocumented immigrantâ€™s journey from a New York City homeless shelter to the top of his Princeton class
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Dan-el Padilla Peralta has lived the American dream. As a boy, he arrived in the United States legally with his family. Together they had traveled from Santo Domingo to seek medical care for his mother. Soon the familyâ€™s visas lapsed, and Dan-elâ€™s father eventually returned home. But Dan-elâ€™s courageous mother decided to stay and make a better life for her bright sons in New York City.
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Without papers, she faced tremendous obstacles. While Dan-el was only in grade school, the family joined the ranks of the cityâ€™s homeless. Dan-el, his mother, and brother lived in a downtown shelter where Dan-elâ€™s only refuge was the meager library. At another shelter he met Jeff, a young volunteer from a wealthy family. Jeff was immediately struck by Dan-elâ€™s passion for books and learning. With Jeffâ€™s help, Dan-el was accepted on scholarship to Collegiate, the oldest private school in the country.
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There, Dan-el thrived. Throughout his youth, Dan-el navigated two worlds: the rough streets of East Harlem, where he lived with his brother and his mother and tried to make friends, and the ultra-elite halls of a Manhattan private school, where he immersed himself in a world of books and rose to the top of his class.
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From Collegiate, Dan-el went on to Princeton, where he made the momentous decision to come out as an undocumented student in a Wall Street Journal profile a few months before he gave the salutatorianâ€™s traditional address in Latin at his commencement.
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Undocumented is essential reading for the debate on immigration, but it is also an unforgettable tale of a passionate young scholar coming of age in two very different worlds.
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Praise for Undocumented:
â€œUndocumented is an impassioned counterargument to those who feel, as did some of Peraltaâ€™s more xenophobic classmates, that â€˜illegalsâ€™ are good-for-nothings who take jobs from Americans and deserve to be kicked out of the country. No one who reads this story of a brilliant young man and his proud mother will automatically equate undocumented immigrant with idle parasite. That stereotype is something else we shouldnâ€™t take for granted.â€ â€”Minneapolis Star-Tribune

â€œDan-el Padilla Peraltaâ€™s story is as compulsively readable as a novel, an all-American tall tale that just happens to be true. From homeless shelter to Princeton, Oxford, and Stanford, through the grace not only of his own hard work but his motherâ€™s discipline and care, he documents the America we should still aspire to be.â€ â€”Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, President of the New America Foundation
Country USA
Brand Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer Penguin Books
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber Illustrated
Color Tan
ReleaseDate 2016-06-07
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9780143109334

Country	USA
Brand	Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer	Penguin Books
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	Illustrated
Color	Tan
ReleaseDate	2016-06-07
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9780143109334

Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League

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