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

An undocumented immigrants journey from a New York City homeless shelter to the top of his Princeton class Dan-el Padilla Peralta has lived the American dream. As a boy he came here legally with his family. Together they left Santo Domingo behind but life in New York City was harder than they imagined. Their visas lapsed and Dan-els father returned home. But Dan-els courageous mother was determined to make a better life for her bright sons. Without papers she faced tremendous obstacles. While Dan-el was only in grade school the family joined the ranks of the citys homeless. Dan-el his mother and brother lived in a downtown shelter where Dan-els only refuge was the meager library. There he met Jeff a young volunteer from a wealthy family. Jeff was immediately struck by Dan-els passion for books and learning. With Jeffs help Dan-el was accepted on scholarship to Collegiate the oldest private school in the country. There Dan-el thrived. Throughout his youth Dan-el navigated these 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 could immerse himself in a world of books and where he soon rose to the top of his class. From Collegiate Dan-el went to Princeton where he thrived and 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 salutatorians traditional address in Latin at his commencement. Undocumented is a classic story of the triumph of the human spirit. It also is the perfect cri de coeur for the debate on comprehensive immigration reform. Praise for Undocumented Dan-el Padilla Peraltas 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 mothers discipline and care he documents the America we should still aspire to be. Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter President of the New America Foundation