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

by Dan-el Padilla Peralta

An undocumented immigrant’s journey from a New York City homeless shelter to the top of his Princeton classDan-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-el’s father returned home. But Dan-el’s 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 city’s homeless. Dan-el, his mother, and brother lived in a downtown shelter where Dan-el’s only refuge was the meager library. There he met Jeff, a young volunteer from a wealthy family. Jeff was immediately struck by Dan-el’s passion for books and learning. With Jeff’s 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 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 salutatorian’s 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 Peralta’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 mother’s discipline and care, he documents the America we should still aspire to be.” —Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, President of the New America Foundation

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Education, Race, Biography Memoir, Politics

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 28, 2015

About the author

Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a Princeton University professor and Columbia University Fellow, came to the United States from the Dominican Republic with his family in 1989. In his memoir, Undocumented, and in his lectures, Peralta chronicles his journey from the rough streets of New York City to the top of his class at Princeton, offering an honest and inspiring glimpse of the American immigrant experience.

Reviews

[Shawna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came away from this book questioning if the author yet possessed the maturity and distance to fully explore the complexities of his situation. It seems to me that he was raised like a veal once his intellect was discovered, and spent his boyhood and early adulthood, studying every moment of the day. This was completely his story, and it never delved deeper into any kind of universality of greater immigration issues, in my opinion.

One of my issues was that this kid never acknowledged that while he couldn't do things like junior year abroad because of his immigration status there are still millions who can't even go to college because they can't afford it. Price or debt never seems to factor into any of his considerations.

Frankly, I found myself bored and skimming chapters as he discussed his coursework and choosing classes and so forth. (Yes, I've been to college too, I know how that works.) There wasn't a lot of tension and injustice to stoke my outrage. He has friends that go to bat for him at every turn.

One element that surprised me, upon leaving the homeless shelter, his mother was allowed to browse for a low-income apartment, I thought that was pretty generous of the city, I didn't know someone in that situation got to shop around.

Another telling little detail -- his friend the priest paid off his shoplifting debt and let it go without telling his mother, and he never repaid him. He couldn't have used a little of that generous stipend money received?

Overall a bit dull and self-centered. And as smart as he obviously is, he came off as immature.

[Raquel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of Undocumented from the publisher via the Goodreads First Reads program.

When I saw the listing for this book I knew immediately I had to read it. I'm first generation American with immigrant parents. My mother is from the Dominican Republic. Nothing about my upbringing paved the way for my academic career except for my own natural curiosity, love of learning and literature and drive. So I was really curious to read about Dan-el Padilla Peralta whose upbringing was a lot more complicated and difficult than my own. Reading about how Dan-el made it to the Ivy League with sheer determination and some luck was really inspiring. He encountered many problems related to his status as an illegal immigrant as well as his poor financial situation. However this never stopped him from his dream of doing well in school, studying the classics and making it all the way to Princeton and beyond.

There were many things I liked about this book. It's very timely considering the recent conversation about immigration and what immigrants contribute to American society and the economy. Dan-el is a fine example of how living in the US provides much more opportunities for academic success. I put Dan-el Padilla Peralta up there with Junot Diaz as examples of the intellectual potential of Dominicans. We are often relegated to being recognized solely for our baseball skills.

I would have given the book 5 stars except for a couple of things. I couldn't connect with the author. He was born with a talent for academics and he had a lot of help along the way from good friends and mentors. I didn't have any natural talent or help whatsoever. This is not the author's fault but just my personal reaction. This is not to say the author's journey was easy. He had to work very hard to get to where he was and his story is very admirable because of that.

The cover is a poor choice and the book is a first-person memoir yet they chose a third-person subtitle for the book. Penguin, the publisher, should know better! I also was really confused at who the intended audience was. The author uses relatively simple language as well as lots of Dominican and street slang throughout the text. After I finished the book I re-read the letter at the beginning of the book to see if I missed some insight into the purpose of the book but it read more like a summary of his story.

I did give the book four stars because it was a very enjoyable read, I loved rooting for the author as I learned more about his journey and I think the book is incredibly important and timely. People need to read about the immigrant experience and they need to see that there is potential beyond what people relegate to immigrants. This book would be great for book groups who want to sit down and talk about immigration in America.

I read a galley of the book so it is not the final edited text that will be published. I hope the publisher will encourage the author to re-write his letter to the reader that appears in the front of the book. And maybe they'll change the cover when they put the book in paperback!

[Tonya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Undocumented is the autobiography of Dan-el Padilla Peralta beginning with his legal arrival in the United States with his family, through homelessness, prep schools, graduation from Princeton, and post-graduate studies at Oxford. It is the story of choices. Choices of Dan-el's parents to immigrate to America legally knowing that this country would offer the best future. Choices to birth a child in the United States for the purpose of receiving anchor baby benefits and entering the welfare system. Choices of his parents to separate and for Dan-el's mother to remain in the United States illegally after their work visa lapsed.

Choices have consequences, and Dan-el struggled with the consequence of being illegal and "paperless" from his primary to his post-graduate education. His choice to work hard at his studies, along with the fortuitous help of many people and the scholarships he received, propelled him along an impressive academic path.

While the book is well-written and Dan-el's story is noteworthy, there was a pervasive mindset of entitlement from his mother and himself which made the book a bit of a slog to read.

In addition, as his intellect rocketed upward, his character, unfortunately, did not. His attitude toward and discussion of women with his fellow scholars did not mature and was a source of disappointment as a reader.

It was also disappointing to realize that after all the educational and cultural opportunities afforded him in the United States, his attitude toward those whose opinions differed on immigration was, "I could bang hard on how shortsighted it was of my old roommate to get suckered into this niggerizing discourse about undocumented immigrants. Good-for-nothing, lazy, take-shit-from-the-hard-working-American coloreds: How deaf are you if you can't hear the whispers of 'Nigger nigger nigger!' in the background." And also a final word at the end of the book "to all the haters." It is regrettable that, despite his educational accomplishments, he cannot accept that an opposing viewpoint on immigration does not equal hate or the "n" word.

Dan'el's academic trajectory was achievable because he lived his educational years in the United States. Yet, he seems oddly indifferent to an honest examination of what is it about the United States that makes his amazing story possible. Several principles and/or systems come to mind: adherence to a rule of law that allows citizens to live freely, pursue their dreams, and retain their private property; the taxation of 1/2 of the population for redistribution in the form of entitlements; the remaining vestiges of a free-market economic system that continues to support families, business, and government; and a mindset of charity of both time and money to help those in greater need. Without these (and more), Dan-el's story cannot happen, which is why his parents chose to come to the United States instead of Mexico or Brazil, or any of a hundred other countries.

So, I wonder when Dan-el ends the book with this paragraph: "Immigrant brothers and sisters: Of course, people will yell at you that America is not yours. That you have no stake in American, no place in America, no right to belong in America. You must not let them get off lightly with saying that. You must argue, remonstrate, shout back that your hands and feet and minds are as much a part of America as theirs are. Together we must fight to ensure that America remains not the dream of the chauvinistically minded few but the fulfillment of hopes for many. We are the ascendant. America is ours, and we must not concede otherwise." I wonder what laws I could break and raise my fist and shout a paragraph like this. To what country could I immigrate, flaunt the rule of law, and not be held accountable? Because, as a citizen of the United States, if I break the law, I am held accountable. I will suffer the consequences.

Intelligence does not equal wisdom, and an accumulation of birthdays does not guarantee maturity.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really fascinating story. It reads a little too much like a love letter to Collegiate and Princeton though.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Padilla Peralta is an amazing success story. Brought to NYC on a tourist visa so his mother can get medical care, he, his mother, and infant brother born here, overstay their visa putting them immediately into undocumented status. His father choses not to stay in NY and returns to Santo Domingo. They quickly fall into poverty and eventually end up in a homeless shelter for a time. Dan-el, whose story this is, is a gifted boy who loves reading about ancient Rome and Greece. He wins scholarships to one private school and then another which is very elite. He goes on to an Ivy League college majoring in Classics.

I really enjoyed the Dominicanismos (phrases and words) in the book, most of which aren't translated. Dan-El never forgets he's Dominican, but above all he feels he's a New Yorker. His story provides insights into the many obstacles undocumented youth face. They can't legally work or even travel out of state without ID. They are not eligible for any federal aid including work study when they go to college. And there are very very few ways to regularize your status if you are "out of status" as Dan-El was.

Something to to keep in mind was Dan-El's parents were educated, middle class professionals. If they hadn't been, they wouldn't have gotten visas to the US. His mother pushed to get her sons excellent educations, and they excelled. His parents provided him with one step up that set him on his way.

The audiobook is effectively read by the author. I recommend this book for anyone interested in the situation of undocumented students.

[Kit · Rating 2 out of 5]

He wasn't particularly eloquent. For a BA from the Ivy League I expected to be persuaded more. I was more pro-immigration reform prior to reading this.

I've become more ambivalent about the issue than I should be after reading a memoir of someone who went through it. His Dad went home. His Mom just decided to break the law.

I know he says that undocumented workers contribute to society. I believe it in most cases, but not their's. His mom took a spot. She lived off welfare. I hope that she switched to working for the Catholic Church eventually (and illegally). But that wait list that they complained about...those citizens that they bumped and would have benefited from the help...every complaint she had on behalf of her children disgusted me. That scholarship to a prestigious private school...that's a spot taken up that could have gone to the child of a poor mother and father who didn't break the law. That nearly full ride to Princeton, that could have gone to someone equally qualified.

It's hard to read with empathy. I would fully empathize with a refugee, or someone who was human trafficked here and abandoned. I would empathize with someone who was trying to get back to their country but was prevented through war, poverty, etc.

But someone who we were compassionate enough to let in to get necessary medical care then just essentially skipped the immigration line, and her amazingly talented children...it's hard to feel much empathy. It makes me worry that the 'fix' from less compassionate people would be to prevent visitors from coming here to receive quality medical care.

It's easy to pity the 8 yr old, but not the since grown adult who can't see that he has taken some of the best opportunities away from other equally qualified kids, and who doesn't seem to see how hard legal immigrants and native born people had to work.

I do feel somewhat guilty for this opinion, but I can't seem to shake it. I don't think the immigration movement should use him as a spokesperson, yet. As a taxpaying member of this society, I hold the right to change my opinion of disappointment to gratitude if he ever actually does anything that enriches our society. Then I'll probably take it back. But here's a kid who's living my dream. Perpetual school...people believing in him at just the right moments to motivate him to develop his skills.

As it stands this memoir is an example of how someone might jump the line, and a reader whose against immigration reform would propose tighter control of government funding.

Was it always intended that illegal citizens would be given welfare because their kids were born here? I wouldn't want them to starve. But she's the one that put them in the position to starve here and I'm disappointed in her for doing it.

Sorry reader. I'm not happy with the above sentiment, either.

[Bri (readingknitter) · Rating 4 out of 5]

For more, check out http://girlwithabookblog.wordpress.com!

Undocumented is a fantastic memoir that depicts one person’s journey as an undocumented person living in America. When Dan-El Padilla Peralta is a young child, he moved to New York from the Dominican Republic with his family. His family didn’t acquire US citizen documentation and soon their travel papers expired and he and his mother were eventually living in America illegally. Dan-El beautifully articulates the struggles that he encounters because he doesn’t have documentation – his mother isn’t able to legally work so they had to move into a shelter when Dan-El is young and move frequently until they are able to find a more stable home thanks to public housing; he isn’t able to “officially” work (on paper at least) when he is offered a mentorship job when he’s in high school; he has no idea how to apply to college and if he will even be allowed to attend; and more struggles that are too numerous to list (and would also spoil some of his life story if I included them here).

It is so, so important that stories like Padilla Peralta’s are captured and made available to the public. Moving to the US and overstaying your initial papers and eventually living in America illegally is more common than a lot of people think. You may even have someone in your life who is undocumented and you have no idea. With Padilla Peralta’s story of his life, he’s able to share his experience with those who may not be aware of the realities that face being undocumented in the US, and also provide comfort to others who have lived those experiences. I talked about this book with my friend who was undocumented for most of his youth and he said that it would have been incredibly reassuring to know a book like Undocumented existed because for a long time, he didn’t know anyone else outside of his family who was undocumented. He told me that if he had been able to read about someone who shared his experience in some way, he wouldn’t have felt so isolated about his status and his situation.

That said, Padilla Peralta is quick to remind readers that he doesn’t have the answers for someone in similar situations to him. He was able to acquire a lot of well-placed connections and a valuable support system based on his specific circumstances, which may not be widely available to everyone. His book isn’t about teaching others specifically how to navigate their own situation, but purely serves to detail his own life experiences.

After the acknowledgments section of the book, there is a glossary of Spanish terms used throughout the text. Since I had an e-galley of this book, I didn’t notice this until I had finished reading. There are hardly ever full sentences in Spanish within the book, and most of the Spanish terms are sprinkled into the text occasionally in a way that isn’t distracting if you don’t know Spanish. Thus, a glossary wasn’t necessary to me, but some could find it helpful.

The only thing I would have changed about the memoir is the epilogue – it felt awkward to read and seemed as if it was hastily strung together. It’s very vague about how many years had lapsed between the epilogue and the last chapter of the book and if there had been any development with one of the major plot lines of the book. I also wish there had been a greater call to action at the end of the book; Padilla Peralta speaks extensively about the DREAM Act and I felt like the epilogue could have included a request for readers to contact their local representatives about this bill or listed activism groups that they could either directly be involved with or contribute to if they desired. However, if you couldn’t tell from the rest of this glowing review, I definitely recommend reading this book. It’s well written and represents a perspective that I haven’t read before. If you’ve read books that cover similar territory, please recommend them to me!

Disclaimer: I was provided with an Advance Reader Copy of this book for free from the Penguin First to Read program. All opinions expressed in the following review are my own and have not been influenced by Penguin.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

At 4, Dan-el Padilla Peralta moved with his family from the Dominican Republic so his pregnant mother could have better healthcare for the impending birth. After his father's return to his homeland, his mother and he found themselves living in difficult condition in subsidized housing, but Dan-el discovered his intellectual reach at an early age through a book on the shelf of a shelter's library. His curiosity could be sparked by even the most everyday experience (wondering why Brooklyn subway stations were named as they were, he thrilled at the discovery that they were named after Revolutionary generals). Such began a remarkable life of study. And he wasn't even 8 years old. This special boy caught the attention of Jeff Corwin, a volunteer teaching art at the shelter. Impressed by Dan-el’s interest in books and recognizing true academic curiosity, Jeff assisted in applying for scholarship admission to Collegiate School in Manhattan, his own alma mater.

This generous and important memoir lays out the family's difficulties due to the fact that without social security numbers or papeles (formal id's), they could not receive paychecks. Dan-el recognizes his luck in coming across the path of people willing to go the extra mile to help with his pursuits. His education, enviable by any yardstick, was hard won -- he earned the honors but doesn't make a huge issue out of it. He focusses instead on the roadblocks put up by the system. His whole story portrays someone of immense worth and contribution, and points out the value of privilege that should never be taken for granted by those lucky enough to have it.

I have enjoyed spending these past few days in Dan-el's company through his book. Highly recommended.

[Nicole Means · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first discovered this book, I was so excited. I had finished reading Sonia Nazzario's "Enrique's Journey," which explored the trials of an Enrique, an undocumented man. So when I discovered "Undocumented," a firsthand account of Dan-el, I was so excited to delve even deeper into this important topic. However, a book that had so much potential, fell flat with lack of exploration into the political and social implications of being an undocumented person in the US. I have never been a huge fan of the memoir genre because the tone can be a bit self-serving and egocentric. Unfortunately, "Undocumented" was no different--the book started out quite strong, but as Dan-el never found his groove. In fact, his overuse of slang and lack of personal introspection caused his memoir to fall a bit flat. His writing style came off a bit immature for a many who is so intelligent. I am not sure if he chose to intermingle street slang with academic language to prove the point that his Dominican upbringing in East Harlem was just as much a part of him as his academic life at Princeton and Oxford, but whatever his intention, his memoir was a struggle to read in several portions. His intellect was not very apparent in his writing. Perhaps if he had incorporated statistics or facts beyond his own reality into the narrative, his story would have been a powerful platform to comment on the political decisions that caused such strife in his life.

[kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally learned about the author in an article about the current issues surrounding the classics field, and how he is a (or perhaps the) leading voice in deconstructing/reconstructing it. I am fascinated by that conversation, and so I wanted to know about the person leading it. There isn’t really anything about that in this book, but it was worth reading nonetheless. His story demonstrates both how distinctive and collective the triumphs and troubles are of those who are undocumented. He writes directly about his life, not sugarcoating or downplaying it. My only critique is that the dialogue felt a little stilted sometimes. Still, this story is worth being told, and the message is clear: immigrants are a critical component to the functioning and beauty of our society.

Also, this is bugging me, so I just want to add, for all the reviews who say that he was bragging about his accomplishments: why are you reading this book? He described his accomplishments with complexity, and honestly deserved to brag more than he did.

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dan-el Padilla Peralta and I share many traits. We both love to read, we both are passionate classicists, we both have achieved academic excellence at premier American universities, and we both were raised Catholic. The similarities do not end at such an ostensibly superficial level, however. We share a love of Rome and its monuments, for instance, and we both have uniquely close relationships with our mothers. Of course, at the same time, our worlds could not be more drastically far apart. Whereas I was raised in the relatively affluent white suburbs of Syracuse, New York, Dan-el endured the poverty and violence of Spanish Harlem as a child. Whereas I am an American citizen who does not think twice about the fact that I have a social security number, Dan-el is undocumented, thereby lacks a social security number, and faces persistent anxieties whenever he has to travel or secure employment. To be sure, I worked hard at university—I can confidently assert that I put in more study hours than anyone else in my class—yet almost all of my stress derived from my academic commitments and not much more. Dan-el, on the other hand, dealt with the cruel nativism of his peers coupled with an uncertain future career in addition to multiple theses. At an even more basic level, Dan-el is a black man in a racist society, while I am white.

These differences are obvious, I realize that; I only call attention to them because, as a classicist myself—and classicists tend easily to find common cause, I have noticed—I see so much of my own personality and interests in Dan-el, whom I deeply admire. The important point is, in the twenty-first century, not all classicists are white, not all of us are even documented citizens. Classics has broadened its horizons to welcome academics of all races and ethnicities, and yet it is still, despite this notable recent development, dominated by blanquitos like me. Dan-el Padilla’s voice, then, is so critical, both for popular audiences and for classicists, who have a lot to learn from his remarkable story.

If Dan-el’s story is exceptional, his memoir is not. While I appreciate his attempt to recreate in prose the vernacular he used at different times in his life and in different cultural contexts—he talked quite differently to his Latin teachers, for instance, than to his Spanish Harlem friends at Resurrection church—Undocumented is by no means literary, and only occasionally reflective at the deepest of levels. Fortunately, as was his aim, Dan-el successfully avoids the credit-to-the-race motif and by no means crafts his narrative around the look-at-him-he-made-it theme. He stresses that it was the confluence of fortune and the extraordinary efforts of many private individuals that allowed him to attend Princeton, then Oxford, and ultimately to pursue a Ph.D. in Classics at Stanford University with a hard-earned visa in hand. The main thrust of the narrative, it seems to me, is that undocumented persons have much to offer American intellectual, cultural, and political life. Dan-el says so himself at one point: “My hope for this book is that it will communicate a sense of the power of their potential contribution.” His life and those of many other undocumented Latinx people are a “testament to the exceptional potency of the American Dream that inspired our parents to surmount every obstacle in their quest to raise us here,” in the United States. I suppose that Dan-el achieves his aim. Yet he does so from a limited perspective—that is, he often fails to use his lived experience as a means to comment directly on the political circumstances that often made his life so miserable. I would have liked more of this, not at the expense of, but in addition to, his life narrative. The Joycean move from the particular to the universal—this is what makes for an excellent memoir, and it is for the most part absent in Undocumented.

I nevertheless enjoyed Undocumented. I was especially fascinated by how Classics drew in and enraptured Dan-el—how, for instance, he read the Odyssey and identified with Telemachus, who, like him, has lost his father and desperately seeks a relationship with him. I was also struck by his Princeton application letter, in which Dan-el writes, “Latin and Greek poetry have left an indelible impression on me precisely for these reasons,” that is, that lyric and verse can be “aids in times of anxiety and distress.” He continues: “They are embedded in how I have come to frame my personal responses to the world and have taken root in a kind of secondary consciousness I have of myself.” Above all, however, I found his response to Plato’s Crito, one of my favorite philosophical texts, elucidatory. In the Crito, Socrates, imprisoned after his trial and condemned to death, refuses the opportunity to escape with his friend and thereby leave Athens. “He who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains” Socrates explains, “has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we [the Laws] command him,” no matter whether this contract and its associated statutes are ordered justly. Dan-el finds this notion preposterous. If the laws are unjust, what redemption is there in adherence to the punishment that they prescribe? In this moment, Dan-el once more solicited me to reflect on the vast difference between us as classicists. Whereas the evident seeds of the Lockean idea of the social contract excited me when I first read the Crito, Dan-el immediately saw that its philosophical implications had direct influence on his life. We read the same text so differently. As a soon-to-be Latin teacher, I need to keep such disparate reader responses in mind.

In the end, I am so appreciative that Dan-el chose to share his experiences with us. How many Americans have absolutely no clue about what life is like for the millions of undocumented people in the United States? How many nevertheless espouse vitriolic xenophobic opinions about such people? Undocumented confronts such hatred head-on and seeks to show, via anecdotal evidence, that so many nativist assumptions are unfounded. It also demonstrates how Classics can both welcome and refuse people of color not attuned to its white-washed and patriarchal worldview of yore. We classicists should pay close attention.

[Kristi Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“But I would rather run after the impossible than live as a string of labels: undocumented, hoodrat, Dominican, classicist. I am all of those things; no one or two of them define me.”

I was gifted this book through the Penguin First to Read program for an honest review.

This is not the typical book I choose to read, but I felt it was timely with all of the talk about immigration reform and now with the Donald denigrating immigrants to such a low level, I couldn’t resist reading this book.

Dan-el Padilla Peralta is a young man from the Dominican Republic who came to America fresh out of kindergarten and whose mother decided she wanted her boys to grow up and be educated in America. She made the choice to not return and so they lived as undocumented aliens except for Dan-el’s younger brother Yando who was born in America.

Dan-el was an exceptionally smart young man. He was able to get a full scholarship first to a Prep school called Collegiate, (JFK Jr. attended also) and then he went on to Princeton and Oxford and now Stanford. His story of a double life was heartrending at times and the stress he lived under and still was able to achieve everything he has is remarkable.

Dan-el Padilla Peralta tells his story honestly and it made me realize what a tragedy was averted because he was able to stay in this country to achieve so much. We truly need immigration reform and help these children of immigrants realize the American Dream that our grandparents were able to attain.

People who say Dan-el is an exception to the rule miss the issue in this book that everyone should have the chance to live in America and contribute. That is what makes our country so great. Let’s not lose that message that we have always stressed.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Emma Lazarus

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only time I’ve said “He just like me” about another man

[Julia Sienski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look into one way people fall out of legal immigration status, how difficult it is to obtain legal status once that happens, and how even having a citizen child barely helps you as a family. This is not a comprehensive look into the entire immigration system, but an account of one persons experience growing up in this country without legal citizenship and the hoops he had to jump through to still achieve his dreams. This VERY much a model minority story, as Dan-El even outwardly admits at moments in the book. I was blown away by how much Dan-El loved to learn and study at a young age. I wish I had HALF the passion for studying that he had, maybe I would have actually retained things from my poli sci classes in college.

Dan-El’s writing shone by far the strongest in the epilogue. While he states in the beginning he intentionally uses a lot of slang throughout the book to better immerse the reader in his multiple cultures and neighborhoods he grew up in, I think he let some of the strength of his writing fall to colloquialism. Would have loved to see a bit more of the passion he portrays at the end throughout the book.

“Every time I walk around New York, I think of how it is mine not only because I was raised there but also because my traces are all over its landscape. Traces that, for the most part, I alone can see—but their being visible only to my eyes is no argument against their existence. On a street in Queens, I cut my foot as a seven-year-old and bled on the pavement while Mom bandaged me and a kindly middle-aged woman gave me water to keep me hydrated. On a street on the Upper West Side, my pranking eighth-grade classmates wrote my home phone number in hardening concrete. The streets, my streets: I've walked practically every street in Manhattan. I've eaten at almost every McDonald's. I fell in love somewhere between Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.
So I lay claim to New York City as my city because my life has been staged on it, because I am embedded in it, because it does not make sense to take my life out of it. And from New York, I expand to America and to the entire scope of my wanderings across it, from New York to Princeton and California, to make the same point: that I am embedded, productively, in an American web of relations; that I call America mine because my life has been and fully is American.”

[Eugene Mjuweni]

The book was very fascinating and hooking to read. The story is about the author's life and the struggles he went throughout his life, growing up as an illegal immigrant, which ranged from his family's roots in the Dominican Republic to his life in New York all the way up to his time in college. The author did a good job of making the story detailed and adding events that may come as unexpected to new readers but are also important in shaping the person that Dan-el would grow up to be. The details in the book also made it easy to follow along with as the story went on. I found it interesting that the author would share so many parts of his life when the story started from when he was just a little kid in the Dominican Republic and then he moved to New York where he would eventually face extreme poverty and even homelessness. Although unfortunate, these would influence the life of the author. A recurring message that I found throughout the story was not to take things for granted. You should be happy with what you have because there is always someone that isn't as lucky to have the things that you do. Another theme that was in the story was that no matter who you are or where you come from, as long as you work hard and stay persistent, you will achieve your goals and succeed in whatever you want. Overall, the autobiography served as a portrayal of the hardships of Dan-el and how he used the resources he had to still come out on top and eventually lead the life that he'd always wanted.

[Mary Burkholder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Includes a lot of street slang and bad language.

[Amanda Schwind · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provided wonderful perspective as I work with international students on a daily basis as an ELL teacher.

[Jolene Ren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written autobiography by an exceptionally intelligent person with an interesting insight on matters that are different from the mass majority. Lacking the basic privileges that most of us take for granted, Dan-el goes from a disadvantaged and troubled kid immigrating to the US from the Dominican Republic to an outstanding student at Princeton, who learns that one's identity does not shape one's life.

[Samantha Loeper · Rating 3 out of 5]

idk it was alright I wrote an essay on it lol

[Timothy Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took this book as a classic Horatio Algers story of the up from under kid who struggles to be successful in school and is eventually rewarded for his efforts. I see the reason for his frustration with America because it seems that no matter how successful he is as a student, he is still considered the “lesser” because of his lack of citizenship. I think that is the point he is trying to express. As a child, how do you successfully navigate the immigration system to become a citizen. He didn’t have the resources. I am glad to see that so many people in his story didn’t look at his status as an illegal and instead saw him as a highly intelligent student that wanted to be successful.

[Aadi Jangid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League was a first for me. I hadn’t recalled ever reading a memoir seriously. I didn’t think I would enjoy it. I didn’t think I could be invested in Dan-el’s story or be personally impacted by it. I was wrong.
The book started out fairly slowly, as it took time to introduce the situation, characters, and other expositional items. However, around the middle of Part 1, the story really started to pick up. It was when Dan-el started to be noticed for his excellence and was being recommended to apply to more advanced schools. After that came the section about his high-school life, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have different opinions about the last section of the memoir, which focuses on his college years. I found the section where he was at Princeton to be somewhat enjoyable, yet after it, they focus a large portion of the section on his life at Oxford and him gaining his student visa to come back to the U.S. Granted that from a story standpoint this part is very important, from a structuring standpoint, I found it to be unbearable. It barely added anything to the story until the last few pages. It was dragged out and unnecessary, and caused me to not enjoy that part of the reading at all.
This memoir largely deals with the divide between Dan-el’s two worlds of his prestigious private school, and that of his life in the “hood”. Much to my surprise, he actually wanted the divide, and did as much as he could to not let anyone from one side interfere with the other. Dan-el writes on page 136 that during his high school years he “didn’t want [his] Collegiate friends to come to [his] hood, and [he] didn’t want to bring the guys down to the Upper West or the Upper East.” At first I found this a bit strange, until I realized his true motivations. I saw that all Dan-el wanted to do was to fit in, to not make any of his two friend groups think him to be “weird” or strange. This is one of the driving themes of this book, and as he struggles with his desire to fit in, he starts acting differently around his different friend groups. An example of this is when he and his “hood” friends tried to shoplift. He would have never done something like that around his Collegiate friends, as his Collegiate friends would most likely not do something like that. As I started to notice this, I realized that so many people in our day and age do this. Granted that wanting to fit in is practically human nature, it really struck me to realize how many of us act differently around different people and try to fit in, including myself.
Another connection I found between Dan-el’s behavior and many people’s is his desire to live up to expectations and to prove himself. Ever since his family moved to the United States, ever since his father left them, ever since he, his mother, and his brother were forced to live in a homeless shelter and in cheap apartment after cheap apartment, all Dan-el wanted to do was to make his mother proud. He worked hard in school to be successful, so that one day she could be proud of, so that he could live up to her expectations, so that she feels that the struggle was worth it. I instantly connected with this. I, and many others, are always trying to live up to expectations and make people proud. Especially now, as a high school student, I feel like I, like every other high school student, is pressured to do exceptionally well in school. As a result, I always feel the need to prove myself and live up to others’ expectations, whether it be from my parents or my peers, as if a thousand eyes are constantly focused on me. This led me to ruminate upon a thing I believe to be a flaw with society, that although competition and motivation are great things, I felt that people now are so focused on others, trying to compare themselves to others, and only focusing on how they aren’t doing well enough. This discourages people and deprives them of self-worth and sometimes happiness altogether.
I found the most prevalent message being conveyed by Dan-el to be that of stereotyping and not knowing the whole story. Throughout the memoir, Dan-el struggles with people assuming things about him, either because of where he lives, his background, etc. This idea is well-illustrated by Dan-el on page 211, when he speaks on a girl that he wanted to date rejects him because of his race, he says that she had labeled him as “an exotic Harlem boy who fit very tidily into a small descriptive box: poor, black, Dominican- but he’s smart, you know, and funny, someone to entertain myself with. F*** that.” She didn’t have other information about him, and she just went off of what she knew from his ethnicity and poor background and made an assumption about him, yet that wasn’t the complete story. I connected this to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s and her TED Talk on the idea of a “single story”. She talks about how people have single stories about things, or a single perspective on it. They then have pre-made assumptions about the topic. She says that people need multiple perspectives or “stories”, to know the truth of something, that you can’t just take one perspective and base your knowledge off of that. The girl Dan-el spoke about took the single perspective of him being a poor person from Harlem and based her assumptions off of that. She didn’t take into account the other side of him being a funny and smart person who was basically just like her in that regard. I felt that this was the issue that plagued our society the most. People today look at things such as the news, social media, and see something that offers one perspective on a subject, which leads them to have assumptions about it, stereotypes, if you would. They then never try to see the other side of the story, allowing themselves to apply their single perspective on the subject. At the epilogue, Dan-el speaks on the current American view on immigrants. He mention show people think that immigrants are just stealing jobs from them and ruining the economy, when they don’t know the other side of the story, the story of families being separated, having to live in terrible conditions, and work as hard as they can to provide a decent life for their children. If only they knew this other perspective, they would have a completely different opinion. This impacted me in a major way. It caused me to reflect on times when I had been guilty of the same, when I had a single story that I used instead of trying to gain the whole story. I felt shame, I felt guilt, yet most of all, I felt the need to change. Reading this memoir gave me a new perspective on empathy, and gave me the goal of not having a single story. I decided to be more empathetic, to try to connect with people and figure out their story before making any assumptions or judgements. At the beginning of this memoir I thought that this would just be another reading assignment for English class, but now having read the book, I found it to be an insightful exploration of the world of Dan-el that taught me to take a new perspective on life, and for that, I couldn’t be more glad.

[Nathan Estrada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undocumented is a book that has a story that it wants to tell, and it tells you this story fairly uncensored. Undocumented isn't a book that is based on someone's experiences, it is the experiences of the author as he experienced them with as little sugar coating as possible. This story deals with how Latino Americans tend to be treated and how lives are to illegal immigrants and how the process is very stacked against these immigrants and how getting citizenship is not an easy process. It also deals in how the support system in the USA is limited and almost non-existent in some cases.

So this book's package is the memoir of Dan-el Padilla Peralta, and his experiences after coming over to the United States for his mom to get medical attention for complications retaining to her pregnancy with his brother Yando. However during her recovery their Visas expire and they do not have an easy way of becoming citizens. This causes arguments between his mom and dad with his dad eventually returning to the Dominican Republic. With his mom not having a job and their only income and ability to eat coming from support checks that come in for Dan-el’s brother Yando. Their only option is to move into a local homeless shelter. It’s during this time that Dan-el starts working towards getting into a fancy private school with the help of one of the shelter’s volunteers Jeff. With Jeff’s help he was successfully able to get into Collegiate, the oldest private school in the country. From this point the book follows Dan-el as he deals with his life at Collegiate and the hood where he lives, eventually leading to his acceptance to Princeton,

This book in itself is not great, but it also isn’t terrible. It’s just sort of there. It starts out strong, but then starts to drag on as the story becomes more and more mundane with the word choice not helping that much either. I recommend this book cautiously.

[LT · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We took our turns, speculating on what Daedalus might have said to better restrain his son. She weighed in, too—joining our ranks as a curious, probing student herself, face furrowed in thought: 'That encouragement to be mediocre, to fly in the middle: I’m not so sure I buy it. Medio ut limite curras, never aiming too high, always staying the middle course. Is it always too dangerous to aspire to something higher?'”

Dan-El Padilla Peralta chose to fly higher.

I am amazed by how Padilla Peralta continually made the best out of his circumstances: reading the library books as his family moved from shelter to shelter, thriving at Collegiate, and always staying true to himself. His grit and loyalty inspire me to a be a bigger person.

And it's so cool (!) how the Classics are a part of his Odyssian journey of growth and discovery. Padilla Peralta wrote about his first encounter with the ancient world, a book entitled How People Lived in Ancient Greece and Rome: "This book talked about a legacy and a way of life. Those words made Greece and Rome seem much more important than anything I’d read about before." As a fourth grader, Padilla Peralta demonstrated not only an innate curiosity and fascination but also a strong awareness of the cultural legacy of Western civilization. Later on, he writes about how the Odyssey resonated with him becuase Telemachus, too, had an absent father. As Padilla Peralta progresses through his studies, he uses his study of the Classics as a means to frame his experiences.

Padilla Peralta's memoir is an authentic reflection of his experience of being a New Yorker, an undocumented immigrant, and an outsider in elite education institutions. His writing is also lighthearted - he talks about his romantic pursuits, social life in the Bronx, and (among other things) shoplifting at a Tower Records store.

Would recommend to any aspiring classicist/anyone who has dealt with adversity.

[Jhoselyn Pugo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. It taught me the value of education and how it can play a significant role and, in many stages, lead to a promising career in the future. Education can bring several opportunities. This is a well-written book about a boy from the Dominican Republic who was able to come to an Ivy League school. It demonstrated the real-life scenarios many families like his could face as being undocumented in this country. The struggle for many can be challenging, but he persisted in becoming someone in the book. This book inspires many who may be experiencing similar situations, and Dan-El is a role model for many.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dan-el Padilla Peralta at four years of age came to the US from the Dominican Republic with his parents legally to receive additional health care for his Mother who was dealing with a high risk pregnancy. A healthy brother was born; however only Dan-el's Father returned to the DR and as a result Dan-el and his Mother never were able to renew their papers and resided illegally in New York. Homeless for a time, along with constant stress about being sent back, and receiving a small stipend for the baby brother born in the US, the family gets by with stubbornness, sacrifice and faith.
Dan-el is a smart kid and with sponsors ends up going to a privileged school on the Upper West Side, while returning to Harlem for church and home.
Many references to the 'Dream Act' which was first proposed in the 2002 session of Congress which attempts to give illegal aliens amnesty was discussed; only to be stalled over and over again. While attending Princeton Dan-el still only told a select few about his citizenship status. He was more interested in changes in the law, rather than focusing on his individual story.
(Quote) Lives are forced into a waiting pattern of alienation and anxiety as the undocumented among us wait for news of comprehensive immigration reform--their talents and abilities suspended between the poles of constantly deferred hope on one end and ever-present fear on the other."

[Angie Reisetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing story. An immigrant without papers when he's four, Dan-el tells the story of his upbringing. He is on the wrong side of some unjust laws. His is on the right side of some incredible luck. Others help him to be the success he is. And he is smart and works hard, making those people's efforts both effective and worth while. It's a great story and I recommend it widely. It's a good read and not preachy. He tells the full story of a full life, although he is understandably frustrated by the extra layer of anxiety constantly surrounding him regarding his immigration status. There seems to be, more or less, a happy ending here.

But we all need to think about what this story means. It's remarkable because it's so unusual. He beat the odds, but the odds are still bad. Individual actions are so important, as evidenced by his experience. But couldn't we do better as a society? I'm glad his story is out there. Not many are in the position to share stories like his. I hope it helps to educate us as a people and that we can do something about it.

I got a free copy of this from First to Read.

[Marta · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 family’s visas expire, and Dan-el’s father eventually returned to Republic Document . But Dan-el’s mother decided to stay and make a better life for her sons in New York City.

Dan-el is my favorite character because he never gave up on his America Dream. He knows how hard it is to come to a new country and speak a different language.

This book motivates every parents that are undocumented to keep going strong and undocumented immigrants to work hard. And reach their goals.

I recommend this book to all the American Dreamers, who come to another country to have a better Education. To all the single parent who want a better life for them and their children. To all the people who won't give up on their American Dream.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the subtitle reads, this is "a Dominican boy's odyssey from a homeless shelter to the Ivy League." A second subtitle COULD read: "how hard is it to live in the U.S. without papers through no fault of your own?" Dan-el Padilla Peralta's life story certainly makes an excellent case for reasons to pass the DREAM act. He was a young child when his mother brought him to the US and despite incredible hardship and poverty, his academic skills and exhausting hard work landed him two expensive private prep schools, a degree at Princeton and a degree at Oxford. He was denied re-entrance to the US the first time he tried to come back to the US to work during summer break at Oxford. This book helped me come to the realization that, although there are very valid reasons to deny entrance to the US to illegal immigrants, the DREAM-ers should receive documents to live in the US and the opportunity to become citizens IF they meet the various criteria of the DREAM act.

[John Dudley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shout out to KasaC for the recommendation and for sending the book. A fun read, but the primary issue - the struggle of undocumented immigrants to set firm footing in this country - left a bad taste in my mouth by the end of the read. Ironic that the author chose to quote Jeff Sessions - soon to be the nation's AG - at the beginning of the book. I worry that the incoming administration will set the country back 25 years in our relations with our undocumented immigrants, if that's possible. And I also worry that great efforts, like this one, to inform the country about the challenges our immigrant brothers and sisters face will have far less impact on law and possibility than they would have with a more open-minded government and electorate.

[Renee Doucette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this book via Audible. The story itself covers a long period of time in Dan-el's childhood through the beginning of his doctoral studies. My favorite part, was actually the epilogue, in which Padilla Peralta analyzes how his story fits into the national dialogue about undocumented immigration and the stigma and barriers that come along with that status. The more we humanize this issue, the more I hope our nation opens its heart to people like Dan-el and his family.