Padilla Peralta, Dan-el

Dan-el Padilla Peralta discusses how he went from a young boy living in the United States illegally to a successful student at Princeton.

Dan-el Padilla Peralta discusses how he went from a young boy living in the United States illegally to a successful student at Princeton.

A Princeton University salutatorian describes his experiences as an undocumented immigrant youth in New York City, relating his efforts as a scholarship student in a private school that sharply contrasted with his street life in East Harlem.

As a boy, Dan-el Padilla Peralta came to the United States legally with his family. But life in New York city was harder than they imagined. Their visas lapsed and Dan-El's father returned to Santo Domingo. But Dan-el's mother was determined to stay and make a better life for her bright sons. Without papers, that seemed impossible. But she continued to persevere. Soon they were homeless. In a shelter the grade-school aged Dan-el met Jeff, a young art teacher from a wealthy family. Taken with Dan-el's passion for books and learning, Jeff helped him to earn a scholarship tp Collegiate, the oldest private school in the country. Dan-el soon rose to the top of his class and learned to navigate the rough streets of East Harlem where hid lived with his mother and brother and the ultra-elite halls of a Manhattan private school. From Collegiate, Dan-el went on to Princeton. He decided to "cone out" as an undocumented student in a Wall Street Journal profile a few months before he gave the salutorian's traditional address in Latin at his commencement. After earning a PH.D in classics at Stanford University, he is currently a Mellon Research Fellow at Columbia University.