The Freshman book is an interesting and stimulating read embedded in the Freshman Experience at the University of the District of Columbia. We invite you to read the book during the semester and participate in robust discussions in and out of the classroom. Explore the themes in your mind. What do you think? What are your opinions? What would you like to ask your new classmates or professors?
We urge you to approach the Book Series discussions in the spirit of openness and the delight of discovery. This is a unique and valuable opportunity to challenge yourself, share your ideas, learn about different viewpoints and meet and engage in dialogue with your classmates and a university faculty member or other member of the university community. There are no right or wrong answers, diverse viewpoints and perspectives will be encouraged and respected. The more involved you choose to be, the more you will take away from this experience.
Happy reading!
Learn more about the program here.
The book selected for the 2024-2025 common read is Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League by Dan-el Padilla Peralta.
Summary
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 lapsed, and Dan-el’s father eventually returned home. But Dan-el’s courageous mother decided to stay and make a better life for her bright sons in New York City.
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. At another shelter 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 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.
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 salutatorian’s traditional address in Latin at his commencement.
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.
2024-2025: Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League by Dan-el Padilla Peralta
2023-2024: No selection
2022-2023: Normal Sucks by Jonathan Mooney
2021-2022: I Came as a Shadow by John Thompson with Jesse Washington
2021-2020: Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
2019-2020: THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas
2018-2019: Barracoon: The Story of the Last ”Black Cargo” by Zora Neal Hurston
2017-2018: The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
2016-2017: FLAWD: How to Stop Hating on Yourself, Others, and the Things That Make You Who You Are by Emily-Ann Rigal and Jeanne Demers
