Christopher Castaneda
3/2/2023
2nd period
Multicultural Literature
Dan-el Padilla was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He came to the U.S when he was only 4 years old legally but unfortunately his visa expired while in the U.S which meant he had become undocumented. Padilla shows us throughout his memoir Undocumented how being undocumented challenges your life. Padilla argues what is succes and how you can attain it and how your social status does not define who you are. My own view on Padilla’s interrelated themes is that success can be whatever you’d like it to be because people have different successes and goals in life. Social status exists but does not define your success or you as a person because social status is
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Success is “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”. Padilla achieved his success but I believe his purpose of writing this memoir was to help others find their own success. I believe that Padilla made the right decision in finding his success because he then shows us how successful he has become as an undocumented Afro Latino. This will most likely encourage other Latino/a/e and Afro Latino/a/e to not get discouraged to find their own success. Padilla successfully got his message across about what success is and methods for achieving it. However not everyone has a young art teacher from a wealthy family as a mentor like Padilla did. Many would agree that if Jeff never met Padilla in the shelter Padilla would have never received a scholarship to collegiate. Jeff was intrigued in Padilla’s passion for learning and reading. If Padilla was never interested in learning and pursuing a further education after highschool Padilla would have never received those opportunities that Jeff granted him. According to The National Literacy Trust only 51% of children enjoy reading for fun. In 2016 The percentage stood at 58.8% which means its dropped 7.8% since then. Althought I Acknowlegde The Natinoal Literacy Trust I cannot accept this overall conclusion because “It helps children make sense not only of the world around them but also people, Building social emotional skills and of course imagination”