Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a first-generation college student who graduated from Princeton as salutatorian in 2006, joined the University as an assistant professor of classics earlier this year. His memoir, Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League, was published in 2015. In these musings, he weighs in on the power of books, baseball, rap music, the challenges of defining the word “citizen” and more.