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Some educators believe it's time to rethink how immigration is taught in schools across the country, both to better serve immigrant students and inform the native-born. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, an assistant classics professor at Princeton University, argued the prospects of future immigration reform depend on today's high school students gaining a better understanding of the immigrant experience.The professor has a personal (as well as professional) interest in the US immigration system: His mother brought him to New York City from the Dominican Republic when he was four years old. After they overstayed their tourist visas, he became an undocumented immigrant, an experience he chronicled in his book, Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League.Padilla would like to see high schools dedicate more time to exploring the history of the US immigration system, raising philosophical questions around the value and meaning of citizenship, and examining whether current immigration policy aligns with the greater goals of American democracy. When viewed from a broad enough perspective, he told VICE, "mobility is the core driving feature of how we talk about history.""It was nice to have a place to discuss something that wasn't about white people." —Shafaq Khan
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