Two contrasting news makers
Friday, April 28, 2006
Recently, there have been two contrasting stories making the rounds about two students of two of the top universities in the United States.
Interestingly enough, with the immigration problems the US is facing, both students and families were not borne in US soil: Dan-el Padilla Peralta (from Princeton) is from the Dominican Republic, and Kaavya Viswanathan (from Harvard) is Indian.
Another interesting side to these stories is the media coverage. For example,
Dan-el Padilla's story has 2 hits on news.google, compared to 991 for
Kaavya's (as of April 28, 2006 - 11:17 AM EST).
The US seems to be more interested on the scandal and disgrace of a teenage girl than it is of a young man, who against all odds, has been able to succeed in a very competitive environment achieving academic excellence.
Both stories are very compelling: Padilla is an illegal immigrant raised in homeless shelters in New Jersey by a single mom--his gift is academics; on the other hand, Kaavya is the only daughter of well to do naturalized Indian physicians--her gift, seemed to be, writing (we do not know any more).
I personally would like to know more about Dan-el Padilla, than Kaavya: even though plagiarism is interesting, I would prefer to know what the US is going to do about his status and if he will get a green card that will allow him to go Oxford, on a scholarship, and be able to return to the States.
By the way, the only two stories about Padilla are:
- American Dream
- The first story published was on the Wall Street Journal, Weekend Edition: Illegal at Princeton.
Unfortunately, the story is only available to subscribers. (I have a screen grab of the story, if you want to read it--note that I have no permission from the WSJ.)
Kaavya's story is well documented and it keeps increasing by the minute. There are now 1,010 entries in
news.google
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