“I grew up in the Dominican Republic
with my grandfather and grandmother.
Neither of them had any education. Our
house had one bedroom for six people.
It was half-concrete and half-wood. When
it rained outside, it rained inside. I
earned most of the money in the house
by shining shoes and selling peanuts. I
came to America when I was 14, and I
told my grandparents that I was going to
save up enough money to buy them a
new house. I worked at a carwash for
four years, and by the time I was
eighteen, I had $20,000 saved up. I told
my grandparents to start looking for
materials because we were about to start
building. Then that December, they both
got hit by cars, two weeks apart, on the
same corner. I almost went crazy.”