"I grew up in the Dominican Republic with my grandfather and...

"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.”