Ralph – a Marine vet, first generation Dominican American – was the manager of the package center at Columbia University, which is where I went to school for undergrad as a scholarship kid. An unexpected bonding over Spanish led to conversations with him that helped me when I wanted to drop out. He describes his upbringing in Washington Heights as a game of ‘Cops and Robbers’ and then we rehash our early encounters, unpacking the assumptions we made about each other. 
“I think the world would be a better place if we treated each other the way we wanna be treated. If you're going through a hard time, you would want somebody to be empathetic and we should do that back, especially at that place, right? I got that.” –RalphSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.