Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez
I’m a product of the education that Stockton University provides, and what’s always stuck with me is my ability to look at issues and problems from a different perspective — the human perspective."
Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez, a program assistant in the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center, reflects on a day that changed his perspective in hopes that it will inspire someone else.
One day, several years ago, while working in retail as a manager, one of Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez's delivery drivers called him and said, “I’m done. I’m not delivering to this person anymore. They are rude and treat me terribly.”
Moreno-Rodriguez, who is currently a graduate student and staff member at Stockton University, accompanied the driver to the house on the next grocery delivery to see if he could mend the relationship between the driver and the customer, and together they knocked on the door.
Unknowingly, the sounds of their fists innocently banging on the door took the homeowner back to Nazi-occupied Europe.
“Knocking on the door was the mistake because, to make a long story short, this person was a Holocaust survivor. And she told me that every time somebody knocked on the door -- and we would knock on the door loudly to get a customer's attention -- she would go back to that time period during the war. That day, a lesson was reinforced for me, and my driver learned something new,” said Moreno-Rodriguez.
“I’m a product of the education that Stockton University provides, and what’s always stuck with me is my ability to look at issues and problems from a different perspective — the human perspective,” he said.
The first thing we must do to solve any issue is to listen.
This Voice was originally published in 2020. At the time of publication, Irvin was a Criminal Justice graduate who earned a minor in Holocaust & Genocide Studies and enrolled in Stockton's Master of Arts in Holocaust & Genocide Studies program. He is now assistant director of the HRC.
Related Articles:
