“Language is not a barrier for love.”

Tariq Sheikh and Tabinda Sheikh

In 1989, Tabinda Sheikh immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic and got a job in a New York City hotel as a housekeeper. It was there that she caught the eye of a fellow employee who was working behind the hotel’s front desk — her future husband, Tariq Sheikh. This is the story of how they fell in love, with the help of a Spanish-to-English dictionary and a moonlit park bench.

Listen to Tariq and Tabinda’s original StoryCorps interview.

Para subtítulos en español, haga click en el ícono de YouTube en la esquina derecha, y escoja “Spanish” bajo la opción de “settings” y “subtitles/CC.