My immigration journey pt. 2
If you’re new here, welcome! This is part two of a series where I discuss my immigration journey from 2010 until now. If you want to read part one, click here.
So, now we’re in 2014 and I’m in graduate school. As I mentioned in part one of this series, I was fortunate to have a program advisor who really cared and she helped me get an assistantship so I was getting paid from the job and had a tuition waiver. For anyone going through this, please look for any opportunity in your college or university. Talk to anyone who will listen! Doing so literally changed everything for me and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t speak up for myself. It’s not always easy for students in our situation, but trust me it’s worth it.
I studied Mass Communication, Corporate Communication and Entrepreneurship. I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do, but I knew that whatever it was I would always freelance because that was something I loved. My assistantship gave me the chance to work for an incredible person who’s like another mom to me. She really mentored me and made sure (whether I wanted to or not lol) that I met everyone and got involved with everything. She told me I would get a great job before leaving her and that’s exactly what happened. My graduate program lasted two years (2014-2016) and about a month before graduation, my program advisor reached out to me with an opportunity in the Provost Office. The communications coordinator was going on maternity leave and they needed someone to fill in for her full time until she returned, with the possibility of it turning into a permanent position. This immediately turned me off — I was so afraid of taking on a temporary position and then having to figure something out once it came to an end. I clearly didn’t think it would turn into something permanent.
Stay with me… I promise this is relevant. My advisor told me she hadn’t shared the position with any other student because she wanted to know if I was interested first. She told me she believed this was for me! So, I took a chance and applied. I’m not sure what was said about me behind the scenes, but minutes later I received an email asking me to interview for the position the following day. I went and had a good interview, even though I was so nervous lol — everyone just looked so important up there! 😂Shortly after I left the interview, I got a call and they wanted me for the job. I’m so thankful for being open-minded because that job turned into my career and it improved me in ways I never knew I needed! Months later my awesome boss fought to make sure my position became permanent and that became my new home for the next 3 years.
Later that year (August 2016), my husband and I started *officially* dating. Now, before he would even ask me to be his girlfriend, he just had to make sure I was going to marry him. Like nonstop asking until I said yes. Maybe not nonstop… but that’s how it felt lol. We had already fallen in love with each other and talked about the future, so it wasn’t weird or anything. But, this was the first time I was with someone who I knew I was going to be with for the rest of my life and I think that scared me a little bit. I knew if I didn’t get my permanent residency through marriage that I would eventually have no documentation here. That was such a scary thought and in my head I was being a burden on him. It sounds stupid writing it out lol but that’s truly how I felt. I’m all about independence and handling my own that this type of dependency caught me off guard.
Anyway, I finally answered him and said I wanted to marry him — he told me once we do this (this being our relationship) it was us forever and that was it. A little over 2 months later our lives changed drastically. Trump became president. I still remember going to work the next day and the mood being so dark as if we were experiencing a death. Although I’m sure no one meant any harm, a few friends reached out to me (here and in Brazil) to ask what this meant for me since they knew one of his plans was to get rid of DACA. It was tough because I had no idea how to answer that and I honestly did not think that man would become president, so I wasn’t worried. My husband was just as scared as I was but we didn’t really talk about it in the beginning. That same day, I went online and started filling out everything to renew my DACA which expired in a few months — I was early but who knew whether this would really end or not.
I remember a few days later it was Veterans’ Day and since I was off, I took a quick trip to Atlanta to visit my friend. When I got to security, the TSA agent wouldn’t let me through because my driver’s license said “temporary” on it (as it has forever). Basically, they wanted to see my passport. Who carries a passport to go to Atlanta?! I was so angry! I tried to politely ask her why and she wouldn’t even look at me. She just kept repeating “wait here”. This had never happened to me before. They stopped 2 other people who were UCF students and had the same type of ID. We had to go somewhere else with an officer and get our belongings completely searched before we could keep walking. It was such an awful experience because I traveled within the US all the time and never had this happen to me. One of the students that were with us started crying and couldn’t understand why they were going through her stuff. Once I landed, I called my husband (then boyfriend) to tell him what happened and finally talk about everything that had been on my mind since election night.
A few months later, I received my renewed DACA document and at the time, they lasted 2 years before you had to renew again; my document was issued in March 2017 and I had until March 2019 before it expired. During the summer of 2017, my husband and I decided to get married! He initially wanted to wait until the following year on our anniversary because he just knew I wanted a big wedding and we needed a whole bunch of money for that. When he told me that, I was like… I’m not paying for a bunch of people to drink and eat while I’m stressed out! Lol. No, but seriously — I couldn’t spend property money on a party. I love a good wedding, don’t get me wrong. I just didn’t want to pay for one.
Once we were on the same page, we decided to get married on our one year anniversary! We were super excited and I think what meant most to us was the fact that only our family and closest friends knew. We didn’t share our engagement on social media (not that there’s anything wrong with that) because we wanted this to just be our moment. I told him I wanted to get married on our anniversary (it was a really special day for us) so when we got engaged, instead of rings, we got matching tattoos with the roman numerals VIII XXXI (8/31).
By February 2018 we were ready to apply for my permanent residency. It took us a little while, I know lol, but we weren’t in a rush and we were still getting allll of the money that we had to spend on the applications (please don’t wait like I did!). My mistake here was relying on the fact that it never used to take so long. Things were very different and I should have taken that into consideration.
