I want to write about the immigration process. Still, I can’t say what it means to be an immigrant without mentioning shrinking. It seems inconsistent to talk about how one shrinks when one comes to a new country to expand.

In almost 4 years of living in NYC, I met many immigrants, especially women and LGBTQ+ people, from Brazil living in the United States. People who come looking for a better life.

Each person has their own definition of a “better life,” but improving is also changing. If you don’t wish to change, moving is an expensive waste.

Many immigrants come to the United States looking for a better life

I don’t know if we don’t think straight – I didn’t, and, honestly, I don’t think there’s a way to measure the size of the change before, in fact, boarding the plane and changing.

New opportunities are sought through the filter of the arrogance of those who think they know the future. It is tough to predict the challenges of a new city, even if you know it well.

In the book I’m about to launch, I tell you that I felt swallowed up when I moved to São Paulo. My arrogance made me believe that SP was my backyard. But the city is gigantic, and it wouldn’t fit in my wildest dreams.

Nobody knows all the secrets of where they live

I think it’s like that everywhere. Nobody knows all their own secrets. Imagine knowing everything about a city?

I know people who worked online before arriving here and found it challenging to adapt professionally, others who were transferred, and “locals” who didn’t find moving easy.

The truth is that “expanding,” for most immigrants, is about having more cultural, financial, professional, and intellectual access. But this expansion comes at a high cost – almost an overwhelming one.

Leaving your homeland means being confronted with unimaginable challenges, incomprehensible vocabulary, manners you don’t have, and foods you don’t find easily. Moving to another country is immersing yourself in a culture you only knew through the lens of cinema or from memory.

Instead of expanding the mind of the one who arrives, one retracts oneself when facing all these elements. 

The cornered immigrant retreats in the face of challenges

It is painful to relearn how to live after having an established life. (Re)learning shakes your foundation, self-confidence, self-esteem, and security in yourself. Assimilating a new culture makes you question everything that makes you, you.

I saw immigrants with the most varied social certifications shrinking. I saw them fading. I saw myself fade.

I witnessed people questioning established values ​​and shaking up entrenched foundations. The word “expansion” is accompanied by many details, which we can also call tolls. And the price you pay for a better life is the time it takes to cleanse everything about you that isn’t yours, recover, and finally expand.

During the 4 years I’ve been living abroad, I became an external and internal immigrant. 

If you want to take this journey to get away from something: “be my guest.” I can’t say I didn’t do the same.

As a farewell, I leave a reflection: moving to another country is like diving into an image.