Irací Maria dos Santos, a Brazilian maid currently working and living in Miami, is one of the 1.1 million Brazilians, estimated by the United States government, who came to this country in search of the “American dream.”

Born in Salvador, the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia in Brazil, Santos, 39, was living in São Paulo working as a full-time maid for a wealthy Brazilian family when she was invited to move with them to Miami more than two years ago.

Divorced with a 23-year-old son and a father still in Salvador, she didn’t hesitate at the opportunity to start a new life.

“I’ve always liked to travel and to see new places, and there wasn’t much holding me back in Brazil,” Santos said. “It was a chance for me to meet people and learn other languages.”

In Brazil, maids often sleep in small quarters off of the kitchens of the homes they work in and enjoy few luxuries. Santos’s life in Brazil was no exception. With a small house in a poor neighborhood in São Paulo, she used the awful public transportation system everyday to work and back.

Here, Santos lives with the Rigazzo family in a spacious, high end Brickell apartment.  She has her own room overlooking South Miami, a television set and new Sony laptop.

Santos’s weekly schedule includes cleaning, cooking traditional Brazilian food and taking care of the two Rigazzo children, ages 11 and 17.

She is allowed free time on the weekends, when she hangs out with Latin friends at Miami nightclubs and on Key Biscayne.

“I have my obligations, but I also enjoy myself a lot,” Santos said. “I always find time for a little of work and a little of fun.”

Her new life in the United States was almost cut short in May 2008. Fifteen months after arriving in Miami, Santos had to return to Brazil to renew her expired work visa and passport.

Immigration issues nearly prevented her from continuing the life she had come to enjoy in Miami.

Part of the work visa renewal process included an interview with the American consulate and her employer.  It took Santos three months to get an interview appointment and when she did, her boss was unable to travel to Brazil in time, so it had to be rescheduled.

“I had to wait for four more months in Brazil for the next interview because of the entire bureaucracy,” Santos said.
Although she had expected her visit to Brazil to be short, it ended up taking her a total of seven months before she was able to return to the United States.
“I found the whole process extremely lengthy and my boss was the one who took care of much of it,” Santos said.

Yet, despite her difficulty in getting her visa renewed, Santos is glad to be in Miami and has no regrets about coming to America. For her, life in Brazil was monotonous and revolved around hard work. Life in Miami is more comfortable and enjoyable than that in Brazil, she said.

“These past two years have been the best of my life,” Santos said, eyes lighting up and smiling widely.  “I’ve never been so happy, and I feel like a little girl again, and not like a 40-year-old woman.”

Santos saves most of her US$1,200 a month salary with dreams of one day returning to Brazil and buying her own home there.  But for now she is content in Miami and plans to stay here indefinitely.

“I’ve never enjoyed life so much,” Santos said.  “I don’t plan to go back to Brazil very soon.”