Magda in her home on a late Tuesday afternoon doing a pedicure for a Brazilian client. Photo by Gabriela Campos

Eleven years after arriving in the United States, an immigrant family from Poços de Caldas, Brazil, still struggles to survive in Miami as illegal aliens.

Magda, her husband Wagner and their two sons, Leonardo, 24, and Leonam, 21, from Magda’s first marriage, are four of the 11.9 million illegal immigrants the Pew Hispanic Center estimates are currently living in the United States.  A third son, Leandro, 25, also immigrated with the family but was caught using illegal drugs and deported back to Brazil.

These Brazilians, who asked to keep their last name private for fear of persecution by U.S. immigration authorities, entered the country in early 1998 with tourist visas on the premise that they were coming to visit a relative in the United States.  But Magda, 46, said her family had no plans to go back to Brazil after the visa expired.

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“We came to see my mom, but we also left Brazil because we had decided to come in search of opportunities,” Magda said.  “We came already knowing that we would go through tough times and difficulties.”

The family initially lived with Magda’s mother, Teresinha, who is illiterate.  She immigrated to the United States in 1986 and became a legal resident in 2000 after marrying a Cuban-American.

But nothing came easy to this Brazilian family.  When they decided to move out of Teresinha’s home into their own place, many landlords asked Magda for legal documentation she could not provide.  Eventually they found a landlord who only asked for financial information and was willing to rent to them in Little Havana.  Three years later they relocated to Doral, Fla., before settling in their current apartment in West Miami.

Magda said being an illegal immigrant in the United States is like living in the shadows.

“We are no one for now,” Magda said.  “We don’t have an identity here.”

They cannot obtain any documents, including driver’s licenses, making transportation difficult.  Leonam, who still lives with his parents, relies on rides from friends.  Leonardo gained legal status through his marriage to an American woman and drives Wagner to work, helping his stepfather with electrical work throughout Miami.  Magda spends most of her time in the family’s small apartment, where she works as a self-employed manicurist.

Teresinha, who had previously worked for 20 years as a cleaning lady in Miami, helped her daughter find jobs cleaning house for Brazilian families in the area.  After cleaning their homes, Magda often offered manicures to her clients.  They liked it so much that she stopped cleaning their houses and became a full time manicurist.

“I used to work Monday through Friday cleaning and on Saturdays I would only do nails,” she said.  “Later I found a way to only do nails and so today I am only a manicurist.”

Wagner worked as a fireman in Brazil, but after working odd jobs in Miami for several years, he got some training and now works as an electrician for people who are willing to pay him under the table.

One year after arriving in Miami, Wagner was in a serious car accident, making matters even worse for this family.  The accident left him with a broken foot, shoulder, jaw and eyebrow, as well as a fractured vertebra.  Wagner spent a month in the hospital and three months recovering from jaw surgery.

“It was hard because he is the breadwinner,” Magda said.  “I had to drop everything I was doing and stop working so I could help him at home.”

Though life in the United States has been hard for Magda and her family, their life back in Brazil was worse, she said.  In Poços de Caldas, in the state of Minas Gerais, Magda struggled with poverty and supporting her family after her first husband died, leaving her a widow with three young boys.  After she married Wagner, they both grew concerned with raising a family in Brazil, where the crime rate was rising and where they lived in impoverished conditions.

“Here, everyone can live in a good place,” Magda said of Miami.  “There isn’t much violence.  We can walk in the street, you can roll down your window while in your car.”

Throughout the years, Magda has tried to learn English, but as her clientele is mostly made up of Brazilians who come to her house, she has had a hard time learning the language.  Her sons also struggled with the language barrier when they arrived in the United States, but through school and friends they have learned English and Spanish and today speak English better than Portuguese, their mother said.

Although Magda never graduated from high school, her belief in the value of education was a big factor in her decision to move her children to the United States.   She and Wagner believed that the boys would have better opportunities in Miami.

“We were mostly thinking about their future,” she said.  “I don’t know if the boys would have had the opportunity to study [in Brazil] as they had here.”

Their sons were able to finish high school, but Leonam is frustrated he cannot attend college without legal documentation.  For now, he works as an electrician with Wagner, but he dreams of studying criminal justice and hopes to become a legal U.S. citizen.

“It’s as if I was born here, but not having papers makes it all a little harder,” Leonam said.  “Once I get my papers, I really want to go to college.”

His mother is convinced that immigration policy will change and allow her family to live here legally.

“I don’t know when or where, but the time is going to come when the government of this country is going to have to do something,” Magda said.  “We are waiting.”

She has no plans to go back to Brazil and wants to remain in Miami with her family, hoping for a chance to become a U.S. citizen and to live a better life than in Brazil.

“If we have our minds centered, we will be able to overcome our barriers and there is going to be a time where we will be able to have our own house and the boys will be able to go to college,” Magda said.  “We are going to be able to do it one day, even if it takes awhile.”