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From Venezuela to theFrom Venezuela to the

U.S.AU.S.A

Carolina XimenesÉrica Sudário

Mariana Mendes

A portrait of immigration in our times

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Name: Marcos Tomas Fernandes

Nickname: Tomasito

Nationality: Venezuelan

Field: Computer Engineering

Job status: unemployed

Age: 26

Our interviewee 

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Tomas at a friend’s house

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Our interview takes place

in the wonderful Miami. We found

Marcos Tomas while he was on his

vacation, visiting some relatives.Between shopping and sun baths

he found a bit of time to talk to us

through Skype. Tomas is a 26-year-

old single Venezuelan who has

lived in the USA since 2006. Whenhis job contract ended, in the

begging of the year, he found

himself being an immigrant in the

middle of a crisis.

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1st part: what Tomas saysabout himself 

“(...)there are many issues, you know, when

you come to another country, like for instance

how you’re going to keep yourself and how

you’re going to keep up with all the expenses of 

moving to a different country and the way it

happened is that I found a job agency and they

hired me over the phone. ”

“Otherwise [without a job], let me say, I

probably wouldn’t have done it. ”

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“(...) I enrolled at the university to studyelectrical engineer, but it was a publicuniversity. (...) that means a lot of bureaucracy. (...) usually by the time you get

accepted up to the time that you are actuallyattending classes at the university; it takeslike 6 months up to a year. So, my mom toldme “(...) you spend all the time on the

computer, you should try computerengineering in a private school while you waitfor the other university to start,” and so I did. ”

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“When I was a child, I was planning to be

an electrical engineer because I have an

uncle that is an electrical engineer and heis really successful. (...) I didn’t see much

potential in electrical engineering as I saw

in computer engineering. So I chose tomove with computer engineering. ”

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“There are many things that actually are 

difficult about moving, but (...) it just dependson how open you are to access new things.”

“You got to really know all the cultures,especially being in America. America is acountry made by immigration. I mean, for allpeople from all over the world.”

“It seems that you need to be culture aware,and I’d say you might need to be neutral. You

have to be polite and in some way kind of avoid an cultural kind of taboo ... ”

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“You have to sort of be able to talk toanyone, independently of where they are

from. And I think that when you hang out

with people from your country, it isdifficult to learn the language and

understand why things happen in certain

ways. And you might be isolated from

reality, if you’re sort of like isolated from

the real people that live here. ”

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2nd part: what Tomas saysabout the crisis

“I think computer engineer, technology

industry is kind of somewhat isolated from

the problem; however it has been impacted,I’m not going to say it hasn’t. Microsoft has

laid off 5 thousand people already, Google

has laid off another 4 thousand, there’re alllaying off all over the place; however I think

that people that is really qualified don’t get

laid off.”

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“(…) if you are pretty, if you are blond and

you have green eyes, you  probably will find

a job easier (…) If the interviewer doesn’tlike you, you’re pretty much screwed “

“ (…) US citizens can find a job anywhere,

they have common benefits, and even if 

they get fired, they can find a job

somewhere else. However, immigrants

cannot find a job that easily. It depends on

their studies, what kind of visa they get, and

all that kind of stuff.”

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“ (…) it all depends how brilliant you are. If 

you are brilliant, there’re no limits for you.

But you got to do it on your own, that’s the

point, right? If you don’t have a degree, you

have to do it on your own. If you want a job,you need a degree. If you want a good

 job(…)”