Life as an Illegal Immigrant Inside a ‘Hostile Environment’
Half my twenties were spent in fear and constant paranoia
Life in Britain was never meant to start with a lie.
It was summer 2004, and I was standing in line at the university enrollment office. I handed my application to the administrator and told her I was raised in Portugal. I expected her to ask for my ID, which would show that I was born in Brazil and would therefore be required to pay thousands of pounds more in tuition. But she never asked, and I never said anything. As far as she was concerned, I was Portuguese and an EU citizen — and therefore would be able to afford the lower fees for a college education.
For black and brown people in the West, colours are big signifiers. As the son of an interracial marriage, I’ve had comments about the colour of my skin my whole life. But the difference between blue and red also played a crucial role in how my life panned out; blue is the colour of the Brazilian passport I’ve had from birth, and red is the colour of the Portuguese passport I earned a little over seven years ago, four years after I graduated.
Even as a EU student, I had to fund my college life in London by working part-time at a restaurant and a call centre. I remember hanging out with my classmates in the university’s…
