5 years ago I impulsively moved from my home country in Brazil https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇧🇷" title="Flagge von Brasilien" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Brasilien"> into the US https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇺🇸" title="Flagge der Vereinigten Staaten" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge der Vereinigten Staaten">. It was the craziest decision I ever made.

I landed in NYC with no plans, no money, no friends and just one goal: to build a new life that I actually felt excited about.

This is my #immigrantstory
This impulsive move was motivated by the darkest period in my life: I lost everything I built, my friends & relationship were terrible & I had been depressed for years.

I just wanted to restart my life from scratch... and moving to NYC seemed like a good way to start.
Now it was not easy at first... specially since NYC is one of the most expensive cities in America.

I had to do pretty shady under the table gigs to make ends meet, some pretty scary. After a few months of that, I “upgraded” into building Wordpress websites for $4/hr.
But here is the thing about losing everything: you have nothing to lose!

All of a sudden I started to consider paths I always felt were beyond my reach... & the feeling of despair slowly got replaced by the feeling of overwhelming possibility.

That& #39;s when transformation begins
I learned about immigration law & began to form a strategy to live & work legally in the US.

I would have to go to college against my will for a F1 visa (I dropped out twice before), finish it fast with no debt & somehow build a notable career in 1 year to apply for a O1. Yikes!
(The O1 is the most desired of the work visas. It can be renewed pretty much indefinately, but it& #39;s only awarded to "Individuals with Extraordinary Ability" that have received national and internatonal recognition)
Now the problem with attending a US university is that my bills would get WAY higher & immigrants get no financial aid. I had to pay or I& #39;d get kicked out of the country.

This meant that I had no time to attend my classes. I worked all day+night and only showed up for exams.
This felt terrible. I was paying so much for an education yet I had to teach everything to myself through YouTube.

I picked a Computer Science degree as a course, mostly because it felt like the most multidisciplinary skill I could learn - great for an indecisive kid like me.
As time went on, I started to develop an interest for Virtual/Augmented Reality. It felt new & really exciting.

I stopped looking at coding as something reserved for technical folk, but as a means to make magical creative things.

Now I needed a way in. But I had no connections!
So I reached out to the founder of a VR studio and told them my story. I asked for an opportunity to be in the same room as them and for 3 months I became their unofficial intern.

That& #39;s where I tried VR/AR devices for the first time - and that& #39;s when I knew I found my passion.
When the "internship" was over, I did something crazy: I bought myself a $3500 Hololens for Christmas to force myself to learn VR/AR development.

This is money I really needed, so either I would find a way to learn and make money off of this thing...or I& #39;d be in deep trouble.
I quit building websites & went all in. 3 months later, I published my first app ever - a Hololens chemistry app named MyLab.

Somehow it was seen by thousands & people started hiring me as a VR/AR dev.

This was perfect. I was finally being paid to learn what I wanted to learn.
For the rest of the year I kept working as a VR/AR dev, learning and paying off my tuition.

I found out about programs like CLEP/DSST, which would let me take paid tests for college credit.

After 2 years, I had graduated with no debt... But I only had $20 left.
Here is when luck stroke again. In my last months of college I started building @WhereThoughts.

@BoostVC learned about it, loved it and offered me some investment to complete it.

Somehow, I was now in Sillicon Valley working on a groundbreaking VR art piece.
Now with financial stability for the first time in my life, I had one year to build a "notable career".

Why? The O1 visa I wanted required me to win awards, have news articles written about me and for me to be invited to speak at major industry conferences.

Tick tock, Lucas.
So I built @WhereThoughts, learned how to publish & make press kits, I applied to every conference I could as a speaker ran for every VR award I could as a creator.

I almost died, but somehow it all worked and fell into place. In 2019, I applied for my O1 and finally got it.
This is what it took for me to have the privilege of simply being able to legally have a job here.

To be a US immigrant is to do everything you can to stay when everything is designed to kick you out. And the only ones who make it are the ones with endless persistance + luck.
So if you meet someone with a work visa in the US, assume they there is a story behind - one filled with sweat, strategy, sacrifice and expenses - all just to have what most people here have by default.

Would love to share tips, so feel free to ask questions & tell your story!
You can follow @_LucasRizzotto.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: