"I moved to Austria alone in 2018 because I received a job opportunity, and at that time, I was planning to stay for only two years. However, after my fourth year here, I realised that I wanted to stay permanently. I fell in love with the country, and I was able to afford a quality of life that I would not have been able to achieve in my home country. Additionally, I could financially support my family."
"At the same time, living here alone also brought a sense of insecurity. In 2020, during the pandemic, I lost my job, and my Red-White-Red Plus visa was very sensitive to unemployment. There was a lot of uncertainty no one knew exactly how long foreign residents would be able to stay or what would happen next. I constantly felt that I could lose everything at any moment."
Mayara Fujii, a 34-year-old graphic designer and marketing professional originally from Brazil, moved to Austria in 2018 for work. After living in Innsbruck for several years she decided to remain permanently to secure a higher quality of life and to financially support her family. She applied for Austrian citizenship in October 2024 and received her naturalisation certificate in October 2025 in a ceremony where new citizens sang the Austrian and Tyrol national anthems and felt welcomed. The naturalisation process was lengthy, expensive, and required renouncing Brazilian citizenship, producing mixed emotions. Job loss during the 2020 pandemic created legal and residency insecurity under the Red-White-Red Plus visa.
Read at www.thelocal.at
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