I wanted to have the
family that I never had as a child. I wanted to
provide them with everything that I didn't
get to enjoy as a child. Coming from Peru, I always
knew that money is important and you only
get as far as your efforts. I do my IT consulting business
with a partner, and I also work full time
as a cyber security contractor. My wife works full time
on the daycare, part time as a real estate agent. For the snowplowing, we
have drivers that work for us during winter. My name is Eddie Nuñez. I'm 34 years old and my
wife and I are bringing $420,000 a year. Our life was very
difficult back in Peru. My mom really struggled. She saw the assassination
of her parents right in front of her. She
suffered domestic violence. Crossing the border is
not easy, especially for a 14 year old. But I had
one goal in mind, so I just kept pushing and
going and I made it here. Life as an documented
person was very difficult. I resented my life here. Sometimes I resented my
mom. Living here as an
undocumented person just means working and working
and working because you want to achieve something. Classes were $1500 to $1700
per class. I couldn't apply for
financial aid. I couldn't get any
federal grants. So I was paying out of
pocket. They wanted somebody
better for their daughter. And I completely
understand that now that I'm a parent. My wife and I decided to
get married in secret. So unfortunately, Canada
couldn't officially or lawfully give me asylum. So they had to send me
back to the United States and I ended up in
immigration jail. I've never been arrested. I never got in any type
of trouble with the law before. So for me, it was
shocking to be detained. I felt like a criminal,
so I was desperate to get out. I would sign my name
and I will go there every single day to study
my case. And the judge told me,
“I'm going to grant you asylum. You presented a
really good case. You explained everything
in detail. You defended yourself
well in front of the prosecutor.” And she also
told me, "Don't ever put your head down for
anybody. Be proud of yourself.” I felt like I had lost
so much time. And I also
knew that studying medicine was going to be
extremely expensive. So I decided to pursue a
degree in cyber security. As soon as I got my
associate degree from Northern Virginia
Community College, I started looking for jobs. Any IT job, I started
applying for. Now I work as a cyber
security contractor full time. One of the people that I
admire, I saw one interview with
him, Mark Cuban, and I remember the phrase
he used. He said, like, you only have to be right
once. So I had many crazy ideas. And my wife, who was always
pushing me from behind, she was like, "That's a great
idea. Let’s make it happen.” We bought our first truck in 2011 and we got a
contract with the Virginia Department of
Transportation pushing snow in the winters that
we were able to buy another truck the next
year. And then we bought two
trucks and next the following year we kept
buying until we had ten trucks. We drove a whole week
without stopping, not sleeping. The sand on the
sand spreaders will freeze and one of us will have 1
or 2 of us will have to climb up and literally
shovel it. And while the other one
was driving so we could start throwing the snow. With that money, I ended
up moving to Lucketts, Virginia, and I bought a
four acre property where I could park my trucks. Now she has 12 kids that
she takes care of and her business does very well. It brings around $168,000
a year. So with the money that I
obtained from selling some snow trucks and also the
money that my wife was saving from daycare, we
were able to save that money and we started
buying properties. Right now we have eight
houses and seven properties. We fix them
up and then we rent them. Some of the properties
that I have are completely paid off. All the others
are currently have a mortgage. My idea was to
get to my goals faster, was to have different streams
of income and revenue. The first time we went
to this coffee shop, we fell in love with the
character of the place. It looked like
That 70’s Show or Friends, and we were like, "Oh my
God, this, this place looks really nice. And
they sell Peruvian coffee.” And we wanted to
add one more, more stream of income to our current
monthly revenue. So my wife and I decided
that this was the perfect business to buy. And my goal is to have 20
houses and also to buy two additional businesses. My plans for the future
is to own more of my time and delegate more of the
work that I currently have. I just started crying. I was extremely happy to
finally say, okay, I'm truly a citizen now. And I'm happy to be here. Life is not easy, but it
has definitely given me the good opportunities to
be present in my kids daily lives, and I got to
see them grow up. I'm very grateful with
the opportunities. I'm grateful with God. I'm grateful for my mom
and my wife. She bet on me. She put all her chips in
my basket and I knew I couldn't afford to to let
her lose. I'm happy and I'm
grateful for this life.
