Maria Cavalcante-Fleming, born and raised in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, is a certified and licensed special education teacher retired from the department of education in Honolulu, Hawaii. She came to the United States of America in 1981. She comes from a large family of eleven brothers and five sisters all living in Brazil. Her two children were born in Portland, Oregon, and raised in Kailua, Hawaii. David Alfredo is thirty years old and Amanda Marie Fleming is twenty-nine years-old, both residing in Oregon. Ms Cavalcante-Fleming earned her bachelor's degree in education in São Paulo, Brazil, and her master's degree in special education in Honolulu, Hawaii. She taught elementary school students in Hawaii for over twenty-six years. Prior to coming to America, Maria taught Portuguese and English in São Paulo, Brazil, for four years. Her hobbies include reading romantic novels, watching classical movies, travelling, painting, and writing. Ms. Cavalcante-Fleming visited several US cities, such as New York City, where she lived for two years, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, where she lived for four and a half years, Niagara Falls and Honolulu, Hawaii, where she had been living since 1988. Maria has traveled to London, Paris, Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia, Ottawa and Montreal. Ms. Cavalcante-Fleming's favorite hobby is writing about her life, which she began in the fall of 2013. In her first book, My Life in Brazil, Maria tells her story about growing up in Brazil with her parents and sixteen siblings. In her second book, My Life in USA Part 1, she tells how she came to America on her own and endured countless obstacles as an immigrant who at first could barely speak a full sentence in English, even though she could read and write flawless. Maria finished writing My Life in USA Part 2 in which she concludes her story as a divorced mother and a special education teacher for a public school in Hawaii. In this book, Maria refers to her struggle to be accepted as an American citizen in a culturally diverse setting, though discriminatory, which she has survived thus far.