‘Better Lives’
The Migration Aspirations of Romanian Migrants In Sweden Master’s Thesis in Sociology
Track Migration and Ethnic Studies
Dragoș C. Costache Stud. Nr. 10046615 Supervisors: Dr. Emmanouil Pratsinakis Dr. Flip Lindo July 2014
Abstract
The topic of Romanian migration in Western Europe has made the headlines quite frequently in recent years. This paper aims to take a broad look at the structure of Romanian migration to Sweden and gauge the aspirations and expectations of
Romanian migrants, both established and recent. More importantly, it will look at the evolution of those expectations while taking into account several important turning points in the process of migration. Lastly, it will look at the way the aspirations of migrants have evolved with the accession of Romania into the European Union. A significant part of the study will also refer to ‘irregular’ migrants, and the way challenges encountered both home and abroad reflect on their decisions to migrate and their expectations of the migration process.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction p 4
2. Theoretical Framework p 5
3. Methodology p 9
4. Three Waves p 12
5. Money and ‘Happenstance’ p 14
6. ‘Settling In’ p 17
7. ‘A better Life for our Children’ p 20
8. ‘We wouldn’t have been here without the EU’ p 23
9. ‘Life in the Woods is Hard’ p 25
10. Conclusions p 29
Introduction
Migration in the European context is a complex phenomenon comprised at once of structured networks of migrants, historical patterns, market-driven labour demand and statal and supra-statal policies. Yet, more often than not, migration is reduced to a few easily quantifiable variables both in popular discussions and, unfortunately,
increasingly in academia. The bulk of European migration literature focuses on policy and the economics of migration. Very little of it examines the lives of migrants and the way their strategies, decisions and desires influence the process of migration and settling down. This is even more apparent in the case of Romanian migrants who, for the past few years, over the time span of Romania’s EU accession in 2007 and the lifting of common market labour restrictions in 2014 have been widely analysed in terms of statistics, not individuals. Research has indeed been done on Romanian motivations, strategies and aspirations, but this has been focused exclusively on the European South, with a particular focus on the two main countries of destination for Romanian migrants, Italy and Spain.
The purpose of the current paper is to examine patterns of aspiration and desires amongst Romanian migrants in Sweden, as well as their evolution and transformation from the moment of migration, as individuals settle in and perspectives shift. I will take a historical look at Romanian migration to Sweden, starting with the early ‘pioneer migrants’ in the 1970s and going through the ‘three waves’ of Romanian migration in Europe. Sweden is a particularly interesting subject for research as it presents unique challenges to Romanian migrants, but also unique advantages. Sweden is one of only two countries in the European Union who chose to forego any labour market restrictions for both the A8 EU expansion wave and the subsequent 2007 admission of Romania and Bulgaria. This was doubled by a strong national legal framework for aiding and integrating migrants and asylum seekers. This framework works as both an aid, and a hindrance for large numbers of intra-EU migrants. On the one hand, the process of gaining a Personnummer (Personal ID Number), crucial in order to find employment in Sweden is straightforward and simplified, on the other hand it requires multiple documents from the Romanian authorities that might prove hard to obtain, especially for migrants from rural backgrounds. Secondly, up until recently (May 2014) Romanian residents looking for employment in Sweden had temporary right of residency for only 3 months, after which they were required to return home and reapply. Lastly, there are significant structural hindrances in the Swedish labour market that balance out the ostensibly laissez-faire migration policy of the State, chief of which is the requirement for good knowledge of Swedish. Other structural issues are institutionalised skepticism towards foreign degrees and, an unspoken, but clearly identifiable preference for candidates who, even if they do not hold Swedish citizenship, have at least had part of their training/education or work experience in Sweden.
Even more of a challenge is the ‘social distance’ of Romanian and Swedish societies. Most of the Romanian migrants have headed towards countries with a lower degree of social distance and a looser migratory framework (Bleahu 2004, Anghel 2013), with more opportunities for ‘off the books’ labour.
The case of Sweden is therefore quite interesting, as its hindrances and opportunities make it at least nominally unsuited for Romanians. It is therefore interesting to look at the scope and scale of Romanian migration to Sweden; at the type of migrant that thrives (or not) in the Swedish Environment, and at their migratory objectives and aspirations. It is particularly interesting to investigate how these objectives and aspirations change as their idealised view of the country of destination gets confronted with on-site realities.
I also chose to dedicate a part of my paper to the issues of Romanian quasi-legal migrants, in particular panhandlers and street buskers. Often the target of both intra-community racist sentiments and quick and easy singling out by host-country
authorities, they, nonetheless, do represent a significant part of the migrant stock and are often pioneers to a new country. Though they do not usually aim to establish themselves in another country, opting instead for cyclical migration, they represent a highly visible and often persecuted part of Romanian migration hence their
expectations and aspirations should be taken into account in any study on Romanian migration.
Theoretical Framework
In the course of my research I decided to use a life path approach in regards to the motivations and aspirations of Romanian Migrants. Usually, even when contemporary research projects on migrants take a holistic approach and feature all the myriad social and economic factors that impact a person’s migratory trajectory they tend to view these events as independent variables, as noteworthy data points that sometimes correlated, but were rarely determined by one another. In my approach, I wanted to look at the expectations of Romanian migrants to Sweden, both financial and aspirational and examine the ways in which they change as the migrants experience increasing numbers of life events in the host country.
The goal was simple: to see what aspirations Romanian migrants came with in their migration process to Sweden and, more importantly to look at how their migration experience and their subsequent evolution changed these aspirations over time focusing on a few crucial turning points in their life path. I wanted to see whether their aspirations were long term, focused on establishing themselves in a new
environment, or, simply quick and financial. I also wanted to see how contact with the host society and the Romanian diaspora influenced those aspirations. Finally I wanted to see how outside events and actors, more specifically the EU expansion and the relationship to the home country impacted their aspirations over the long term. The term aspirations refers to a collection of an individual’s goals, expectations and desires (Pratsinakis 2005)(Brosnan 1991). Migration is often seen by migrants
themselves as a process aimed at fulfilling their aspirations, so it is valuable to look at the aspirations of Romanian migrants. A fluid concept that is hard to chart out, the aspiration is subject to frequent changes over time as the individuals re-assess their position within social hierarchies and re-plan out their strategies for furthering their aspirations. Aspirations are often overlooked in the literature due to their hard-to-quantify and hard-to-analyze status and due to the fact that their fluidity is often influenced by other more quantifiable factors like socio-economic status, or even government policy. Nonetheless, I focused my research on the aspirations of
Romanian migrants due to the fact that they are often ignored, if not outright curtailed by the state despite the well-documented beneficial impact of migration. Sweden, a country with a lax but well structured migration policy and very little in the way of outright anti-immigrant sentiments, seems like the perfect case study for the way the aspirations of the Romanian migrant population evolve mostly unimpeded by state and social pressures. Moreover, in order to properly assess aspirations, one has to look at them from an evolutive or life path point of view.
Life path analysis can provide us with all these valuable insights however, it is generally hard to implement in small scope studies. Relying heavily on longitudinal analysis it was impossible to conduct a proper life path study on Romanian migrants in Sweden due to a large number of time and scope constraints, but also due to the fact that the main decades-long longitudinal study of the Population in Sweden concluded in 1997, before Romanian migration had reached a critical mass. Life path analysis, relying on consistent data samples from recurring interviewees is also very hard to implement, especially amidst highly mobile transnational populations like migrants often are and intra-EU Romanian migrants in particular.
Yet, the moment of migration represents the quintessential Turning Point from a life path perspective, a significant change – be it subjective or objective – that affects the entirety of a person’s life path. And what is the settling in period after the moment of migration if not a series of transitions that greatly affect the trajectory of the lifepath? Although a longitudinal study was impractical, I opted for an investigative review of the migrants’ trajectories and the series of events that had brought them to Sweden in order to better inform their decision to migrate. Therefore, I wanted to apply the five paradigmatic principles of Life-Course Theory to the best of my ability. Drawn from the seminal work of Glen, Elder Jr. et al., the five principles of life-course theory are designed as the basis for a framework in investigating long-time social changes like the migratory process (Glen, Elder Jr et al. 2003).
The Principle of Life-Span Development states that human development and aging are
life-long processes. One does not stop developing at the age of 18, one does not become an elder at age 65, and, there are fundamental behavioural and developmental changes in the course of life that cannot be easily reduced to a single variable. There is a consistent body of literature that focuses on the changes that individuals go through during their entire lives. A good example is the change in careers and workplaces (Johnson 2001) or the impact of senses of duty and good planning on career trajectories. This plays very well into the paradigm of migration and the behavioural shifts of the migrant as well as shifts in their desires and aspirations with exposure to new host country environments.
The Principle of Agency states that individuals build their own life-courses through
actions and events and that these factors have direct impact on within a greater constraining social framework and accounting for chance. This principle states that individuals are active participants within their lives, rather than the often seen state-centric research view that they are objects to be acted upon through constraints or opportunities. Individuals plot out their short and often long term path by minimizing risk and maximizing opportunities. They are of course impacted heavily by the constraints of the legal and social framework but also by chance events. In the case of Romanian migrants to Spain for instance, all the planning and good decisionmaking could not shield them from the effects of the housing crisis (Maran 2012). Once
impacted by the crisis however, the migrants began to re-orient and re-focus on other business sectors less impacted by the crisis as well as to seek employment
opportunities in other areas (ibidem). Agency has a large impact on the desires and aspirations of migrants as well, with migrants re-assessing their strategies, goals and expectations as the ‘playing board’ rearranges itself due to new opportunities, chance or social constraints.
The Principle of Time and Space states that the life course of individuals is shaped out
not only by social factors, but also by temporal and locational factors. Historical context and location are crucial factors to take into account when analyzing life paths. In the example cited above of Romanian migrants to Spain both the time (mid-crisis) and the location (Spain, a hard hit country) had a significant impact on their lives. Expectations and aspirations are equally as affected as the individuals that formulate them. Aspirations will likely be higher towards certain countries with a history of migration, whereas individuals that look uncertainly at migration will not have much in the way of aspirations at first (Pratsinakis 2005). Similarly, historical factors like the EU enlargement for Romanian migrants will have great impact on aspirations and expectations of interaction with the native stock.
The Principle of Timing states that the same event may impact actors differently
depending on the moment in their life path when they experience it, and the fact that said actors might be at distinct positions in their life path development-wise may also influence this situation. Making a certain decision as a young individual might have a significantly different impact than the same decision or transition at another moment. In Maran’s research recent Romanian migrants, who came to Spain closer to the moment of crisis were significantly more impacted by the legislative, social and labour force shifts than already established migrants. Similarly, the same event or decision will impact aspirations and strategies in vastly different ways depending on factors such as the age of the migrant, his social and career development, whether he migrates as a pioneer or within an established community and so forth, all extremely important factors to take into account when charting the evolution in migrant
aspirations.
Finally but perhaps quintessential for the research is the Principle of Linked Lives which states that there is great inter-dependence between the life paths of individuals and that great social and historical changes impact several individuals at both the macro and the micro level. Therefore the integration in a social network will
considerably alter an individual’s life path, as will the change to another network or a significant turning point like marriage or the process of migration. Similarly large- scale changes will affect the inter-dependent life paths of individuals even if at first it would seem to be limited to one or a few individuals. For instance, individuals seen as not conforming to social constraints and acting out in criminal ways could be
persuaded to better integrate by a network of peers acquired through marriage (Sampson & Laub 1993). Or, in the case of the Romanian migrants to Spain, the unemployment and potential movement of the working members of the family could equally affect the non-working members of the family like children or elders. This is perhaps the hardest thing to chart in the case of aspirations and changes in aspirations over time as the sense of collective imperative often take precedence over an
individual’s desires. Nonetheless, collective aspirations are equally important in the course of one’s life path even if sometimes they might seem imposed from the outside rather than reached by consensus.
The aspirations of migrants are also significantly impacted by their position in national, group and transnational hierarchies and this is where the concept of social status comes into play. A crucial concept in the social sciences, social status has been equated to prestige (Weber 1964) or symbolic capital and a source of differentiation (Bourdieu 1991). I will look at the way migrants factor their social status into their goals and desires and how they use differentiation from host societies and other subsets of migrants as well as their peers in the home country to define themselves and change their long term goals. This social status often correlates with socio-economic status, but paradoxically it can be in direct opposition to it. Migrants that often find themselves very low in the hierarchies of their host societies, often at a direct status loss compensate through increased status in their origin societies (Glick-Schiller and Fouron 1999). This is especially important as at a public discourse level and in a lot of the state-driven research, social status, both relative and absolute is disregarded in migrants, narratives generally drifting towards one of the two main economic perspectives on migration. Migrants are reduced to either capital creators and net contributors to the economy, and therefore beneficial (Dustman & Frattini 2013, Ruist 2014) or as ‘moochers’ and ‘job thieves’(Fox 2012), overall detrimental to the economy and the state. This last perspective is also inflexed with various ‘cultural peril’ aspects, with the social distance between host society and migrant often emphasized heavily.
Said social distance also plays an important role in the way migrants frame
themselves in host societies and the way they structure their goals and aspirations. Social distance generally refers to a cumulative distance in terms of race, class and socio-economic status. While this is valuable in itself, I will focus more on the cultural distance between the Swedish host society and the Romanian origin society. Social distance is best described by Geert Hofstede throughout his cultural
dimensions theory. Consistently employing too many sets of variables, Hofstede was too focused on the macro/national level of analysis for this paper. Therefore, I reconceptualised the concept of ‘perceived cultural distance’ as an individual-centric variable. I understand ‘perceived cultural distance’ as a series of discrete, but often hard to underline, differences between two social groups as expressed by one of the two groups. The goal of perceived social distance is to differentiate or, indeed, equate the two social groups. It can also be reflective (how an individual perceives another group’s view of its own group) or inflective (how an individual perceives another group).
I will also dedicate a sizeable section of the paper to what I call ‘irregular migrants’, focusing on panhandlers and street performers that Romanians often associate with the Roma minority. I use the term ‘irregular’ instead of ‘illegal’ for two reasons. First, undocumented migration is generally not illegal. The migrants are often not in direct breach of any laws, but have instead not gone through the immigration process or have not obtained all necessary permissions for undergoing their respective activities. Secondly, due to the open nature of the European Union’s free travel area (the so-called “Schengen Space”) it is not illegal for individuals to travel between EU countries without any type of registration. The legislation in Sweden considers stays shorter than three months ‘travel’ rather than migration and generally registration is necessary (and often requires hard to obtain docuents from the home country) only in order to access the various aspects of the Swedish welfare state. The irregular
migrants seldom take any advantage of these both due to (often willingly) complicated bureaucratic processes and due to significant lacks in their own
documentation. The term ‘irregular migrant’ will therefore generally refer to buskers and street musicians (both legal activities without a permit in Sweden) who live outside the bounds of the Swedish state but within the bounds of its territory. Methodology
Before conducting my study I focused on getting a better statistical outline of the demographics of Romanian migration to Sweden. This was not done in order to obtain a representative sample, or a statistically relevant result but in order to get a clearer view of a minority that is nowhere as visible or as researched as the Polish or Syrian ones, for example. Seeing as there has been little in the way of research done on Romanians in the European North, especially in Sweden and especially in terms of qualitative analyses, I decided it is important to explain the current situation of the migrants and the process by which they arrived in a country so ‘different’ from their origin one. In order to do this I focused on the Statistiska Centralbyrån data from the past three decades. The data was further compacted with LINDA data. LINDA is a longitudinal survey of the Swedish population and it includes a 20% selection of all immigrants to Sweden with various readings like tax brackets, employment,
education, pension funds, housing and so forth.
Unfortunately, most of the data sample is available only up to the year 1997. This is why it was only of informative use in conducting this research. Statistics after the year 1997 are mostly basic and available through the CSB website. However, they do paint an interesting and predictable upwards trend in the number of Romanian immigrants to Sweden, starting with yearly changes in the low hundreds up to almost 2000 new registered migrants a year.
New Romanian Immigrants per Year 2000-2013
Romanians with Swedish Citizenship 2000-2013
If we take into account the entire number of Romanian citizens living in Sweden, we can see the true shift in dimension over the past few decades. Romanians used to number in the hundreds now they number in the tens of thousands.
Romanian Nationals in Sweden
Three waves of immigrants are also clearly identifiable, corresponding to the three periods that Romania has gone through in the past few decades. The first is comprised of the pre-1989 migrants, who almost exclusively arrived as asylum seekers and refugees. The opportunities and conditions necessary to leave Romania were quite limited at the time due to the travel restrictions imposed by the Communist regime. This is why most of this initial wave consists of highly educated migrants and their dependents. A second, post-1989 wave of refugees and asylum seekers was
characterised by a diversification of socio-economic backgrounds, but harsher conditions for the granting of asylum in Sweden. After the crucial point of 1996, during Romania’s first shift in economic power, the number of new migrants slowed to a trickle. But in 2007 the numbers jumped dramatically as Romania joined the European Union and all Romanians could move freely within its bounds. This third wave is extremely eclectic and consists of people of all statuses and backgrounds though there is a sharp increase in menial labourers and less educated migrants. Having established a solid snapshot of Romanian overall migration in the past few decades I embarked upon my own research. My research was carried out in May and June of 2014 by means of narrative, open interviews. I structured my questions in such a manner as to investigate 5 separate moments in the migrant’s life path. The first was aimed at their pre-migration conditions and any history of past migration in order to establish a baseline and look at early representations of the host society in their goals and aspirations. The second was the moment of migration, consisting both of the migratory process and the triggering decision to migrate. This was the moment in the life path where I was most interested in what, if any, aspirations the migrants had for the near future and immediate expectations in the host society. The third was their establishment in the new society and their aspirations within the first
‘accommodation’ years. The fourth was their present position and present aspirations, and finally, fifth was aimed at their expectations for the future.
I carried out 12 interviews over the course of two months, most with single participants, a few with two participants, husband and wife. Almost all of my
participants were living in Stockholm at the time, a couple however were visiting and lived in other places in the country. About half of the interviews took place in the subject’s home, although my interviews with irregular migrants and several others took place on the street, in cafés or similar public places, usually free from
candidates from three different entry points: Facebook and social media groups devoted to the Romanian diaspora in Sweden, an actual Romanian in-person meet-up at an embassy/Romanian Cultural Institute organized Easter party and via a well-connected link in the social network that I had managed to reach via acquaintances. Furthermore, several interviews I took by pure happenstance. I was seated next to one of the most interesting interviewees on a flight from Stockholm to Bucharest. Several others, mostly irregular migrants I had approached on the street. This diversity and the fact that I was aware of Romanian demographics in Sweden, both by being one and by my prior research helped me get a broad and interesting overall sample.
Said sample consists of 15 informants. 9 are male and 6 are female. Four are aged between 20 and 29, five are between 30 and 39, two are between 40 and 49, three are past 50 and one is past 65. Of the 15, 2 are students (including a doctoral student), 5 are employed, one runs his own company, one is unemployed, two are pensioners and 4 are panhandlers with no steady residence. Most are married or in a long-term
relationship, only one is single. Of those married all are in Sweden with their spouses, though all of the irregulars are without their children. All but three are religious, Christian Orthodox. Eleven are self-professed ethnic Romanians, three are Roma and one is ethnically Hungarian. Geographically they hail from all of Romania’s five historical regions, though most are from the south. Historically, I have managed to interview informants from all three phases of Romanian migration to Sweden, though 7 were from the post EU (2007+) accession phase including all four of the irregular migrants. Two of the irregular migrants were, however, return migrants, ‘wintering out’ in Romania and returning to Sweden for the second time. The ‘oldest’ respondent from this group had been in Sweden for 40+ years, the most recent one had arrived for about a month.
Interviews lasted between 45 minutes and an hour per participant with the exception of the interviews with some of the irregulars which were shorter and less in depth. Where I had couple interviews I dedicated double the time to the interview. Most interviews were recorded in Romanian, transcribed then pre-coded by hand then using MaxQDA. Several interviews, including all of the ones with irregular migrants were written down in shorthand on a pad either during the interview or right after, then transcribed.
I divided the research into three parts based on three separate themes that were recurrent in the findings. The first focuses on the circumstances that led up to the moment of migration, said moment and the immediate aftermath, the so-called ‘survival’ phase. I look at how aspirations form in this phase and how they are subverted and changed amidst different migrant groups. I try to look at comparisons amidst ‘generations’ of migrants and find what differences and similarities exist within the aspirations of those groups during the initial migration period and how timing, and space/time constraints impacted thse initial aspirations. The second part focuses on the aspirations of migrants as they settle into their new host society, how the interactions with the native population and other Romanian migrants impacted their expectations of the new country as well as how the aspirations change over the long period of time that follows the initial migration period. Finally, the third part analyzes where the migrants are now, how they see their position now and in the future and what aspirations they have for their continued (or not) stay in the host society.
A separate chapter will handle the impact that the European Union accession of Romania has had on the life paths of migrants as most, both established and recent migrants quote it as a historical point of reference in the evolution of their stay. Finally, a separate short chapter will be devoted to the lives of irregular migrants and to the wedge that the Romanian diaspora drives between these ‘undesirables’ and the rest in order to further their status in the host society. I will look at the aspirations (if any) of the irregular migrants and how they contrast and resemble those of the mainstream group.
The last thing to note is that all names given are fictitious. Three Waves
In the following chapter I intend to give a brief, but comprehensive review of the ‘three waves’ of Romanian Migration across Europe and their particular incarnations in Sweden.
The issue of Romanian migration, as well as East-European migration in general is an increasingly salient issue at the public level in many EU member states.
Consequently, funds and attention have been increasingly awarded to research in this field. Most of the research has focused on economic and social quantitative research concerning raw migrant numbers and their supposed impact on the welfare and labour systems of the destination countries. There has been research done into the social and life path aspects of Romanian migration, but it has almost exclusively been focused on the European South whereas most of the public attention and restrictions on Romanian Labour have been in the European North. In fact, most of the research in the social sciences concerning Romanian migrants has addressed cases in the European South.
Romanian migration is a relatively recent phenomenon especially in its mass migration incarnation. Whereas other European countries have a longstanding tradition of both immigration and emigration (Martin, Abella & Kuptsch 2006), Romania has had little access to the European space for much of the past half century. There was a sizeable movement in the early years of the 20th century towards
America, but financial and cultural factors made this exodus small and one-way. Romanian migration all but shut down in the post-war years. While Southern countries like Italy, Greece or Spain were participating in the large guest worker programs of the 1960s, Romanians were locked behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ and citizens required special government dispensation to travel abroad (Anghel 2013). The few cases of pre-1990 Romanian ‘migrants’ were generally upper class, educated
individuals who managed to get asylum status in a Western country and then, starting with the 1980s they started to ‘reunify’ their family by helping family members defect. However, unlike the bulk of guest workers, these few ‘pioneers’ never intended to go back home as they had no ability or desire to do so, which is why in many countries of destination the number of asylum spots were severely restricted. After 1989 the migration increased dramatically prompting an often panicked
response from Western authorities fearing some 25 to 50 million of Eastern European migrants coming west (Tränhardt 1996). The situation further evolved in the early and especialy late 2000’s when Romanian nationals found the opportunities to travel
within the Schengen space increased dramatically.
The literature on Romanian migration closely follows these stages of expansion. Initially ignored in migration literature, at the time focused more on post-colonial migration and guest-worker family reunification, Romanians become an issue in the early-to-mid 90s especially in Germany. The Comunist-era ‘export’ of Romanian ethnic Germans and almost immediate post-communist reunificatory migration of some 200000 Aussiedlers to Germany created a strong network of contacts for Romanian migrants seeking employment in Germany (Michalon 2003). Germany became a focal point for Romanian migration in the early 90s, with many Romanians travelling irregularly by crossing over to Germany through the Czech Republic and Poland (Reyniers 2003). Initial labour opportunities increased over time and new ones arose such as trans-border trade opportunities with neighbouring countries. Romanian TIR drivers created networks and contacts all over Europe and, as Romania slowly democratised, more Romanians living abroad, either having migrated pre-1989 or in the turbulent years after the revolution started to re-form ties to families back home. In the case of Sweden several respondents narrated the story of ‘the Boat’, the first boat of Romanian refugees post-1989 revolution. Several established themselves in Sweden and became pioneer migrants and contacts for another generation of
migrants. These first migrants were diverse even if not particularly numerous. Some were seasonal, others were shuttle migrants and there were growing numbers of students migrating for academic purposes, the first ‘pioneers’ of the Romanian brain drain.
Post-1996 a new coalition government began a wide array of reforms and long
overdue privatizations in Romania and a large number of people found themselves out of a job overnight. This is, apart from the EU accession and the fall of communism the single most important turning point in the phenomenon of Romanian migration. Suddenly, large numbers of blue collar and black collar workers were out of a job and, often hailing from rural backgrounds, they had to fall back on subsistence agriculture, a job for which they were not particularly well suited. This job loss also came with a significant status drop (Anghel 2013 pp. 7) as the same commuters who had a privileged position during communism, being ‘from the countryside’ and therefore able to procure necessary foodstuffs during the many food shortages were now completely disposable, out of a job and with no prospects of future employment. The stage was slowly set for a sizable, almost nation-wide migration. After 2000 when Romania was invited to join the EU and the visa programs started to get more favourable, many in the impoverished rural areas struck out, at first for Southern European countries and Germany then for the rest of Europe. The ‘brain drain’ phenomenon also started to accentuate as more professionals and students started to migrate towards countries that offered better employment opportunities.
Finally, after 2007 migration exploded, with large numbers of people from all walks of life going abroad in search of work. Whole rural areas in some of the poorest regions in Romania were depopulated almost overnight. Romanians began to become more visible and negative stereotypes about them started to appear (McMahon 2012). The Roma/Romanian distinction was one that was often blurred in the West, much to Romanians’ ire. Xenophobic and anti-gypsy sentiments started to grow in Romania in relation to this lack of distinction. As Romanian migration was racialized abroad (Fox et al 2012), so did Romanians sub-racialize at home.
While debates on Romanian migration raged in the South, the North had very little in the way of mass migration. Some countries like the UK and the Netherlands had imposed stringent labour force restrictions, while others like Sweden or Norway had structural safeguards (language, perceived cultural distance). Nonetheless, some numbers of Romanian migrants started trickling into the Nordic countries as well at first as seasonal migrants, shuttle migrants and brain drain migrants, then increasingly as labour migrants looking for 3D (Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning) jobs.
These three waves are important to take into account when discussing the aspirations of Romanian migrants due to the different conditions that each ‘wave’ was subjected to both from a social and from an institutional perspective. Early asylum migrants, especially before and right after 1990 got the best treatment possible with job market integration, free Swedish courses, refugee stipends etc. They were also the least ‘visible’ at the Swedish societal level and they benefitted from the heyday of Swedish multiculturalism and liberalism. The second wave of Romanian migrants was bound by constraints of hard immigration and family reunification law but benefitted from networks and a continued ‘invisibility’. The third wave of Romanian migrants has no institutional boundaries holding them back, but is highly visible, has structural
obstacles to overcome (labour market discrimination, language inability) and benefits very little if at all from the now slowly winding down Swedish welfare state and multicultural policy.
Money and ‘Happenstance’
Almost all of the respondents that I interviewed during the course of the research, regardless of their wave, socio-economic background or employment status cited one central factor in their moving to Sweden. ‘Fate’ or ‘Happenstance’ were gleefully mentioned as decisive factiors in their choice of destination. More of then than not this ‘Happenstance’ was actually code for opportunity. For some fate was a brother or uncle acting as a pioneer, for others it was a friend or a relative, and for others still it was a study or work opportunity. Of the people I interviewed, only two were
‘pioneers’, one arriving on the fabled ‘first boat’ and another even before that, as an asylum seeker during communism.
Nonetheless the initial aspirations of almost all respondents were uncertain. Most migrated as a ticket to a better life whether this better life initially meant an escape from communism, an escape from poverty or an escape from dead end academia. First wave migrants were focused on the very pragmatic: of the two that I interviewed both professed a desire to ‘escape to the west’ and make a better life abroad. They both had good jobs back home, comparatively speaking, one as a researcher, the other as an economist but they desired not as much an advancement of status as an expansion in liberty, with all other plans falling second. While one was migrating as part of family reunification and could expect to rely on a network of family members and
acquaintances to establish himself the other migrated in complete uncertainty, simply driven by a desire for ‘better’ as he put it.
Second wave migrants, at least early on were driven by much of the same issues. The uncertainty of post-revolutionary Romania with its street fights and persecutions of intellectuals drove many to leave out of the same drive for liberty as their
predecessors. My only early second wave pioneer respondent, Adrian, cited the same type of misconceptions, a ‘disgust’ for Romania and a desire for democracy. He had been working as a journalist in the early days of the revolution and experienced the brutality of the passing of the torch first hand. He left as an asylum seeker and despite never being able to practice journalism again he never looked back. Later second wave respondents migrated out of ‘happenstance’. One couple never intended to settle in Sweden at all, they just came to see a friend who promised them ‘all will be better abroad’. When said friend was arrested for credit card fraud a few days later they were left to fend for themselves in a foreign country with no money and their aspirations quickly turned towards simple survival. Lastly, one of the pillars of my research, a well connected respondent who I shall call Flavia had moved to Sweden with very low expectations but one crucial one set in stone: To get married. She had been dating Adrian, the second wave pioneer on and off for a few years and they had decided to get married and have a child. This involved her moving to Sweden which she agreed to eventually. By this time Adrian was well established so she was moving into certainty and had high expectations that her goals would be achieved.
“I came here because of Adrian […] he tried out the waters in 90-91 after the great Mineriada. […] He later came here after he sold his business in Romania and afterwards I came. We got married here, as we had planned.”
Things were more complicated for third wave migrants. It was harder for pioneers to establish themselves despite theoretical freedom of travel. The only third wave immigrant in my sample was ileana who came to Sweden after studying Swedish in university. She had very low expectations of the country, simply coming on an Erasmus program but found the country to be very in tune with her sensibilities. She later came for a master’s in Sweden, then started working and brought along her now-husband Iosif. Iosif had the path laid out for him and studied a high-demand field so he had no apprehensions about coming over. His aspirations revolved around academia and he managed to strike a career in it in Sweden. Others like Lotzi, who has a very basic school background decided to migrate for work, with simple
mercantile return-migration aspirations: work in construction, get paid, return home. However he found his expectations shattered, he found himself underpaid and
‘attached’ to a Swedish girlfriend, severely upsetting both his aspirations to warn a lot of money and return home.
After the initial moment of migration ‘Happenstance’ seems to continue playing an important role in the lives of Romanian migrants in Sweden and a very significant role in shaping their aspirations. The crucial first few months of accomodation and ‘survival’ however are greatly influenced both by the timing of their migration and their dependence of others. First wave migrants, whether they immigrated into an established network or alone found a strong support structure. Apart from financial aid and social establishment aid they received free Swedish courses and other opportunities from the swedish state. With such a broad horizon their expectations began to expand. One respondent, Vlad, the researcher, having moved over with his wife found through the ‘happenstance’ of social networking a job in an academic-proximal field despite not having recognized qualifications. Cristian, the pioneer
found a job fairly easy through his Swedish girlfriend (now wife) and began to assimilate rapidly.
“I started to dream of being more Swedish. I was not ashamed of being Romanian but I was alone here and […] this country took me in, saved me from Ceausescu and his communists”
The first few months were more difficult for second wave immigrants. Early on, second wave pioneers benefitted from much of the same advantages as first wave migrants. This did not help in the initial establishment though as , devoid of a social network they had to prosper in a social tie vacuum. Many second wave immigrants who, unlike first wave immigrants, had the opportunity to move back home or migrate elsewhere did just that. Many on the ‘first boat’ ended up in Germany. Others back to Romania. Their aspirations often were reduced to financial matters, a sterile social environment and low social status did not permit them to dream of establishment. It was also a very productive time to be a Romanian ‘businessman’ in Romania, as many companies were being privatised cheaply and there were increasing commercial opportunities in a once hermit kingdom. Therefore, for many second wave migrants amassing wealth and returning home became the primary goal. This was initially the strategy of Bianca and Virgil who found themselves alone and penniless in a foreign country. Though they were very sketchy about hteir first months in Sweden in terms of strategies if not aspirations (“we wanted to make enough money to live. We didn’t want to end up back home”) a third party, other interviewee who knew them well told me that they had resorted to prostitution. Whether this was part of their strategy all along or not I do not know.
Third wave migrants, though very diverse and coming in high numbers had almost invariably short term financial aspirations. Most dreamed to make money and make it back home and opted for seasonal labour or guest worker contracts. Lotzi opted for the latter with a large sum paid upon departure but found himself underpaid and became dependent on his Swedish girlfriend until he was able to find a new job. It was only later that he started to realize his situation and start to question his initial plans. Other migrants such as Ion came over with the express intention of starting a business though even he cited ‘fate’ as the main drive in his coming to Sweden. With no long term plan apart from making money, operating out of Romania but in Sweden Ion managed to undercut the market and make quite a bit of money in a state of semi-legality. High costs of living, an appreciation for the culture and changes in
aspirations gradually convinced him not to leave back for Romania and keep living and making a life for himself and his brother in Sweden. Perhaps most interesting is the case of Ana. Despite a network of acquaintances in Sweden and a doctoral position/teaching job offered, no strings attached, she was severely apprehensive at first.
“it’s cold and dark and depressing and I didn’t have any friends here. I could’ve gone to London where my sister was but the offer here was better in terms of benefits”
One of the driving forces in both Ana’s decision to move to Sweden over the UK and in the shift of her initial aspirations from apprehensive to expectative was her partner who accompanied her to Sweden and had business and education plans. The other was the group of multilingual, multiethnic colleagues that she was thrust into who
proved both inspirational and reliable. Integrated in a larger social network by ‘happenstance’ and with a supportive partner Ana has now reviewed the long term expectations of her migrant status, clear example of the interdependence of lifepaths. The third wave of Romanian migration is perhaps clear proof that social support structures are just as important in migration as state support stuctures if not more so. Despite all citing ‘happenstance’ the three waves of Romanian migration paint three very different pictures of host country initial reaction and the influence of social and legal structures on lifepaths. The first wave was highly educated and received enough support, social but mostly state to take advantage of that education and build a new comfortable life in a new environment, both adapting to it and adapting their
expectations of it. The second wave was less fortunate. It received more modeststate support and enough breathing room to sink or swim on their own. We therefore find individuals who flourished on their own and individuals who could not, tightly knit social groups and disparate outliers each with very different sets of expectations going into the ‘establishment’ period. Finally the third wave is pure laissez-faire migration. You have state disinvolvement in the migration process both as hindrance and aid and large numbers of individuals adapting and reorienting their goals
according to their own ability. With the withdrawal of the state from the migratory process we find social structure taking place both in support (social networks) and hindrance (name screening, covert racism) in the marketplace. Each individual is left to sink or swim on his own and this produces a variety of ‘winners and losers’ ranging from Ana who chaged her outlook for the radically better to Vasile, an irregular migrant who planned on returning to Romania as soon as possible and deplored the fact that “Sweden, Romania, EU… all the same. They equalised the prices but did nothing for the people.”
‘Settling In’
After a few initial months of understanding the rigours of the Swedish system and adapting to their new environment we can no longer speak of migrants ‘surviving’. In many cases they adapted to their new environment, are taking their first steps in learning the language or reaching out htrough their newly formed social network for employment opportunities. Those who diid not wat or could not adapt have turned back home with their aspirations of gathering cash either squandered or fulfilled. For those that have remained comes a stressful, strange period, not a turning point as much as a series of complex transitions that determine their new lifepath trajectory and the new aspirations tha come with it. This period is the ‘settling in’ period and, depending on chance it can last from months to decades.
Settling in means adapting. Adapting to the rigors of the host society or finding a way to exploit them to your advantage. Settling in does not necessarily mean integrating. One can flourish outside the bounds of mainstream society just as well and there are several respondents who have done just that. But more often than not settling in means making small but difficult decisions that compound to alter one’s perspectives and opportunities significantly.
Of course, settling in was different for all of the three waves of Romanian migration. Before 1989 the extended settling in period was accompanied by opportunities for personal development, whether to learn the language, acquire a new skill or work a
new job. The migrant was first and foremost a ward of the state, state that tried to provide him with the bare minimum in order to properly integrate into the host society.
Vlad narrates this quite fondly. Having been granted asylum after following in his brother-in-law’s footsteps Vlad and his wife were offered an apartment and language learning opportunities. Vlad, having thrained as a linguist was much faster on the uptake than his wife, a scenographer who had difficulties both in learning the language and adapting to the Swedish society. She had a breakdown as she got her first job as a school painting instructor. Still, Vlad and his wife endured and lived on their welfare check for a long time until, as he describes it.
“83’ was a blessed year. My daughter was born and I found my calling. I had worked in dead end jobs for a while, had learned Swedish and had setttled in. Then an old college professor asked me to deliver a microfilm of some historical artifacts to a Swedish colleague. I met wit hthe man and we got talking for hours. We became fast friends and a few weeks later he called me and told me about this job he told me I would be perfect for it”
Cristian, the other first year migrant had adapted quite well to swedish society. He had married a Swedish lady and spoke fluent swedish he even worked for a company in his chosen profession. Yet despite of his opportunities he was dreaming of having Romanian friends, something rare in rural Skåne. Having gotten his citizenship Cristian started visiting Romania again and found at once an apalling sense of
nostalgia for the country and a detachment from its woes. During his trips back home Cristian started to bring necessary items that were no longer available in 1980s
Romania like deodorant or packs of cigarettes, commonly used as bribes at the time in order to get the product that you actually needed. He did not do this for profit but out of a desire to engage with his home country even as he was integrating into his new home.
The second wave of immigrants was more dynamic than the first. Many of the migrants that arrive in Sweden departed after making some money just as they had planned, and starting a business back home. Adrian was exactly in this situation. After a brief stint in Sweden he decide to call it quits and invest his money in a company at home. He became part of the wave of return migrants that followed the brief
Romanian exodus of the post 1989 years. Nonetheless after several years at home and a developing relationship with Flavia his aspirations began to turn outwards once more and he returned and re-established himself in sweden where he had an extended social network.
“I always knew I could go back to Stockholm at any point. My sister was there, she had come to me when I first got there. And when I decided to get married I left Romania behind. It was no place for a family. Or at least not as good as Sweden.” Leaving his business behind Adrian reoriented himself towards work in Sweden and although he didn’t have the capital for a business here (yet) worked outside of his field in order to pursue his and his new wife’s shared lifepath abroad. Flavia did not fare as well. A strong and well established woman within her home community she found herself more or less isolated in her new environment and unable to find
employment. She had a severe depression crisis in her first yars abroad but as she adapted to her new lifepath and started to develop and integrate in an ever expanding network she found her calling as an amateur chef pattisier.
Bianca and Virgil meanwhile had started with no money whatsoever and had made enough to survive through initial illicit means. Yet they aspired to work legally and Virgil found employment as an auto technician while Bianca worked as a secretary. Learning swedish along the way and starting a part time cleaning service they
“worked hard to get where they are”, a recurring narrative amidst successful and semi successful Romanian migrants. The hard work paid off in the end as Bianca and Virgil managed to get the business off the ground. To represent their new status the two invested in a status symbol car, a white BMW.
Third wave immigrants have had scarecely enough time to properly establish
themselves . Many, like Ana are recent arrivals and are still negotiating the first year of living abroad, getting aquainted with all the intricacies and problems of their new environment. Others like Ileana and Iosif have had plenty of time to negotiate
Swedish society and are now diving into more problematic manners such as long-term employment and parenthood. Ileana has just given birth and is also working on
establishing her own single-person company so she can act as an official translator under contract rather than doing freelance work. Iosif is working part time for a tech company, studying for his PhD and learning about the joys of fatherhood firsthand. The trajectories of individuals become murkier as their socio-economic status is threatened. With no income of his own and living with his girlfriend and her children 30 year old Lotzi has no clear path before him. His initial aspirations of making money and returning home have fallen into disarray and is unsure where to look next. In a relationship and looking for a job his future is as fluid as his aspirations, both more uncertain than when he arived here. Equally uncertain albeit at a different socio-economic status is Ion’s situation. Unattached, unperturbed and with no clear visible future Ion’s aspirations are reduced to hoping for a content simple lifestyle with no hassle.
As the lifepaths of actors intermingle and face spatial and historical constraints their aspirations are reconsidered over and over. The settling in period is the most prolific of these periods of renegotiations as instead of one large change, as in the moment of migration there are a plethora of small changes that entirely alter a lifepath if given time. Despite their differences all migrants seem to have a period of uncertitudes after their fist few years abroad. In the case of Sweden as the migants develop relationships and a better understanding of the system their expectations change, starting to veer from issues of finance towards issues of location and status, and even legacy issues such as mortgages, home prestige or childbirth. This is also when most actors come into contact with host society issues, most of which are detrimental to the migrant aspirations. Most of my informants narrate how they came across covert racism in their first years where employers refused to hire them either because they felt like they did not know enough Swedish or even because of their last name. Actors re-assess their social position and aspirations and develop their own stereotypes about the host society (“too liberal”, “covertly racist”, “hypocrite”, “lawful”, “blessed” to name but a few). The perceived social distance between the host and origin society becomes evident in many cases in both reflexive and inflexive complaints levied against the Swedish society.
Smaller complaints have also arisen, like the way Swedes drive, or the kind of food they eat. Even their tolerance for certain ‘undesirable’ elements of Romanian society becomes a point of cleavage for framing the Romanian diaspora as opposed to the native stock. Roma are the biggest problem but not the only one. One particularly strange exchange with Bianca had her shrugging at not hiring Somali women for her company because “they have a distinct smell and the client knows this. He’s not going to say it but he is going to ask for another cleaner” while sneering at a gay couple that is a customer and perpetuating male/female atributions to one partner or the other and using (Romanian) slurs.
Nonetheless with the compounding of the three waves Romanian migrants have become increasingly visible in Sweden. Moreso there are certain signifying elements that have become associated with Romanians in the Swedish popular mythos. Already there are Romanian stereotypes (often folded into the broader ‘eastern european’ stereotypes). It is important to note that more often than not it is Romanians
themselves who are responsible about such stereotypes. The flashy BMW stereotype, associated by Swedes with Eastern Europeans has been confirmed by three of my informants, for one becoming a bragable point of pride.
It is also interesting to note that most migrants have now revised their aspirations. While most had a nebulous concept of a ‘better life’ or earning money at first this has become increasingly mutable as the spectre of marriage, mortgage or childbirth looms over. And the decidedly strong impetus of Romanian migrants to ‘go back home’ is dwindling fast. Most think that ‘things are improving’ in Sweden even as older migrants are complaining about the wind down of the socio-political framework that they experienced.
‘A Better Life For Our Children’
If when thinking about the past Romanian migrants frame almost everything in terms of their native country, drawing comparisons and underlining differences, when it comes to the future the framing is almost always in terms of ‘legacy’ and ‘children’. This concern for minimizing the risk of the next generation and seeing them succeed often goes past into the realm of expectation. People who have not had children, often single informants underline elements such as the school system or what a safe place Sweden generally is. Aspirations are almost universally from the sphere of prosperity or legacy but a strong emphasis is put on the latter by the Romanian migrants. Bianca, motherof a two year old kept underlining how their move to a less desirable
neighbourhood (status) is bothmore expensive (prosperity) but most importantly: “It’s good for the girl. She can grow up with the same kids go to a nice kindergarten in a meadow, then at school. We’re still in the Stockholm metropolitan area, what do I care if this isn’t the Center?”
Ileana and Iosif have just had a baby together and they are adamant about raising it is Sweden. Both are invested into the parental leave system and both want to spend as much time at home as possible. They praisethe flexibility of the parental leave system which alows the ‘saving’ of days for later on in the child’s development. A baby was
in the plan all along, ever since the start of their relationship and they often seem to have the whole life of the infant planned out , up until its teenage life. They speak at length of finding a good school nearby and raising the child bilingual. The
safeguarding of romanian traditions and language seems to be an important factor for everybody. Cristian talks at length how, despite the fact that she is only
half-romanian, his daughter speaks Romanian fluently. Vlad also explains in detail the life path of his daughter, now 30. They wanted her to take full advantage of the swedish system so they let her go to an art high school and go on various internships and finally at the art school at Univerisity. Now she is working for the state as a graphic designer. Flavia and Adrian have a child together as well, also raised bilingual, baptised at the Romanian church and treated to Romanian cartoons every evening. They too make mention of Sweden being a great place to live and raise your children and of the great education system which is ‘designed to produce wholly trained children rather than a few geniuses and a mass of idiots, like in Romania’
Another popular way to refer to the future is in terms of retirement, by juxtaposition to the dire situation of retirees in Romania. Five different interviewees have made mention of the retirement system is Sweden as a good thing to look forward to in various ways.
The two retirees that I interviewed were the least enthusiastic about it, of course. One called it adequate, but a lot less that his old salary, the other called it too law and blamed it on the slow death of the welfare state. By contrast, young people seem positively thrilled. Ana talked at length about the pensions system and its security investment safeguards, Bianca and Virgil mentioned it as one of the greatest
advantages in the country, the fact that they’re not going to end up like an old lady in a Romanian retirement home “broke and dying”.
Finally the third and possibly most eclectic way to look at the future in terms of aspirations is the idyllic view of Romania as the true ‘mother country’ and the quintessential end of the road. Almost all of the interviewees, even those that had been here for decades professed an ‘undying love’ for Romania and said that they would repatriate tomorrow if they could live at a comparable level. Even established migrants like Bianca professed that:
“If I could live home like I do here, at a comparable level, I would sell everything tomorrow and move to Romania. I belong in Romania, that’s where I feel best, that’s where I want to spend my old age and die”
when I asked her about the Swedish pensions system that she had just lauded she added.
“Oh, with the money from here, of course”.
Perhaps the most interesting case is that of Lotzi. Arrived to sweden two years ago he has worked and lost it all, gave up on one dream of gaining wealth and settled for raising kids. Yet in his head the problem is still nebulous. He still plans to return one day, some day but he has no clue when or how. He just knows that so far he is not employed and not engaged. In theory he could return at any time but the relationship
with his girlfriend and her children muddles things up. The present is as uncertain as the future for Lotzi.
This ‘uncertainty of the present’ is a recurring theme with several of my respondents particularly the irregular migrants. Living in a state of quasi-legality, with no familial or legal obligations abroad these migrants look at a present as a great unknown variable, with a singular goal, usually to amass wealth and return home. Isolated within their own small social group they look a t the host society as a ‘pit stop’ on the wy home, a place to ‘fill up’ and go.
Overall the migrants can be divided into two categories according to their aspirations for the future: those that want to amass wealth, that is, workers that are in Sweden simply for the money and settlers who are here it stay. Yet the categories are not as important as one might think. Their professed desire to stay or leave might seem set in stone right now but situations are fluid and aspirations change wildly over time. Therefore the two categories intersect each other quite frequently. At first most Romanian migrants, particularly second and third wave migrants looked at their host country as being simply a ‘port of convenience’, a location that offered them better conditions but was by no means ‘home’, a title reserved for their origin country (or even their origin Region or county. Yet as they develop more attachments in the host country the permeability of the two categories of migrants increases and ‘home’ becomes uncertain. Finally when a migrant has a mortgage, a spouse and a child abroad and is looking at a sizeable pension fund, ‘home’ becomes less of a matter of ‘where the heart is’. Regardless of initial migration aspirations the migrant has become a ‘settler’ by virtue of his social ties and his engagement with the host society.
In terms of what might hinder them from long term goals and reverse their outwards reaching aspirations in the host society most migrants, old and new, cite
‘discrimination’ as a concern. Though some, like Cristian deny that discrimination exists in Sweden, all categories have complained at least once of a perceived injustice done to them because of their status as migrants. Ana and her partner have had police called on them for ‘spousal abuse’ during a skype call, Bianca, who speaks fluent and accentless Swedish says that she had been passed for interviews because of her last name with only ‘everybody in this office is Swedish’ as an explanation. Lotzi complains about bosses (both Romanian and Swedish) exploiting and then underpaying him.
Others, like Flavia have becomes pillars of the community because of their ability to cut through this network of perceived discrimination and to bridge the social gap on behalf of immigrants who are less adept at navigating the bureaucracy. Their
sympathetic mingling into the host society has increased their status within the migrant community. While some migrants like Cristian deny the existence of systemic discrimination and others like Bianca complain about it but take no action, Flavia has positioned herself as an advocate for the migrant, acknowledging and attempting to mitigate any discrimination. She is well established in Sweden and that position lends certain aspirational qualities to her existence as a mom and housewife.
‘We wouldn’t have been here without the EU’
The accession of Romania to the EU was a pivotal moment for Romanian migrants everywhere. While there was already significant migration Europe-wide, particularly in South-European countries, with the accession, the rules of migration simplified drastically and mobility increased exponentially. Consequently there was a massive influx of migrants in the immediate aftermath of the accession. While it was not in any way equal in scope to the wave of immigration that followed the first EU expansion wave it nonetheless acted as a turning point for Romanians both at home and abroad. There was an immense feeling of national pride and a consensus that Romania’s transition was over and Romanians were now ‘part of Europe’. I will look at how this particular historical point affected the landscape of opportunities and aspirations for Romanian migrants to Sweden particularly as there is a marked increase in migration in the years following accession.
Breaching the subject of the European Union has elicited a vast array of responses from informants ranging from indiference to complete embracing to jaded denial. Nonetheless it has provoked a strong response from almost all of the respondents. This is interesting as the majority of Swedish nationals feel ambivalently or not at all about the EU. This plays into the paradigm of migration ‘winners and losers’ with Romanian immigrants as the ‘winners’ and Swedish natives as the quasi-indifferent losers. Yet the fieldwork paints a quite different image.
The older migrants part of the first wave of migration are generally indifferent to the EU. With Swedish citizenship and full access to the state support apparatus in its heyday, older migrants stood to gain nothing from EU accession. In fact it often interfered with their goals and expectations of Swedish society through their slow reveal, not as individuals but as part of an ‘undesirable’ caste. If at first the very few migrants were simply a curiosity, with the emergence of increased numbers of Romanians they were lobbed in as ‘part of the threat’. They perceived this as an increase in perceived social distance, their proximity to the Swedish system and almost complete integration threatened by outside factors. None was more aggravated by this issue than Cristian my 55+ respondent who was happily married and
integrated into the swedish society. Though he, by association to his Swedish wife, was not seen as part of the problem he was infuriated by the influx of migrants that ‘tarnished the Romanian name’, in particular those of Roma ethnicity.
“The gypsies are not here for the first time. They had first come in the 90s, claiming they were refugees. The state told, on the news that they are not and that we shouldn’t encourage them and they disappeared overnight because they were getting no money. Now, with EU passports they are back and there is no way to get rid of them. I’ve taught my girl Romanian only for her to hear what beggars are calling her on the street?”
Similar sentiments are expressed by some second wave migrants. While almost all welcome more Romanians and the forming of an expanded Romanian community there is a distinct bittersweet perspective as the new opportunities are doubled by increased visibility and a perceived lowering of status. Respondents like Flavia have
embraced the new arrivals, using their knowledge of the system to helf the new arrivals for a status hike within the community even if one could argue for a general lowering of status in the community at large. Others like Ana or Ileana have no strong feelings one way or another. They welcome the third wave migrants (indeed they are third wave migrants, even if a bit more ‘established’) adnd have contact with them (Ana as a teacher, Ileana in her professional capacity as a legal translator) but do not identify with them. Still others have an ambivalent relationship with the new arrivals. Bianca has profited from third wave migration, as she now employs ten Romanian women in cleaning jobs at her cleaning company (something she regards as
‘patriotic’). Yet she never ceases to underline the difference between her ‘working her ass off’ and the ‘beggars who stand on the corner with their hand extended’. She aso underlines this as the difference between beggars and ‘hard working individuals’ the desire to do work and integrate into the system. For Bianca, integration and
community respect has become almost and aspirational element.
The irregular migrants did not frame their migration in relation to the Eu in any way wit hone notable exception. Vasile an elderly beggar outside Ikea who wanted to emphasize the fact that he was ‘not a gypsy’ by listing an entire litany of his past workplaces had much to say o nthe topic of the EU calling it a sham and saying it brings no profit whatsoever to the common man. He even framed his failed migration by relation to the EU. The EU, in Vasile’s view had equalized prices but not wages and had done absolutley nothing for the common man.
In terms of the actual moment of EU expansion and not its aftermath there is almost universal consensus amongst respondents that it is a great achievement. In terms of aspirations, the recognition of Romania as an EU country not only opened
opportunities for migrants but also expectations. They now expect fair treatment, equality in the workplace and under the law and when these fail to show up they are disappointed and annoyed. Often the ‘formal’ expansion of the EU and the perception of equality drive feelings of discrimination to the forefront. Virgil, who is Bianca’s husband in their literal rags to riches story complained to no end about not being put on the front page of the local newspaper after being photographed at his workplace. The newspaper opted to put a Swede on the full colour front page and relegated him to a black and white corner. “That’s equality for you. I do all the work and they put the blonde on the front page” he added annoyedly.
Yet especially amongst the third wave of migrants there is a powerful debt that many of the respondents associate with the European Union. Ileana blatantly came out and said that “without the EU we wouldn’t have been here” something confirmed by her husband and almost all of the third wave migrants. Ana said that she would likely not had done the permit work if she had to apply as an outside-EU citizen and that she would definitely not have come if, as was the case until recently for outside-EU doctoral students, her 4-year doctoral program did not count towards a permanent residency. Similarly Ion would not have been able to operate his Romanian business in another country and Dan could not have moved in with his girlfriend, being instead forced back home after his labour contract was completed. So there was wide
reaching consensus amongst third wave immigrants that the EU was instrumental in the fulfillment of their migration aspirations and in broadening the scope of
opportunities for them in Sweden. In regards to the beggars and buskers that were part of the same migration wave most respondents just shrug or thake the irregulars’ side.
