During the last few years the international migration of our fellow citizens has become a day
to day trifle. Even before accessing the European Union, Romanians had learnt what Europe stands for,
what it aspires to and especially how the real and rich Europe functions, that all so desired and
precious Europe. However, this learning act did not occur through the classical method, in a
theoretical – didactical manner; instead it was achieved on a more empirical note, in which the place
of the classrooms and the sophisticated conference rooms was taken by the actual economic activities
performed by Romanians in the West after 1989. Up to this point, adapting and finding a common goal
meant physical and nervous effort as opposed to intellectual exercise and academic approach.
Categorized by the mass-media with such derogatory titles as “strawberry-pickers”, “Italians” or
“voyagers” – these migrants play an important role for the Romanian social landscape, that of a catalyst
for the integration of this country into an economically functional system. More than anyone and
anything, they constituted the binding material to connect the rest of the country to the West. All
these recent past years, they formed the “source” and the “pipeline” through which the wellbeing of so
many people poured, from the packed European wallet to the spacious local money belt. Thus, in
recent years in Romania, the rich uncle from America multiplied into millions of copies. In fact there
was a rather sudden change from an almost entirely internal migration imposed by political
restrictions of the movements within a confined space (with a prevailing village-towards-city
trajectory) to a totally different structure, in which the main element of novelty is represented by the
(re)activation of migration flows with international destinations. Once activated, especially after the
year 2000, this type of migratory behavior tends to become one of the most important socio-economic
phenomena manifested in present Romania.