ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS’ INTEGRATION INTO CANADIAN SOCIETY: OTTA WA AND MONTREAL by MIHAELA - ECATERINA VIERU, MA Candidate A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Canadian Studies Carleton University OTTAWA, Ontario 2006, Mihaela - Ecaterina Vieru Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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THESIS ABSTRACT The thesis proposed to deal with the integration of the Romanian immigrants in Montreal and Ottawa, by approaching it not in its fixed economic, social, and political dimensions, but rather as a fluid process of individual and collective re-identification within a new economic, social, and political environment. In doing so, it was shown how the Romanians in recent waves of immigration (after 1989) are experiencing a period of adjustment, trying to gradually come to terms with their new identities, partly shaped by the inherent power relations that govern their status as immigrants, partly constructed and altered by their own perceptions and interpretations of this status and of the situations in which they find themselves. The findings of the research indicate that their interpretation is mostly influenced by their economic achievement - since the economic purposes prevailed in their decision to emigrate - age at immigration, and time spent in Canada. 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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................ 1 2 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTEGRATION............................... 14 2.1 DEFINING INTEGRATION............................................................................. 14 2.2 DIMENSIONS OF INTEGRATION................................................................ 17 2.2.1 INTEGRATION - SOCIAL PHENOMENON.............................................. 19 2.2.1.1 Cultural integration ........................................................................................... 19 2.2.1.2 Economic integration ......................................................... ................................ 23 2.2.1.3 Legal / political integration ............................................................................... 26 2.2.2 INTEGRATION - INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP PHENOMENON 28 2.2.2.1 Identity vs. identification: relevance for integration ..................................... 28 22.2.2 Individual or individualised identities? ........................................................... 32 2.2.2.3 Social or socialised identities? ........................................................................... 34 2.2.2.4 Collective or collectivised identities? ................................................................ 35 2.3 ETHNICITY IN THE INTEGRATION PROCESS......................................... 38 2.3.1 ETHNO-CULTURAL IDENTIFICATION AND INTER-GROUP POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE.......................................................................... 38 2.3.2 ETHNO-CULTURAL IDENTITY TRANSFORMATIONS DURING INTEGRATION.................................................................................................. 40 2.3.3 ETHNIC COMMUNITY ORGANISATION AND DYNAMICS................ 42 2.3.3.1 Ethno-cultural institutional representation ..................................................... 42 2.3.3.2 Intra-ethnic group politics of identity and recognition: institutional leadership, governance, power conflict, and search for status ...................... 45 2.4 FACTORS INFLUENCING INTEGRATION.................................................. 49 2.4.1 SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES........................................................ 49 2.4.2 SITUATIONAL VARIABLES ..................................................................... 52 2.4.3 SALIENT VARIABLES.................................................................................... 53 2.4.4 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES........................................................................ 55 3 RESEARCH ISSUES AND FINDINGS........................................................... 56 3.1 METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES......................................................... 56 3.2 ETHICS CONCERNS........................................................................................ 68 3.3 DATA PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION..................................... 71 3.3.1 DECISIONS, PLANS, AND EXPECTATIONS............................................. 71 3.3.2 SETTLING IN AND TAKING CONTACT WITH THE ECONOMIC REALITY............................................................................................................. 83 3.3.3 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INTERACTION............................................... 93 3.3.4 ETHNIC EXPRESSIONS AND COMMUNAL MANIFESTATIONS 100 3.3.5 IDENTIFICATION DURING INTEGRATION - INTERMINGLING DIMENSIONS, SELF-PERCEPTIONS, AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE 114 4 CONCLUSIONS.................................................................................................. 120 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................ 126 APPENDIX 1: CONCEPTS................................................................................ 131 APPENDIX 2: INTER VIEW PROTOCOL........................................................ 137 APPENDIX 3: PARTICIPANTS’ CHARACTERISTICS................................ 140 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 INTRODUCTION After the Communist regime had been removed, in December 1989, people in Romania began hoping for an enhanced future, but the hardships of the economic transition this country has been undergoing for more than fifteen years made many of my co-nationals - friends, relatives, acquaintances - want to make a better life for themselves elsewhere. Some of them chose to leave Romania, looking for rapid economic achievement. Consequently, they spent only several years in a foreign country, most often a European one, where they generally worked hard, so as to have the necessary financial resources to support their families, or even to set up a small business in Romania. Taking into account the experiences of these people with whom I came into direct contact in Romania, as well as their stories about many other Romanians they had met abroad, I found out that most Romanians who decide to legally emigrate to a Western country are young people, in their twenties or thirties, generally with a good education, who yet cannot find their way back home. As previously mentioned, it was my perception that they are looking for relatively rapid economic fulfilment that could offer them an improved social status when they return to Romania after a few years. A collateral cause for such circumstances might be the fact that there are few countries promoting immigration programs as a state policy, which could allow foreign people to settle in for good and have a life as they expected. Are their expectations met though? What is the price they have to pay when emigrating to another country? The answer to such questions is partly influenced by the individuals’ ability to adjust to the social and economic situation of the host society, but also by the society’s capacity to support and offer them an appropriate social, economic, cultural, and political environment. Some countries