Abstract

Romanian immigration has lately been a polemical theme in the Spanish media, as Romania joined the European Union in 2007, after many years of struggle and failure. This welcome wasn’t well at all when, once the borders opened, a high number of Romanian immigrants started their odyssey to the West. After a long period of communism and bloodshed for freedom, the democracy Romanians were yearning for was smashed into a corrupted society and a pseudo-democracy that finally concluded with a massive migration to the “first world countries”. The poverty situation and the economic problems they had in their own country made them follow the “European dream” for a better living - main destination: Spain. The problems arose in Spanish society as soon as their number started to increase too fast and they were willing to work on a half of the wage Spanish workers did. Social problems also appeared when some cases of delinquency and prostitution were related to Romanians, as well as the association of Romanians with gypsies. Moreover, the frustration of the economic crisis that appeared recently sparked off xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants, especially Romanians, as they became the main sending country with the highest number of immigrants in Spain.