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Cultural Migration in Autobiography Grundtvig Partnerships 2009-2011

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

e-mail: kszia@komesnet.com.pl http://cma.internetdsl.pl

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Timişoara – Writers, Migration and their Autobiographies

Gabriela Tucan

To start with, the group of writers in Timisoara was formed after a long and thorough search. We knew we should be looking for immigrants willing to write about themselves and their experience of immigration. So, we started our search for families of immigrants. Much as we tried, we could hardly find anyone to match our profile, so then we realized that here in Romania immigration means something else. Indeed, some ‘immigrants’ here are work migrants, others constantly shift countries, and some others come to study here and decide to remain. For most of them, ‘immigration’ sounds rather strange and far-fetched, as they never truly think of themselves as immigrants. Luckily, to them migration is not irreversible.

And so, we found Bilal Abbas whose Romanian mother got married in Sudan where they lived but only until Abbas was three-year-old. And then, we got Ahmed from Egypt who has worked for several years as a lecturer of Arabian language in the Republic of Moldavia and now in Timisoara. Then, Edwina Vochot of Czech origin who has been always traveling from Romania to the Czech Republic and now studies in Timisoara. Next, Daniele Pantaleoni who studied Romanian at university in Italy, and so for him everything started with the scholarship he got in Timisoara and afterwards he decided to stay. Daniele from Italy and Jorge Gonzales from Spain have been here for almost fifteen years now and their histories as ‘immigrants’ are very similar. To them, moving here came almost natural, and so Romania has become their second home. Another writer is Natalie Lazar whose Romanian father left Romania for Germany in the 70s and now she is here to learn about her identity and her father and grandfather’s origins.

When we found the writers, we started our writing sessions once a month. The writing they produced has been their attempt at remembering their origin and understanding their life in Romania. They have pieced together fragments and snapshots of the experience of their two homes, of being here and there, and of remembering friends and families from here and there. Gradually, they have become more used to literary writing techniques, and so their life on paper has become probably more exciting and is much worth listening to. We really hope these first fragments will be just the start of writing about their most precious memories and most personal way of coping with migration.