The Romanian Wave

With Romanians being the second largest foreign nationality in the UK, BBC’s Tessa Dunlop set out to uncover this community of immigrants, next to whom Farage once said he wouldn’t want to live: Who are they and why did they come to Britain? Will they stay in Brexit UK and what keeps them from going back to their country? And why is it that they generally receive such bad press – being described as “criminal gangs” and “begging Roma” – when they work across the UK economy, in the health system and universities, on farms and construction sites?

Dunlop goes back to the hospital where she was treated by Romanian medical staff, talks to fruit pickers, politicians, academics and car washers earning below the minimum wage, to better understand their motivation for living and working abroad. Over the course of these interviews, she focuses on a story that doesn’t get told so much: that it’s difficult leaving your country.

A fertility nurse describes the feeling like this:

“I’m getting emotional when I can’t be at home for different events. It is not easy, because you had a life there and you just left everything behind and you moved. I miss everything about Romania. I miss the streets I was walking, I miss the mountains, I miss everything. I miss my home.”