IDENTITY FEATURES OF THE ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS FROM ITALY

The Romanian transnational migration represents one of the most important social processes that our country had to face during the past two decades, involving over 3,5 million citizens. The most compatriots have left, especially for working, to Italy, Spain, France, England, Greece, and to other continents. The biggest Romanian immigrant community in different European states is in Italy and Spain, and the migration phenomenon form Romania is still in process. The main purpose of this article is to respond at three important questions: Who are those who have left from Romania to Italy, in what regions they are living and working? Which are the most important reasons of their options for this country? In what measure living in a foreign society has influenced their cultural identity and their value options? In the article is also presented a brief history of the sociological researches on Romanian immigrants from Italy, socio-demographical data and comparative analyses. The main research methods that we have used are the statistical method and the opinion query based upon questionnaire. The initial hypothesis, that Romanians from Italy have preserved, generally, their cultural identity, was confirmed by the results of the sociological field research