Romanians from Serbia in Denmark

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much that you won’t sense any unrest here. […] We are here, yet we are not here (middle-aged man ofSerbian descent, 2005). The focus of the present article is a group of immigrants who, in their own and the public’s view, have become sowell integrated that they are almost invisible. Indeed, the fate of the Vlach 3 community during their 40 years of migrant history is well described by the label ‘quiet integration’ used by Pedersen and Rytter (2006) to designate those immigrants whose integration has apparently been so undramatic that they are barely mentioned in the Danish media. As shown above, the Vlachs consider the integration process of their coethnics as extremely successful. They have integrated peacefully into the towns where they settled and have managed to maintain themselves in the labour market until health problems or age have forced them to retire. The younger generation has by and large managed to move upwards in the educational and social hierarchy. 4 Both groups generally endorse the Danish welfare model and articulate no desire to move back to their villages of origin,except, as one expressed it, ‘if a smart business trick could make him rich in a jiffy’. Finally they are proud to resemble the Danes both physically and culturally, something which in their eyes positions them favourably inthe social hierarchy of Danish immigrants. Paradoxically the feeling of being successful seems to be linked to the condition of invisibility. As was the case for the Italian community in London studied by Fortier (2000), invisibility, or ‘blending in’, is the product of integration and acceptance rather than the outcome of conditions of marginalisation and imposed silence, as has been the case with, for example, black Americans. In this group, invisibility is upheld through a constant emphasis on the sameness between Danes and Serbian immigrants (forexample, being both Christian and European). The gathering nonetheless underscored the fact that the ability to remain ‘invisible’ is to a large extent the fruit of their consciously working to maintain and strengthen the Vlach identity. This is upheld through the activities of the Serbian association and frequent visits to their villages of origin; that is, through thecultivation of difference. The maintenance of a Serbian meeting place, a Serbian football team and Serbian folk-dance
training indicates that, in spite of their achievements in terms of jobs and status, both young and older migrants experience a tension between difference and sameness in their relations with the Danish majorityculture. While their strong ties with their villages of origin may contribute positively to their ability toblend in with the majority society in Denmark, these ties do not remove the difficulties involved in keeping upobligations and loyalties to several places at once. The ambivalence created by straddling between thesedifferent loyalties has become all the more salient as the former clean, bright and ‘white’ attributes of being Yugoslav have darkened as a result of their contemporary history, the disintegration of the Yugoslav federationand the subsequent civil war. The aim of this article is to discuss to what extent invisibility has become a necessary condition for successful integration into Danish society. Is ‘invisibility’ a product of conscious strategies to blend in with themajority society, or is it rather a consequence of trying to keep celebrations of cultural difference outside the realms of the society of the majority? Different strategies of ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ will be investigated in order to understand how a distinct social structure, such as the closely knit Vlach family and the strong ethnic bonds both among Vlach immigrants and between the homeland and the diaspora, have facilitated their apparently smooth integration into Danish society. Finally I look at how this strategy of invisibility wasaffected by the historical events that transformed the Vlachs’ former homeland from a socialist federation heralding ‘brotherhood and unity’ into an inward-looking and unstable republic struggling to maintain ademocratic façade. The article is based on my interviews with Danish-Vlach immigrants between 2005 and 2008. Around 20 formalinterviews were carried out with (mostly) male members of different Friendship Associations. These were supplemented by participant observation during five visits to the villages (either alone or as the coordinatorfor two graduate students’ field-trips to Serbia) 5 and at social gatherings atthe associations in both Denmark and Serbia. Also important were the 20 informal conversations with retired men and women carried out in their homes in Serbia and/or Denmark. These persons were either active members of the Associations or connected to them through family ties. Others were randomly selected during visits to the
Page 1 and 2: From DanishYugoslavs to Danish Serb
Page 3: contrast to the older members, who
Page 7 and 8: oof. A low birth rate (one or two c
Page 9 and 10: Visibility and Invisibility: The Jo
Page 11 and 12: At present, when the industry-based
Page 13 and 14: sameness, away of demonstrating the
Page 15 and 16: encouraging their children to adopt
Page 17 and 18: is of vital importance that marriag
Page 19 and 20: diaspora,as few are keen to discuss
Page 21 and 22: Serbian sports events, or facilitat
Page 23 and 24: origin ensures that generational co
Page 25 and 26: 35-53. Federspiel, S. (1998) Arbejd
Page 27 and 28: everyday life in Nordic societies,
Page 29 and 30: visible in everyday encounters, in
Page 31 and 32: Grifin, G & Braidotti, R 2002, ‘W

Romanians from Serbia in Denmark

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