America’s Pet

Bush surrounded him with armored cars, Harley-Davidson bikes and Secret Service agents. The Romanians loved him more than a star from Hollywood. Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Traian Basescu…

In 1998 and 1999, Emil Constantinescu went across the Ocean to meet the Romanians in America. Some of them took him to a picnic, some organized protests for blowing up the Contract with Romania. In 2002, Ion Iliescu tests his popularity in Detroit. The American Romanians tore their passports apart and screamed: "Aren’t you ashamed of coming to America, you KGB?"

With such a background, even Traian Basescu himself should have been nervous at facing the Romanians in America. Many of them confessed they had seen him on TV and they had thought of him as being "unpolished". "You didn’t have another one to choose, did you?", one young computers’ guy asks a journalist about the vote in 2004. However, Traian Basescu managed to cast a spell on these guys as well. He showed his unmistakable laugh, kissed all the cheeks that offered to, gave autographs, took pictures, spread his e-mail address from Cotroceni, promising he would read the messages during the night. He talked about Romania, guaranteeing that the institutions have started to work, as well as the economy. "We are in the fifth year in which the GDP increased by more than 5%", he bragged with the achievements of the Nastase Government.

Then, he talked about the Romanians, which he sees as 22 million souls in the country and other 8 to 12 million souls abroad, and he sees himself as the President of all of these people. He advised them to unite in one organization, so that he, as a President having good relations with Bush, would be able to represent them and they would have their interests better represented.

85% OF THE VOTES He didn’t forget to thank the Diaspora for voting for him. "I won 85% of the votes in America", he told to the few hundreds of Romanians in San Francisco. They gathered at the Romanian House and they stepped on each other while trying to get a picture with Basescu, even if they were in church. "We love you!", some voices in the crowd were shouting, and he hadn’t faced this ever, not even during the electoral campaign in Romania. They wished him to have the before-term elections, he was huffily told about the things that had happened in the country in his absence. "Mr. President, why did they close the door to Mona Musca?", an old man reported to him.

THE SECRET SERVICES’ DESPAIR Great reception in Detroit, where Ion Iliescu had been reminded his KGB past. An immense ballroom was full of people. The Romanians came not only from Michigan, but from Ohio and Illinois as well. Full figs and some wool jackets and wimples like in Romania. The Secret Service agents despair. They had never thought that a President might be assaulted and surrounded by so many people that had never gone through any filters. No one knew if they had guns, if they had any criminal records, anything. "Sir, hands out of the pockets!", a big blond guy screams at a Romanian journalist which he had traveled with in the plane from New York to San Francisco and then to Detroit. Another one loses it when he sees the agitation surrounding the President: "This is ridiculous!", he shouts at the Romanian agents and starts to simply move several fans of Basescu.

ARMORED The three Secret Service agents that followed the President all other the place, starting from New York, haven’t been the only security measures taken for him by the American Administration. Therefore, in San Francisco, 2 armored cars, 12 Harley-Davidsons and 20 local police officers were added. "Mr. President, do you see the interest of the Americans in you?! When Ion Iliescu came, they only gave him a car!", a local exclaims, stunned by all these measures.

THE CITY KEY AND CONGRATULATIONS FROM SCHWARZENEGGER

Basescu seems to have charmed not only the Romanians, but also Americans he met: the businessmen in San Francisco organized a cruise on the Pacific for him, and mayors that gave him their city keys.

In San Francisco, Basescu has been named citizen of honor and received the right to park for life. The Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, also sent him a congratulation message for winning the elections. Actually, the Romanian diplomacy would have wanted a meeting between "Base" and "Scwartzie", but they didn’t come with any reasons good enough to bring the President to Sacramento.

In Dearborn, Mayor Michael Guido stated that Basescu was "his best friend". He also gave him the key of the city and talked for minutes about the things they have in common: the mayor past or present, commanding ships and marrying people.

FIVE HOURS ON THE NEW YORK AIRPORT

However, some things didn’t go as planned for the President. He began his visit in the USA with a one-hour long block on the Kennedy Airport in New York, where the National Security Agency proved to be outnumbered by the great number of delegations that had come for the UN Summit. The Opposition blamed him for the few meetings at high level, and for the statements regarding Russia that might endanger the relations with Moscow. The President also had to shorten his speech in the Security Council, and he turned his back to the Romanian press in a moment of angriness.

When he left NY, another five hours for the delegation, three for the President, that suffocated as well from the more than 40-Celsius degrees in the plane that wasn’t able to take off because of the ambush provoked by the 30 planes that were supposed to take off in the same time.

THE DIASPORA

The Romanian community in California is one of the most active. There are approximately 150,000 Romanians living in here, after the estimations at the 2000 census, but only 57,000 said they had Romanian roots. Most of them work in Silicon Valley in information technology. However, there are a lot that created his or her own businesses or study at Stanford or Berckely. They made 9 Orthodox churches, 9 Baptist churches, 14 Pentecostal churches and one Greek-Catholic church. One of the oldest Romanian colonies is in Detroit (Michigan), where the people started coming ever since 1900. There are 40 to 60 thousands of Romanians in here. In Ohio, there are another 26,000 registered at the census, but they are actually a lot more. In Illinois, there are 100,000, and most of them are in Chicago. They have four big newspapers, six Romanian shows and three TV programmes in Romanian.