caption id=attachment_22949 align=aligncenter width=500
John Florescu/caption
John Maurice Florescu was born on April 14 1954 in Boston Massachusetts. His father Radu Florescu (1925-2014) was a Romanian academic who held the position of Emeritus Professor of History at Boston College authored a series of bestselling books on Vlad Dracula" Ţepe served as an adviser to former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Edward Ted" Kennedy (D-MA 1932-2009) on Balkan and Eastern European affairs and also served as the press liaison for the White House during the state visit of President Richard Nixon in 1969 in Romania.
John Florescu is a graduate from Boston College in Boston Massachusetts (B.A. magna cum laude History 1976). He also studied at a catholic school in Geneva Switzerland and the Oxford University in Oxford United Kingdom (politics philosophy and economics matriculated in 1974).
Florescu worked for the David Paradine Television Inc. in Los Angeles California (President and CEO 1987-2006) and launched new media companies (Centrade 1997 in Houston Texas; Bates Agency 1997 in Bucharest Romania; Cable Direct 1999; Chainsaw Europe Studios 2005 in Bucharest Romania; Kubis Interactive 2008). He produced TV shows for the A&E Network BBC the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBS Discovery-Times Disney HBO The History Channel and PBS.
Florescus political and historical documentaries have been broadcasted internationally (US UK and Europe) and featured in film festivals in Europe (The King Who Tricked Hitler" Time Warner Channel 2016; the series Trump versus Clinton: What It Means to Europe" Time Warner Channel 2016; Trump: What He Means to Europe" Time Warner 2017). His productions include programs with six presidents of the United States two former British prime ministers and former leaders of the Soviet Union.
During the period of October 3 and 4 2019 John Florescu attended the annual
ALIANŢA/The Alliance Gala in Washington DC at the Conrad Hotel and the Romanian Embassy respectively.
On October 4 2019 the Alianţa organization announced the launching of a new initiative The 2020 U.S. Census Campaign in order to encourage Romanian-Americans to mark themselves down as of Romanian-origin during the census. Estimates of Romanian-Americans in the United States vary from 800000 to 1.5 million.
With that occasion Mr. Florescu granted me an exclusive interview.
1. Mr. John Florescu a social media campaign has been recently launched in order to encourage Romanian-Americans to note their heritage on their 2020 U.S. Census forms. Can you elaborate a little on the technicalities that the voters should know in order to successfully achieve this project?
Well the primary obligation of the voters is actually to check the Census Form on Question #9 and ask them to say what country are they from." So all they have to do is write Romania." Its important because it helps accelerate the wait the interest in Romanian issues or Romanian-American issues and it gives importance because it is rooted in numbers. And politicians are very aware of numbers.
2. Thank you so much. As a leader of the Romanian-American community how can you help change the U.S. visa rules and regulations and maximize the count of Romanian-Americans in the U.S. Census?
Well I think at some point we are going to have to say why Romania matters?" and try to give a sense of unity to the Romanian community. Because when the lobbying campaign goes forward whether its in the House whether its in the Senate… I worked as an aide for a former senator I know when you can talk about specifics you know the number of people that are in your community. Thats what they think about they think about their congressional communities or their states. So thats why it matters.
3. Thank you so much. The last question Mr. Florescu: what challenges will you foresee during this process?
Certainly we will be able to produce everything. I think we will be able to convince a number of the celebrities that weve talked about it Harvey Keitel Winona Ryder and others. I think the main thing is to be sure that we have sufficient funds to take that to the social media campaign and get it widely and deeply into where the Romanians are. So being able to carefully target that community using social media and let them become a frample and take it to a wider community would be the key thing.
4. Thank you so much Mr. Florescu.
You are welcome. Thanks very much.
(October 15 2019)
TIBERIU DIANU has published several books and a host of articles in law politics and post-communist societies. He currently lives and works in Washington DC and can be followed on MEDIUM.
*****
