CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 1: Literature Review
(First draft)

1. The Cunning of (Mis)-Recognition

I became extremely interested in researching the Roma people while I was still a freshman at Stanford University. After consulting with Roma studies experts, also known as Romologists - such as French professor of politics at Sorbonne University, Jean Pierre Liégeois, and Italian anthropologist, Leonardo Piasere - my interest shifted towards the Roma of Brazil. It started out as basic curiosity to see how this minority fares under possibly more prosperous circumstances, rather than in the well-researched European context of social marginalization, poverty and discrimination which I knew all to well.
According to these experts, Brazilian Roma had so far been little researched, yet they were believed to have been slave owners during colonial times, and rather well-off in present-day Brazil, especially in Sao Paulo. In addition, I realized that there is a close connection between Brazilian Roma and the Roma living in the United States, since both tend to be overlooked in international narratives on the Roma, and numerous among them prefer to keep their ethnicity secret rather than fight for cultural rights and recognition (Sutherland, 1975).

However, whereas relatively little has been written about the Roma of Brazil, American Roma have already been accounted for in brilliant works such as Rena Gropper’s “Gypsies in the City: Culture Patterns and Survival” (1975) and Anne Sutherland’s “Gypsies: The Hidden Americans” (1975). Thus, I set out to investigate the Roma ways of life in Brazil, while keeping in mind what Gropper wrote as a student of Ruth Fulton Benedict and Alfred Louis Kroeber: “Cultures keep changing and human beings are highly varied. There is no way to promise you that you will find the same situations if you undertake fieldwork beginning tomorrow” (1975:ix). I did not expect to find Roma people entirely similar to those I had met or read about from Romania, France, US, Norway, Spain, Italy, Russia, and so forth. Nonetheless, I continuously remembered echoes of previously read literature known as Gypsy Studies or Romology:

They have been called “Heathen,” “Bohemian,” “Tartar,” “Tinker,” “Egyptian,” “Tzigane,” “Zigeuner,” and “Gypsy,” the mysterious, little known people who are the subject of this book. For five hundred years they have succeeded in being themselves against all odds, fiercely maintaining their identity in spite of persecution, prejudice, hatred, and cultural forces compelling them to change. We may have something to learn from them on how to survive in a drastically changing world (Gropper, 1975: 1).

Other Romologists also insist on the phenomenon of Roma cultural persistence through time (Acton, 1997). Also, most experts elaborate on the multiple names historically given to the groups of people who now tend to be called uniformly “the Roma” or Rroma, in standard Rromanes (to indicate a guttural r). Linguist experts Tcherenkov and Laedrich (2004) summarize most concisely the misnaming to which these people have been subjected over centuries of migrations, sometimes due to their own willful attempt at disguise:

To start at the origins, namely, India, the name Rrom, used by most groups of Gypsies nowadays, most probably derives from the cast appurtenance of the original Gypsies. At a later stage, that is after their arrival in the Byzantine Empire and the Balkans, around 1050 there is strong evidence to suggest that the people described in the “Life of St. George the Athonite,” as Athinganoi, Adsincani, or Adsincanoi, were in fact Gypsies. This name was originally given to Phrygian heresy and was later used in conjunction with another Armenian Manichaean heresy, the Paulicians. The people following this doctrine were deported to the Balkans in the ninth century, after which, the name vanishes from official records for about two hundred years. The first “new” mention is given by this text, together with a description of their trades that relate to the usual clichés about Gypsies. In a large part of Europe, this name stuck. Derivations of it are still in use in many countries: Cigan, Zigeuner, Zingari, etc. // Subsequent migrations of Gypsies within Europe provided new appellations. These derive in a large part from the tales the migrants told the general population upon arrival. Gypsies said that they were “pilgrims from Little Egypt”, or even counts, vojevodes, or kings from that country. Their “Egyptian” origins gave rise to the name Gitans, Gypsies, Gitanos, etc. We have to stress that Gypsies are totally unrelated to Egypt. In fact no Roma migrated through Egypt to Europe, and the actual location of “Little Egypt” has been the subject of many speculations, but one is definite: It was not in Egypt and most probably was in Greece. // In some regions of Europe, notably in France, another name arose: Bohémiens, stemming from the travel documents that some Roma had obtained from the Bohemian king Sigismund, while in northern Europe and Scandinavia, Gypsies were and often still are called Tatare. This, in turn, derives from the first anti-Gypsy pamphlets, branding them as Ottoman spies (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 3-4).

In Brazil, the common name for the Roma is “Ciganos,” also deriving from “Athinganoi” according to this etymological account on which all experts agree. Brazilians believe that the “Ciganos” come from Egypt, as the Roma there will often claim, ignoring academic accounts.

2. On Indian “Origins” – The Origin of Romology

Only as late as 1763 did a European student, Istvan Valyi, recognize the linguistic proximity between the language spoken by Hungarian Roma and that of his Indian colleagues:
In 1763, Stefan Valyi, a Protestant student of theology at Leyden University, discovered quite by accident that there was a similarity between the Gypsy language of the Kormorn district of Hungary and the languages of the Indian subcontinent. With the aid of three Indian students from Malabar, he compiled a vocabulary list of one thousand words; these words were then read off to a group of Gypsies, who recognized almost all of them. Thus began a long series of philological investigations by such linguists as Pott (1844), Miklosisch (1872-1880), Paspati (1870), von Wlislocki (1890), and Turner (1926, 1927) that led to the conclusion that Romany is akin to modern Hindi (Gropper, 1975: 1).

Most Romologists will mention Valyi as a pioneering figure in their accounts, yet some also elaborate in greater detail on the significance of linguistics for initiating Roma studies:
In 1782, a German, Jakob Rüdiger, showed by comparison with Sanskrit, that the Rroma language has Indian roots. One year later, another German, Heinrich Grellmann of the University of Göttingen, did an extensive study of the Rroma language and deduced that the Rroma had come from India. Much later, in 1844, a fundamental work appeared Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, The Gypsies of Europe and Asia, written by yet another German, August Friedrich Pott. Pott is the founder of modern Romologie and of Rroma linguistics (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 11-12).

Thus, while Istvan Valyi was a pioneer in recognizing the linguistic similarity between Romanes and Hindi, others such as Jakob Rüdiger, Heinrich Grellmann, and August Friedrich Pott, along with Miklosisch, Paspati, von Wlislocki, and Turner also aided significantly in initiating Roma linguistic studies. However, a primarily linguistic perspective becomes problematic if it is used to claim that all Roma people have “Indian origins.” Such a claim is simplistic and does not take into account cultural changes that migrants would have undergone through time, travel and co-existence with other people across many centuries. This perspective would not elaborate sufficiently on the disjunction between today’s speakers of Romanes and the people who spoke the Sanskrit-derived vernacular which developed into a proto-Romanes language, prior to all the Persian, Byzantine and European linguistic influences on Romanes language, due to subsequent migrations. Likewise, this perspective would not properly account for people who call themselves “Ciganos,” “Gypsies,” “Roma” and so forth, but who speak little or no Romanes.
In fact, despite the generalizing label under which they are commonly subsumed, the “Roma people” cannot be assumed to be a uniform group under any circumstances. Not only are some speakers of Romanes, while others have lost its use over time, but also there are also many distinct groups and sub-groups which historically have been defining themselves according to their traditional occupations. Also, most of these groups do not like to associate with one another nor necessarily accept the other groups as “real Roma” (Liégeois, 1986). Also, although some of their traditional occupations have become obsolete, as in the case of the bear trainers, the blacksmiths, and so forth; the names still persist in their self-identification often times. In addition, each group may speak a dialect of Romanes as marked by their particular geographical trajectories through different host societies, as well as by group membership through descent:
Roma are socially organized around their families and, to a lesser extent, groups. There are numerous such groups. The Sinti, Kalderasha, Lovara, Churara, Machvaja, Ursarja, Xaladytka, Xoraxane to name but a few. A Rrom from each of these groups will first name his group appurtenance and not Rrom. Ask someone from any of those groups how he calls his wife or husband, the answer will be rrom or rromni, as can easily be checked. […] Thus, the appellation Sinti and Rroma does not reflect an effective distinction, but rather a political will. This terminology arose in Germany, a country in which, besides the Sinti, there are other autochthonous Rroma groups. German Sinti, however, consider “Rroma” as the appellation of other foreign Gypsies who have recently (mostly after World War II) migrated to that country (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 6).

Regardless of the perceived unity of Romanes language or of “the Roma people” among academics or activists who mobilize the name of “Roma” for political purposes, there is great difference among the sundry Roma groups, and some may have lost the linguistic use of Romanes. Therefore, linguistic claims to unity do not necessarily contribute to cultural studies:
This distinction needs to be further explained. Even in such Gypsy groups that have, to a large extent, lost their language, Rromanes, such as the Cale in Spain, many words of Indian origins were and are still present in their vocabulary. In the nineteenth century, these words formed a large part of their language. The so-called Bejasha, a Rroma group found in Hungary, Croatia, etc., provide a similar example. This group does not speak Rromanes at all but an old Romanian dialect. […] The Jenishe, on the other hand, speak a largely German-based language, which varies from region to region and has a few acquired words of Rromanes as well as Hebrew and Yiddish ones (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 5-6).

The Roma or Romany people display a wide range of dialects, traditional occupations, crafts, and exterior appearance, in addition to insisting on distinguishing themselves amongst each other in competition for the status of “real Gypsies.” Yet on a strictly linguistic level, most experts do agree on the direct connection between Sanskrit and the origins of Romanes, as the basis for all the dialects that Roma people may still be speaking or remembering:
When the ancient Aryan speakers entered India, they spoke a proto-Sanskritic language. In the course of time, the resultant Classical Sanskrit became the language of literature and religion (like Latin during the medieval period in Europe) whereas the masses spoke a Prakrit vernacular as the everyday language like the Romance languages that sprang from Latin). By the tenth century A.D. these vernaculars had assumed roughly the form of the modern Indo-Aryan languages; it was in this period that Romany apparently differentiated as a separate language in its own right. Today this fact is accepted by all linguists. The only linguistic problem remaining to be solved revolves around the fact that the Prakritic parent-forms seem to have been of three basic types, and presently we are unsure to which subgroup Romany properly belongs (Gropper, 1975: 1-2).

Less persuasive is Gropper’s suggestion that Roma physical appearance and genetics are still traceable to Indian origins and can indicate “most Gypsies” apart from the non-Roma:
Although blond Gypsies do occur, they are comparatively rare except in those groups known to have intermarried with Europeans and those in which an extensive first-generation intermarriage between two formerly widely separated Gypsy groups (i.e., different breeding isolates) has been followed by intensive inbreeding in the succeeding filial generations. Most Gypsies tend to fall within the darker ranges of Caucasoid skin color; hair shades ordinarily are very dark, and hair form varies from slightly wavy to curly. Light-colored eyes are rare, as there is no evidence of an epicanthic fold. The large aquiline nose is present in many Gypsies. Bt the most convincing evidence comes from the study of blood-type frequencies. A comparison was made from the relative frequencies of the ABO(H) blood groups of Gypsies in Hungary with other Hungarian populations” (Gropper, 1975: 2).

Most experts are not insensitive to arguments of genetic traces, physical appearance and claims that group endogamy maintained a high degree of genetic links to some Indian ancestry. However, they generally try to avoid the dangerous project of pointing to what a “real Gypsy” looks like, for it echoes stereotypes that they are trying to debunk. It is preferable to them to avoid such arguments in order to show the complexity of this diverse and widely segmented minority which has already been stereotyped much too often in both positive and negative ways:
Although occasional individuals with dark hair and brown eyes might attract attention, the favoured ‘real Romanies’ are just as likely to have blue eyes and fair hair. But these facts are not ‘seen’ by the Gorgio observers for whom the racial theory offers a pseudo-scientific basis for social selection. ‘Real Romanies’ are those families who reflect best the observers’ preferences (Okely, 1983: 4).

Unlike Judith Okely, who focuses on the British “Gypsies and Travellers,” Donald Kenrick, a well-respected Romologist who has written extensively on the Roma experiences in the Holocaust as well as on the British Travellers, disagrees with those who refuse treating the Roma as descendents of Indians:
Lucassen further claims that ‘English anthropologists and sociologists reject the notion that Gypsies are a separate race of people.’ He is referring particularly to the anthropologist Judith Okeley who worked as a site warden in Hertfordshire, England, and whose early works are based on the families she met there. They seem to have intermarried considerably with native English and, as a result, were not particularly Indian-looking. They also did not speak Romani but a variety of English with Romani words. On the basis of this, Dr Okeley felt that perhaps all English and Welsh Gypsies were of local origin. Their grandparents had perhaps somehow leart Romani when, during a visit to the continent of Europe, they met some Indian merchants. Judith Okeley suggests it may be the case that groups of so-called ‘Egyptians’ were composed of largely disenfrancished and indigenous persons. In this case they may have adopted an exotic nomenclature, parts of a secret ‘language’(either a creole or pidgin which had crossed many national frontiers of Europe) and exploited certain occupations such as fortune-telling and entertainment which were consistent with a magical mysterious nomenclature. // Finally, I should at least mention the linguist Paul Wexler who maintains that Romani is a European language, in spite of its large basic vocabulary of Indian origin. The vast majority of scholars, however, adhere to the theory of the Indian origin of the Romanies (Kenrick, 2004: 8-10).

Opinions are divided among Romologists on most topics regarding the historical ‘origins’ of Roma migrations. Kenrick is one of the most respected scholars in the field, and his account has been embraced and repeated by many others, yet his contributions are not the most recent.

3. Migration Myths and Linguistic Tracings
According to Kenrick (2004: 76-80), the ancestors of the Roma belong to any of the numerous migrants who left India before the year 1000. He suggests that today there are still tribes of nomadic and semi-nomadic people in northern India and in the Middle East who resemble European Roma people by practicing similar crafts, such as: the Banjara who “took an active part in the Second World Romany Congress in Geneva in 1978;” the Sapera (snake charmers) – also known as Kalbelia – who “live mainly in Rajasthan. Sapera dancers have visited Europe several times and are featured in Tony Gatlif’s film Lacho Drom. English Gypsies were invited by the Indian High Commission to a showing of a documentary on this tribe in 1984. The Romany viewers immediately recognized the whistles used to call dogs – which had survived in their folk memory for nearly a millennium since their departure from north India. The writer Thomas Acton chose a picture of a Kalbelia lady to illustrate his book Gypsies;” the Narikuravar whose “main occupation today is catching birds;” the Pukiwas nomads of today’s Pakistan; the industrial nomads of Afghanistan who speak a dialect from north India, called Inku - “Aparna Rao jas identified four clans – Jalali, Pikraj, Shadibaz, and Vangawala – who fall into this definition of ‘Gypsy.’ The locals call them ‘Jat,’ which is used in a pejorative way.” Kenrick’s list goes on to mention other “industrial nomads” (as opposed to “pastoral nomads with their sheep and cattle”) in Central Asia and in the Middle East, where:
A few are distantly related to Europe’s Romanies, others not at all. All have been described as ‘Gypsies’ by travelers and writers and this is a more convenient term than the word ‘peripatetic’ used by sociologists and anthropologists. In Europe too there are groups who once traveled or still do so who are not of Indian origin such as the Woonwagenbewoners in Holland, the Karrner in Austria and the Irish Travellers (Kenrick, 2004: 82).
With regards to the proposed departure from India, Kenrick supports the view that proto-Roma came from the imperial city of Kannauj, where the raids carried out by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni captured slaves from “all walks of life and included high-born individuals [which] could explain how they were so easily introduced to important and influencial people such as kings, emperors and popes when they reached Europe. This was because, among the Roma, there were descendants of ‘notables’ from Kannauj, according to his account (107).
Thus, Kenrick is of the opinion that “a large number of different people migrated westwards from India, through Persia and on to the shores of the Mediterranean,” where they intermarried “forming into a people there using the name Dom, and that a large number of them then moved into Europe; their descendants are the Romany Gypsies of today” (10). Others, however, believe that Indian migrants migrated and moved as a group, at least until their first crossroads in today’s Armenia (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004).
Opinions are mixed regarding the departure dates as well, although Ian Hancock’s version is among the most popular:
The Romani people (Roma, or Gypsies) are of northern Indian origin, having moved out of that area some time between AD 800 and AD 950, migrating westwards into Europe and arriving there some time after AD 1100 (Hancock, 1987: 7).

However, recent linguistic analysis has created some controversy as Fraser suggests:
As for the time of departure from Persia, a few scholars have argued since the early 1970s that the ancestors of the European Gypsies must have passed through Persia before the first Arab invasion, because of an absence of words of Arabic words in Romani. […] Such an argument, however, runs up against two difficulties. It would be an oversimplification of linguistic process to assume that as soon as the Arabs overpowered Persia, their language began to make inroads at all levels to an extent that would immediately have subjected Romani to its influence. In any case, there are a few Arabic loanwords in European Romani (Fraser, 1995: 40).

However, more recent linguistic studies refute Fraser’s claims of Arabic influence on Romanes, and therefore indicate a much earlier departure than previously assumed. However, these studies do not provide a precise date of departure:
The lack of Arabic loanwords in European Rromanes dialects shows that the Rroma ancestors must have left Persia before or at the very least during the seventh century, and thus must have left India even earlier, although an exact departure date is impossible to give (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 31).

While myself not a linguist, I still can admit to the logical connections made between the historical timings of Arab invasions and the lack of direct Arabic loanwords:
Luckily for historians, Rromanes – the Gypsy language – is in itself one of the most essential tools of historical research. Migrations left linguistic traces. Rromanes contains Persian, Armenian, Greek, and Southern Slavic lexemes, from which, especially for the latter ones, one can deduct that the Rroman passed through these countries. In several places, such as in our argument against the Egyptian origins of the Rroma – a myth spread by the first Rroma arriving in western Europe -, we will argue along linguistic lines that the absence of Arabic loanwords in Rromanes, except through the Turkish, shows that the Rroma were never in contact with the Arab culture. Thus, they could never have been in Egypt, at least after the seventh century, that is, after the Arab conquest of that country (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 7).

I personally find useful the distinction often made between today’s Roma people and the supposed ancestors from India, identified discursively as the “Ur-Roma:”
While much of this early history remains, perhaps forever, shrouded in mystery, a few facts are established and acknowledged: The northwestern Indian origin of the Rroma, their passage through Persia and Armenia to finally arrive in Europe, in the Byzantine Empire. These Ur-Rroma already established a pattern that was to remain, the acquisition of new local lexemes, a process which we believe stems from dual-language skills found among all Rroma. This fact provides us with the strongest argument against any kind of slow migration of different groups through Asia to Europe as Arabic would have made larger inroads in Rromanes and, after all, even the proponents of these migrations do ackowledge its almost total absence. […] So the Ur-Rroma, while not exactly dashing from Persia to Armenia, and further, have most probably remained a coherent – and rather small – group through out their pre-European history and, as we will argue, well into their European history. In any case, we are of the opinion that the true cradle of the Rroma culture and identity lies further west, in the heart of the Byzantine Empire. (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 33).

Most probably, the Ur-Roma came from northwestern India, from the regions of nowadays Rajasthan and Punjab, today’s Pakistan. The naming distinction between today’s Roma and the former Ur-Roma undermines the claim of cultural continuity with historical ancestors. Some Romologists do elaborate that although they may assume Indian origins to some degree, at least on a linguistic and genetic level, the same cannot be said about Roma “cultural origins” from India:
Our view on Rroma history is that Rroma, while they originated outside of Europe, in India, are nevertheless a European minority for their identity and culture owes a large part of its basis to the thousand years the Rroma have spent in Europe. Some will certainly dislike some of our conclusions: that the Rroma are not originally Rajputs, that the Rroma are the result of one and only Indian migration, that the Sinti, Cale, and Rroma are all the same, that they were not all slaves, that they did not pass through various pre-European routes, and so on. In fact, even we were sometimes surprised by our own conclusions but we are convinced these are the ones which best fit the facts and knowledge. […] Many of these arguments are not solely based on history. They are also based on traditions but also on Rromanes, which, as we have already repeatedly said, shows an incredible unity among all the Rroma groups (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 9)

Still, little is known about the departure from India. Most Romologists engage several hypothetical accounts. A popular one involves Muslim invasions in northern Indian territories:
Others think that Rroma left India around the time of the Moslem invasions, that is, in the seventh century or even later, around the time where the Moslem king Mahmud Ghaznevi – or Mahmud of Ghazni, a city in present-day Afghanistan – attacked India, between 1001 and 1027. At the height, his empire encompassed most of present-day Afghanistan and northern Pakistan (Punjab). In this theory, the European Rroma are the descendants of Indian slaves that were taken during these battles and conquest, and the term Gadzo, which Rroma use to denote non-Rroma, originated in the name of the city. We will see later that this option seems highly improbable as it is in contradiction of an earlier presence of Rroma in both Armenia – documented below – and the Byzantine Empire as early as 1057 but probably much earlier. Several other factors also argue against this theory. By that time, Persia was firmly in Moslem hands, and the Persian domination of the Baghdad Caliphate was almost complete, leaving traces in present-day Rromanes as we will argue below, noting the absence of direct Arabic loanwords in Rromanes (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 17).

In terms of actual evidence about the arrival of Ur-Roma in Persia, there is also very little primary data available, such as the mention of the Luri musicians described by poet Firdausi:
Concerning the Rroma, the first and oldest source – or rather anecdotal evidence – about their migration mentions that the Sassanid king Varhan V Gor (420-438) asked the Indian king Shangul to send him about 4,000 to 20,000 musicians. The classical Persian poet Firdausi (940-1020) wrote about this exodus in his epic work Shah Nameh – the book of kings, completed in 1010 – as well as about the name of these musicians: Luri. Up until now, the name of Luri has survived in Persia and in central Asia under the form Luli. In view of the trades these Luris were engaged in, it seems plausible to argue that some of these deported musicians are the origin of the Rroma outside of India. Historically, this period, the fifth century corresponds to the time where India was subjected to attacks of the “White Huns” or Hephthalites and where northwestern Indian was under Sassanid domination, explaining a possible migration or forced resettlement of the Rroma ancestors (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 17).

Others argue differently, that the European Roma originated in several waves of migrations from India over a long period of time:
According to Sampson (1923), linguistic evidence suggests that the ancestors of all Gypsy populations, whom we may refer to as the Domba, following Kaufman (1984), left India at the same time. He believed them to have constituted a single race speaking the same language, which subsequently diverged into two linguistic branches: the Nawar, Kurbat, and Karaci and Helebi now found throughout Egypt and the Middle East on the one hand, and the Bosa in Armenia and eastern Turkey, and the Rom or Roma in Europe, on the other. […] there is some reason to believe that the three populations usually thought to comprise the descendants of the Domba may in fact have each left India at different time and under different circumstances (Hancock, 1986a); through each exhibits considerable lexical adoption from Persian, for example, there are no items shared by all branches, and the same is true for the Armenian items in Central and Western Gypsy (Hancock, 1987: 7).

Hancock thus supports the view that there were three waves of migration out of India, as opposed to one. He further suggests that they left either as war prisoners or as entertainers:
[…] it is possible that the Domba who first left India did so as prisoners of war, or else as captive entertainers, and as marginals were carried further and further westwards on the crest of a succession of Middle Eastern wars. An alternative and more recent hypothesis suggests that the original population was a mixed one, consisting of Rajasthani-speaking Rajput cavalry together with their camp-followers who, coming from various different linguistic groups within the Sudra caste, moved westwards into Iran some time during the 10th century and were unable to find their way back into India again. As an isolated population in foreign territory it remained intact, social barriers slowly giving way as their commonly-shared Indian backgrounds increasingly became a unifying factor. While this might account for the diverse Indic content of the Romani lexicon and for the name Rom, and perhaps even for the traditional association of Gypsies with horses as a means of travel and an item of trade (and, through their racing and care, a source of income), concrete evidence to support this explanation is lacking. In any case, the boundaries separating language and caste in India were less rigid than the traditional studies have indicated (Hancock, 1987: 8).

Donald Kenrick (2004), Vania de Gila-Kochanowski (1994), Vossen and others suggest that “migration from India westwards would have started as early as the capture of North India by the Persians in the reign of Ardashir (224-41)” and that it took place in several migration waves “between 250 and 650” (2004: 28-29). The first, according to Kenrick and Gila-Kochanowski, were given the name ‘Zott’ by the Arabs “since the first Indians they met wre from the Zott caste (also pronounced Jat)” (Kenrick, 2004: 20). Tcherenkov and Laedrich disagree with this account of sequential migrations, stating in the first place that the Jats or Zotts, were originally buffalo herders from India who moved to Mesopotamia in the seventh century:
M. De Goeje first made the connection between Jats and Rroma in 1875 based on the writings of the Arab chronicler Tabari who related the deportation of the Zotts to the Byzantine Empire. Another wave, the Dom, migrated at some point, possibly much earlier. All eventually arrived in Europe and intermingled with one another. In these theories, the Sinti, the Rroma, the Cale are distinct groups which migrated at different periods, the Sinti – via the etymology Sindh – being often associated with the Jats of Mesopotamia and the others alternatively with Rajputs or Dom or yet other possible groups. […] There are many arguments against this “train” of migration from India. First, as we will show in our discussion of Rroma groups, Sinti, Cale, and northern European Rroma (from Russia and Poland) are closely related to one another. This can be inferred from their Rromanes as well as from other specific traits of these groups. Second, the etymology of Sinti is to say the least suspicious: it is most probably the name that Sinti were given by non-Roma travelers. [footnote: Up until the nineteenth century, Sinti called themselves Kale.] Lastly, and most relevant to our discussion here, lexemes – from Romanes – provide several benchmarks for the timing of the migrations as well as an indication as to the place these Rroma ancestors went through (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 18).

Kenrick agrees however that European Romanes contains numerous Armenian words, yet not as many as Persian words. However, “the Romani language also acquired a small number of specialist words connected with trade and manufacture. Examples are archichi (lead) and kotor (piece)” suggesting that blacksmithing and wipe-tinning were already practiced occupation among them (Kenrick, 2004: 31). However, Tcherenkov and Laedrich argue that none of the L to Gh phonetic changes, pointing not only to a prolonged passage through Armenia, but also to the fact that Armenia may have been the first crossroad where such groups from India would have diverged: “it probably represents the first actual crossroad since non-European Rroma, such as the Middle Eastern ones, most probably separated into two different groups during their stay in Armenia” (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 21). In addition, the absence of Armenian phonetic changes points to an early exodus:
Although J. Greppin does not date this phonetic change, another scholar, A. S. Garibian, notes that the passage from the phoneme L to Gh [for the barred L] started in the eighth century and was completed by the end of the tenth century. […] As an example, consider the Rromanes momeli, phol, and thalik. All these words contain the phoneme L which in nowadays Armenian has changed [to being pronounced as a Gh]. Since Rromanes does not hint at these changes in its Armenian vocabulary, this points at an early departure of Rroma from Armenia, probably in the ninth century or even earlier. (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 25).

The next phonetic switches in Romanes most probably arose from the presence of the Ur-Roma in the Byzantine Empire, according to linguistic analysis: “this can also easily be inferred by the wealth of Greek lexemes in Rromanes, these being largely absent from the other dialects. The first such switch is the change of an initial v to a b in European Rromanes. The second, as a further development is the switch of the intervocal m to v” (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 27-28). From there on, there is considerable Southern Slavic influence on Romanes to various degrees, thus reflecting the divergence of migration paths throughout Europe, despite the “homogeneous base on which all Rromanes dialects are built” (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 31).
Estimates of the dates of arrival of Gypsies in Europe differ from scholar to scholar, as mentioned above. Bataillard (1848: 50-51) indicates that Gypsies were in the Balkans, and had started to be enslaved, some time prior to 1300 AD. The validity of these dates has also been discussed by Hancock (1987: 10) and Soulis (1961: 161).
With Mohammed II’s successful defeat of Constantine, emperor of what remained of Byzantium in 1435, the Byzantine Empire and the Middle Ages came to an end; scholars and artists fleeing to the West helped lay the foundations for the European Renaissance. // In the Byzantine Empire, which lasted for eleven centuries, Gypsies constituted an oppressed caste, although perhaps not as slaves. This was due in part to their having been regarded as Muslims in a Christian empire (and later as Christians, when the Ottomans occupied the region). Relationships with non-Gypsies appear in fact to have been more cordial during this period than they were to become later in Europe. Other were confused with members of the heretic sect (Hancock, 1987: 10).

As to their reception in Europe, opinions tend to agree more, since there are more historical documents attesting Romany presence particularly after the early 1300s. The first document attesting their presence in present-day Romanian territories also confirms that they were regarded as slaves. Hasdeu found and translated some of these documents (1867, 1877), as Hancock summarizes bellow:
[…] in the archives of a monastery in Tismana, in a part of Little Wallachia called Oltenia. One of these, bearing the date 1387 and signed by Mircea […] the Great, indicates that Gypsies had been in Wallachia for almost a century before that. Another of the documents was in the form of a receipt for some slaves given to the monastery at Prizren by the King of Serbia […] dated 1348” (Hancock, 1987: 11).


4. Experience under slavery in Romania

The name of “Athinganoi” first given to these travelers of possible Indian origins was associated historically with heretics, in the territories of the Byzantine Empire, therefore even the later forms “Tsigan,” “Tigan” or “Tzigane” used in Eastern Europe and in France have historically been used in pejorative ways, with significantly negative connotations such as “sub-human,” “thief,” “heretic,” “sorcerer,” and even “slave.” This was especially the case with use of the term Romanian term, “Tigani” which meant “slaves” quite literally, as they were enslaved on the territories of today’s Romania. Hancock best elaborates on the context in which the Roma became slaves:
Measures soon began to be taken to keep Gypsies in southern Europe by force, so necessary had they become to the economy. Gypsies, in turn, made efforts to get away from this situation, and many successfully managed to move on into northern and western Europe. In some places, however, such as Germany and Polland, they met with such cruelty, since they were believed to be Muslims […], that they turned back to seek refuge in the mountains and forests of southern Europe, as a result finding themselves once again in the situation from which they had previously fled. Gypsies, then, were quickly incorporated, by legislation and by force, into the system which came totally to rely upon them during the five centuries which followed. // Some writers, such as Jirecek (1919), Potra (1939) and Chelcea (1944) have suggested not only that slavery was an inherent condition of the Gypsies, originating in their pariah status in the Sudra caste in India, but that they were slaves from the very time of their arrival in south-eastern Europe, since they were brought in as such by the conquering Tatars. This was challenged by Soulis (1961: 162), who cites documentation indicating the presence of Gypsies in the Balkans prior to the arrival in the same area of the Turks. This has been upheld more recently by Gheorghe (1983), who believes that part of the Romani population migrated into Europe through the Caucasus and Crimea, turning south into the Balkans. He further believes that Gypsies were allowed to move freely and work unmolested for a century or more before social and economic factors drew them into a situation of enslavement. // According to Gheorghe, it was the practice of the Rumanians to use prisoners taken in war as slaves. Citing Grigoras (1966) as his source, he gives an example of this involving Gypsies […] He goes on to demonstrate that Gypsies so taken could accordingly be given, along with other property, as tribut or taxes by the barons to the princes, and that slavery as a national institution developed gradually through such means (Hancock, 1987: 14-15).

Hancock presents detailed evidence of Roma life under slavery through numerous administrative documents and quotes from foreign journalists, documenting the cruelty of the slaves’ treatment:
Gypsies could not marry without permission. Members of the same family were sold separately, and children often taken away. In 1757, however, the law involving the disposal of children was changed, and they could no longer be sold without their parents – a short-lived reprieve in the overall condition of the Gypsy slaves: by the middle of the following century, the definition of slavery had been revised, and had perhaps become even stricter (Hancock, 1987: 24).

According to Hancock, there were some runaway Roma slaves who lived hidden in the forests, barely clothed and perpetually rebellious, and who were named “Netotsi.” He quotes Serboianu’s historical, yet rather exaggerated account of them:
“The Netotsi are terribly cruel, while other Gypsies have much more moderate customs. One could therefore suppose that the Netotsi were the tribe that led the way, while the others were merely slaves, whe yielded unconditionally to their owners, with whom the power resided in the whips and knives they always carried about them. // Of all Gypsies, only the Netotsi continue to wander, hated by all other Gypsies, since it is on their account, because of their wretched ways, that the whole world persecutes Gypsies… From my own observations, together with what came to light at the trial [in May, 1929], I am convinced that the Netoci were, and totally still are, cannibals” (1930: 36-37) (quoted in Hancock, 1987: 27).

The Netotsi were said to be significantly darker skinned, according to such accounts, as opposed to the enslaved Roma among whom it was not unlikely to find blond, blue-eyed descendants of slave-owners from their relations with the slaves. It was rule of law that any free man who “embraces” a slave woman encountered in the street or elsewhere “shall not be punished.” However, children of such unions were declared slaves, which made authorities demand that:
a further anti-miscegenation proclamation be issued in 1776 by Constantin, Prince of Moldavia, against such an “evil and wicked deed, [since…] in some parts Gypsies have married Moldavian women, and also Moldavian men have taken in marriage Gypsy girls, which is entirely against the Christian faith, for not only have these people bound themselves to spend all their life with the Gypsies, but especially that their children remain forever in unchanged slavery… such a deed being hateful to God, and contrary to human nature… any priest who has had the audacity to perform such marriages, which is a great and everlasting wicked act… will be removed from his post [and] severely punished” (Ghibanescu, 1921: 119-120) (quoted in Hancock, 1987: )

Around mid-nineteenth century, however, the princes of now-Romanian territories began to declare their slaves free and equal in status with the “white peasants.” In 1837, Alexandru Ghica granted them freedom in one principality, as well as the right to speak Romanes and to practice their customs. He was most likely influenced by the writings of journalists such as Mihail Kogalniceanu, who were appalled by slavery and affected by Western European appeals to abolition in the US:
“On the streets of the Jassy of my youth, I saw human beings wearing chains on their arms and legs, others with iron clamps around their foreheads, and still others with metal collars about their necks. Cruel beatings, and other punishments such as starvation, being hung over smoking fires, solitary imprisonment and being thrown naked into the snow or the frozen rivers, such was the fate of the wretched Gypsy. // The sacred institution of the family was likewise made a mockery: women were wrested from their men, and
daughters from their parents. Children were torn from the breasts of those who brought them into this world, separated from their mothers and fathers and from each other, and sold to different buyers from the four corners of Rumania, like cattle. // Neither humanity nor religious sentiment, nor even civil law, offered protection for these beings. It was a terrible sight, and one which cried out to Heaven” (Kogalniceanu, 1837: 16-17). […] “The Europeans are organizing philanthropical societies for the abolition of slavery in America, yet in the bosom of their own continent of Europe, there are 400,000 Gypsies who are slaves, and 200,000 more equally victim to barbarousness” (1837: iv). (quoted in Hancock, 1987: 32-33)

At the same time, there was pressure from abroad towards abolition in Romanian principalities as well, since the French publication Magasin Pittoresque had an anonymous writer bring the whole situation to the attention of Western Europe:
“In Rumania, Gypsy is always synonymous with ‘filthy animal.’ These Rumanians, who so often have words of humanity and justice on their lips! To work towards easing the degradation of these poor beings, beaten down by pain, to render them born again into the great family of mankind, to free their souls, would not only be a humanitarian act, it would be an act of justice. Where these victimized souls are concerned, the sons should be considered no less guilty than their fathers” (quoted in Hancock, 1987: 33-34).

In December 1855, Grigore Ghica, Prince of Moldavia, freed his principality’s slaves following his cousin’s example, namely that of Alexandru Ghica. Soon afterwards, in February of 1856, Prince Stirbei of Wallachia also granted freedom to all slaves on his territory.
Complete legal freedom, the Slobuzenja still cherished in the minds of eastern European Rom today, came in 1864, when Prince Ioan Alexandru Couza, ruler of the now-united principalities, restored the liberated Gypsies to their estates. (Hancock, 1987: 35).

Immediately, many Roma migrated out of these territories towards northern and southern Europe, fearing that their liberty might be short lived if authorities change their minds:
Migrations out of the Balkans went north-west from eastern Europe into Scandinavia and beyond, and through Jugoslavia into southern and western Europe. The first of these reached Paris in 1868. From Europe, considerable numbers continued on to North and South America, especially Argentina, and until their entry into the country was forbidden in the 1880s, thousands were able to make their way to the United States […] In spite of immigration policy, numbers of Vlax-speaking Rom continued to come into the U.S., especially between the two world wars. Others have settled more recently in Australia. // Still others, after emancipation, with no money or possessions, and having nowhere to go, offered themselves for re-sale to their previous owners. (Hancock, 1987: 37).

Regardless of their freedom, many continued to live in passive servile positions working for their previous owners, especially since they did not receive any land or restitution post-slavery. The Roma continued to be called “Tigani” in Romania to this day, in a distinctly discriminatory way, since this word had meant “slave,” “sub-human” and “filthy animal” for nearly five centuries of slavery. Until quite recently, Romania has not know anything like the Civil Rights movement in the States, and the negative connotation of the term “Tigani” has stubbornly persisted:
In Rumania itself, Beck encountered prejudice against the Tigani (Gypsy) population at all levels, a situation he has described in a recently-published paper in which he concludes that: “Romanians who are in administrative government and political positions of authority, explain the Tigani situation by referring to America. “You know,” they say, “The Tigani are like your Negroes”: foreign, lazy, shiftless, untrustworthy and black” (Beck, 1985: 105)” (quoted in Hancock, 1987: 1).

According to Viorel Achim (1998), Romanian sociologist, the Roma have been discriminated against throughout the centuries, long after the abolition. During communism, including, they were forced to assimilate: education became compulsory for all children, and all Roma were forced to work for the government and to live in government buildings. After communism, Romania saw a resurge in discriminatory action and outright violence in the form of pogroms, also attested by the Helkinki Human Rights Watch in other Eastern-European countries (Vermeersch, 2006: 202).
Although the Roma were not enslaved in any other country, the rest of Europe saw numerous laws against the minority, laws which saw to their deportation to further territories, and forcing them, therefore, to be nomads more often than they wanted. Jean-Pierre Liégeois (1983: 156-170) lists all the French law for the “banissement des gitains” – the banishment of Gypsies dating from 1504, 1510, 1539, 1561, 1606, 1647, 1660, 1666, 1673, 1700-1716, 1720-1724, 1764, 1802-1803 and so forth; under these laws, the Roma were legally sanctioned for being “Bohémien” and “demanding money in the streets” as well as for camping out with their caravans of wagons and horses. The punishment included hanging (1510), beatings (1539), imprisonment for up to nine years, shaved head for the women, skin markings, deportation to the colonies, and forced labor (Liégeois, 1983: 158).

5. Misnaming, persecutions and efforts to redress social injustices

Similarly, the Roma throughout Europe have been given have historically persecuted and often named with pejorative connotations, such as “Gypsy” in England and in the US, “Gitano” in Spain, “Zingaro” in Italy, and so forth. To this day, they are identified by these names which are often used in association with negative and demeaning stereotypes such as “thief” or “swindler.” Needless to say, I agree that the term Gypsy is a misnomer to begin with, in that it falsely indicates Egypt as a place of origin or passage, whereas it was a guise used by some of the Roma, a pretense devised in order to be welcomed respectfully throughout their travels even by suspicious European landowners. The nomadic groups were perceived as dark, mysterious, strange, and even mystical due to their appearance and customs, but all too often they were repelled from the territories they were traveling through, under the threat of persecution.
Romologists usually fight the stereotypes associated with the Roma by introducing victim narratives of the Roma people’s history, meaning they emphasize the long trials and persecutions the Roma have undergone, including the Holocaust experience, when approximately 600,000 Roma were killed along with Jews, homosexuals and others whom the Nazis considered undesirable (Pottanat and Khan, 1997). Ian Hancock best summarizes these victim narratives in attempt to mobilize Roma political representatives, activists and scholars throughout the world to seek recognition and restitution for the numerous social injustices that the Roma have suffered:
[…] hardly much more is available on the fate of Gypsies in the Holocaust, and only one full-length book in English has been published on that. While their ex-owners were compensated to the sum of 96 francs per slave at the time of the abolition (Blaramberg, 1885: 82), nothing was forthcoming from the Romanian government for the freed slaves themselves, no orientation programs set up to integrate the newly-liberated into society, no assistance with housing or health care. Gypsies were left to fend for themselves in a hostile environment, totally unequipped to deal with the anti-Gypsy laws in effect everywhere throughout Europe and, when they came here, North America. And in the same way, nothing was done to help Gypsies after the war. None were called to testify at the Nuremberg Trials or any of the subsequent war crime hearings, and no reparation has ever been forthcoming. No Gypsies were invited to participate in the formation of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, established by President Carter in 1979 to honor the memory of all who perished in the Third Reich and, despite three years’ lobbying in Washington on the part of a member of American Romani organizations to protest against this, the Office of Presidential Appointments voted in 1986 to exclude once again any Gypsy representation on the 65-member council.
A people which have been denied access to the means by which other persecuted groups have been able to fight back – schooling, settled housing, opportunities for civil and political organization – remain at the mercy of the popular press, and herein lies one of the biggest problems of all. Journalists invariably tend to exploit the fictitious image of Gypsies, catering to a public familiar only with the Borrovian stereotype they help sustain, and fail to investigate in their reports the real problems which Gypsies must deal with on a day-to-day basis. When such issues have occasionally been covered, it has been in terms not usually sympathetic to the Gypsies’ own situation. […] the Romani voice must be louder. But one way or another, it will be heard” (Hancock, 1987: 3-4).

Ian Hancock is a renowned scholar of Roma descent. In an introduction to his work, “The Paryah Syndrome. An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution” (1987), non-Roma scholar Thomas Acton succinctly presents his biography and applauds his intellectual efforts:
Ian Hancock’s family belongs very much within the entertainment tradition; arguably, as a university professor, he is still in it. His forebears were among those Hungarian Gypsies from both the Romungri and the Lovari ethnic groups who were involved with circuses and show business and who came to England in small numbers in the nineteenth century and intermarried with English Gypsies in the same line of work. […] Hancock’s relatives have now married non-showmen English Romani Travellers. It was this milieu from which Hancock’s family emigrated to Canada when he was in his early teens, and to which he returned as a young man, when I made his acquaintance. He has begun to document his own family background in the journal Lacio Drom. // Plucked by the London School of Oriental and African Studies in the mid-1960s from life as a spray-painter for Bush Rank and sometime road manager for the English band The Outlaws, he has since become a distinguished academic with an international reputation in the field of Creole linguistics, and some 160 publications to his name (Acton, Introduction, in Hancock, 1987: ix).

Acton suggests that in Hancock’s identity, as a highly educated Rom, is rare especially because Roma who do live differently than group tradition mandates usually try to assimilate and keep their ethnic background secret, in order to get along with their non-Roma co-nationals. However, for Hancock to become an educated Rom, to stand out as such, and moreover, to fight for Roma rights and for social justice, is a pioneering choice in which few others have followed:
[…] a dominant culture […] can hardly conceive of such a monster as an educated Gypsy. // Some Gypsies in this position accept this, and pass as non-Gypsies, keeping at a distance all their Romani relatives, and keeping silence at all cost, to them and their own children, on all of their family’s past. But a sprinkling of such people find a personal liberation by joining Romani organization where intellectuals can make a political contribution to winning a better place in society for their people. They have to face incomprehension by non-Gypsies, and often rejection by assimilated relatives, and the constant accusation that they are not “true Gypsies” (Acton, Introduction, in Hancock, 1987: ix).

This situation unfortunately rings true until present day in most countries, and especially in Romania, for the equivalent of Civil Rights Movement has just recently begun to take place in Romania and the rest of Eastern Europe in the last two decades. However, these nations’ desire for accession to the European Union has made them subject to EU pressures to resolve anti-Roma discrimination and Roma social problems. The accession negotiations, therefore, have fueled numerous initiatives in this direction, and continues to promote the social and ethnic rights of Roma people, including the teaching of standard Romanes as a maternal language, in public schools:
Accession documents identify areas that should be focused on. Among other things, they point to the need to improve the situation of Roma in the medium term in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. […] The main instrument for providing funding of efforts to improve the situation of Roma in Central and East European countries is Phare, an EU program launched in 1989 to help candidate countries make the changes necessary for EU membership. […] there are two kinds of Romani-related issues: the social and the ethnic. Currently, the social problems are so urgent that ethnic emancipation cannot yet be addressed. Funds from both national governments and the EC have to improve the social situation. On the other hand, the xenophobia and similar sentiments in these countries must be addressed, and there is a need for legislation that provides mechanisms obliging local authorities to refrain from repressing Romani communities, as it is the case in some small villages and towns where the situation has not changed much since the nineteenth century (PER, 1999: 5-6).

P.E.R. or Project for Ethnic Relations is an international peace-keeping institution based in Princeton, New Jersey, which takes on Roma issues as a significant part of its agenda. P.E.R. publications offer updated information about Roma political representation efforts, activism and statistics, particularly in problematic countries such as Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and so on. Their efforts join those of non-governmental organizations and EU committees for Roma rights in promoting national and international measures to develop peaceful multicultural and multiethnic societies (PER, 1999: 6). Upon beginning my research, I expected Brazil to provide a positive example of such a multiethnic, yet well-integrated society, and to a certain extent, my expectations were satisfied.


6. Trends in Literature on the Roma – Myths of the Devil’s Runway Children
In a romanticized view of the Roma, many scholars will limit their accounts of Roma occupational endeavors as follows: “The bulk of the European Rroma were and sometimes still are smiths, artisans, and musicians” (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 32). In addition, numerous non-Roma have attempted to define the Roma not only in linguistic terms, but also in cultural terms, as an essentially nomadic people. Some claimed that the ancestors of Roma people were nomadic even when they lived in now-Indian territories (Kenrick, 2004). This has lead to tremendous confusion, and needs to be clarified:
The terminology of Fahrende or Traveller has been the result of a western European myth, namely, that all Roma were and are nomads. We will argue that Rromanes words pertaining to travels are not of Indian origin but acquired words, while the ones referring to villages and rural life are, in fact, Indian ones. This points out that the nomadic ways of life was not the original one for Roma. It is rather the result of their long journey to Europe. Once in Europe, most Rroma settled down immediately, for example in the Balkan, were some Rroma settlements can be traced back for more than five hundred years. This is also the case for Rroma in the Czech and Slovak regions or even in the Baltic states, where upon arrival during the seventeenth century most settled down. So to a large extent, Rroma are not nomads or even semi-nomads. However, there are certain groups like the Sinti in Germany and France and some other groups in the Balkan, who lead a nomadic life (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 5-6).

To add to the confusion, a significant number of non-Roma western Europeans also became nomadic migrants or travelers because of the dire economic situation of their times. Initially, they were identified as “Gypsies” because of their nomadism which was regarded as a disturbance to sedentary societies. Later, legal authorities declared them to be “Travellers,” divorcing the ethnic connotations from the term. At times, Roma nomads chose to identify themselves as “Travellers” also, depending on circumstantial interests. To complicate the matter further, some non-Roma “Travellers” joined Roma groups and became assimilated into them. Such was the case with the Jenisches and the Tinkers, which demonstrates more clearly than the claims of mixed marriages and inbreeding that some of the people now identified as “Roma” may be of European descent, regardless of their linguistic use of Romanes:
Meanwhile, the first migrations of Gypsies in Europe, in the early fifteenth century, also coincided with the political upheavals of that period and forced a significant part of the European population on the road. These migrant workers, traveling from city to city in search of work and a pittance, sometimes settled down while other co-opted a nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life. // This has given rise to a great confusion among the general public. Namely, the one between Gypsies and non-Gypsy Travellers, in German Fahrende and in French gens du voyage. We have to make a strong distinction between these two groups. While Gypsies, in a strict interpretation, originated from India and have kept a unified language (albeit with dialectical variations), there are other non-Gypsy groups which have often (and usually externally) been assimilated to them such as the Jenische of Switzerland, France, Germany, and Austria or the Tinkers of Ireland. These groups have no traces of any Indian roots but rather descend from the migrant European stock (Tcherenkov and Laedrich, 2004: 3-4).

There is prolific writing available about the confusing mix between Travelers, Fahrende, gens de voyage, and Roma people. The English literature best illuminates the conundrum:
The Travellers or Gypsies do tend to identify themselves according to one of the four national divisions of the British Isles, but this does not mean that one is more ‘Indian’ or Romany than the other. National labels are manipulated according to context, as is the ‘real Romany’ identity. […] The term ‘Traveller’ does not imply a drop-out from the sedentary society, as it is so often supposed by outsiders, but full membership of an ethnic group using the principle of descent. The term emphasizes a traveling, nomadic identity. Those Travellers who associate themselves with Ireland or Scotland tend not to adopt the nomenclature ‘Gypsy’. They are labelled ‘Tinkers’ and, although they may use this among themselves, they frequently use the less pejorative term ‘Traveller’, especially in communications with outsiders. […] Generally the term ‘Gypsy’ is more frequently given to and adopted today by Travellers associated with England and Wales, Gypsies may use this title privately, but, like the Tinkers, often prefer the less stigmatized term Traveller, again especially when relating to outsiders (Okely, 1983: 18-19).

To avoid stigmatization, these Roma and Tinkers use the more neutral term of “Traveller” when introducing themselves to others. For similar reasons, “Gypsies” and “Travellers” insist on being grouped together under the English laws:
It is important to examine some of the terms that are used in the book. ‘Gypsies and Travellers’ is used throughout, as a term to discuss Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers and New Travellers, as a whole group. […] This recognition is highlighted by Gypsies and Travellers themselves, and by the Commission for Racial Equality; it has legal definition under the Race Relations Act 1976, for Gypsies following the case of CRE V Dutton (1989) 1 All ER 306; and for Irish Travellers in the case of O’Leary and others v Punch Retail and others (2000). […] A definition of a ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Traveller’ is not simple; however a commonly used legal definition is from the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960s24 (as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994s80) which states that Gypsies and Travellers are ‘persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin.’// The legal definition refers to nomadism as the defining characteristic of a Gypsy or Traveller. However, this is difficult because not all Gypsies and Travellers are nomadic, some have moved into permanent housing because there has been no alternative. There is also the issue of ethnicity; the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) makes clear that Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers are ethnic groups, thereby clarifying their protection under race legislation. However, New Travellers are not classed as an ethnic group; but under the legal definition they could be categorised as ‘Gypsy’ because they lead a nomadic lifestyle (Richardson, 2006: 4-5).

Similarly, both “Travellers” and “Gypsies” identify themselves as distinct from the “Gajos,” “Gaujos” or “Gorgios,” or “Flatties” as they call the sedentary non-Roma: “Gorgio is the word Gypsies use to describe non-Gypsies and means outsider or stranger. It is often pejorative” (Okely, 1983: 1). In a more recent study, Richardson still agrees: “Members of the ‘settled community’ may be also called ‘Gaujo’ by Gypsies and Travellers (alternative spellings, such as ‘Gorgio’, are also used). Although this term does not occur much in the book, it should be explained that ‘Gaujo’ is the Gypsy term for non-Gypsies” (2006: 6). To illuminate the flexibility of these terms of distinction, it is important to note that there is “considerable inter-marriage between groups [and] the incorporation of Gorgios or ‘Flatties’ occurs in all groups” (Okely, 1983: 18). Thus, while neither “Gypsies” nor “Travellers” come “from India” per se in a relevant way, they also tend to intermarry with each other and with those whom they call rather pejoratively “Gorgios.” This shakes down the stereotypes of exotic difference to the core:
Thus stereotypes of Gypsies and accounts from them, whether ‘lies’ or ‘truths’, may be inversions or mystifications rather than reflections of ‘reality’. Images of and information transmitted by Gypsies to Gorgios may speak more of Gorgios than of Gypsies. […] Today, the extent to which Indian origin is emphasized depends on the extent to which the groups or individuals are exoticised and, paradoxically, considered acceptable to the dominant society (Okely, 1983: 2).

On the other hand, all groups of people identified as “Gypsies” also insist on using the term “Gorgio” as a point of distinction and separation from “others,” despite their actual intermarriage with and assimilation of non-Roma. In Brazil as well, the Roma groups call the non-Roma “Gajos” or “Gajis” (feminine), which can often have a pejorative sense. This perceived distinction from “others” may be the single most significant feature which all Roma and “Travellers” have in common, as opposed to subscribing to non-stop nomadism or to a shared image of origins in Indian history. Functionally, it serves as an archetypal method of self-identification: “we” are not “them,” where “them” is indicated by the word “Gajos” which can be substituted with any kind of people in the surrounding societies, such as “Brazilians,” “Romanians,” “French,” “English,” and so forth. This discursive method of identification draws an imaginary boundary around the community in which one is born or gets married, or with which one travels. Furthermore, both “Traveller” and “Gypsy” communities define themselves and limit group membership through shared taboos and principles of association and descent, in addition to maintaining occupational autonomy:
Some common aspects emerge from many of these studies of Gypsies on several continents. Invariably the Travellers or Gypsies differentiate themselves from Gorgios, Gajés, payos, ‘country people’ or Flatties. Many are found to have pollution beliefs which express and strengthen this separation. There is usually an ideology and practice of self-employment and occupational flexibility. Many groups exploit geographical mobility, although not all could be labeled nomads. Indeed nomadism is officially banned in the Communist countries of eastern Europe. Perhaps one aspect common to all groups is that they have had to survive hostility and periods of persecution from the dominant society. They have also been the objects of fantasy and romance. The form which either persecution or exoticism takes changes with historical context (Okely, 1983: 27).

Using kinship and descent to restrict group membership, both Travelers and Gypsies can sustain a sense of imagined community that persists through time. In addition, ideas and rituals regarding purity and pollution help to restrict the ways in which members interact with non-members and with each other so as to limit and sustain the cultural habits of the community. However, as Okely and others suggest, this process of boundary formation is ongoing, constantly negotiated and often counteracted by intermarriage, inbreeding, and daily interactions with the “Flatties.” Even if we accept the cultural separateness of such communities from the “Gorgios” or “Gajos,” one can still observe a high degree of social and economic interdependency:
“The separation between Gypsy and Gorgio is socially constructed and can never be absolute. The Gypsy economy is interdependent with that of the larger economy, and the Travellers have always had to negotiate with Gorgio authorities for intermittent access to land. A ‘modernisation’ theoretical approach is to be rejected. It is a misrepresentation to suggest that the Gypsies were once self-sufficient and that they have inevitably been threatened by industrialization and urbanization. New problems have emerged for them, but these have not necessarily been those of economic redundancy. New occupations have been exploited. The Travellers’ main difficulties in Britain have been the increased restrictions placed on their access to camping land. This does not mean that Gypsies were once tolerated in some golden past and in rural settings, as has so often been claimed” (Okely, 1983: 231).

The greater literature dealing with Roma people or “Gypsies and Travelers” suggests that their social condition is in many ways “problematic.” This coin has two sides of the argument: initially most literature came from “Gajo” authorities, describing them in stereotypical, criminal and often discriminatory ways so as to persecute them for social disruptions; secondly, a wave of reformists and anthropologists approached the “problem” by siding with the minority, suggesting their culture of “freedom” has been subject to loathing and jealousy from the “Gajo” societies:
The threat which the Gypsies, as a minority, appear to represent to the larger society is largely ideological. They are seen to defy the dominant system of wage-labour and its demand for a fixed abode. Not surprisingly, from the first appearance of persons called or calling themselves Gypsies in Britain in the sixteenth century, the state has attempted to control, disperse, deport, convert or destroy them. This study has outlined the repressive measures used against Gypsies, and charted some of the ways in which Gypsies have attempted to deal with and survive others’ plans for them. History has demonstrated the Gypsies’ survival as an ethnic group, despite attempts even at their extermination. The used of force by the dominant order against Gypsies has in the long run proved ineffective and only of expressive worth. […] In so far as there is a problem to be confronted, it is one which has been created largely by the dominant non-Gypsy order. The Gypsies have been classed as problematic because they have refused to be proletarianised, and have instead chosen to exploit self-employment and occupational and geographical flexibility. Within the larger economy they provide a variety of goods and services, many of which other persons or groups cannot or do not wish to provide (Okely, 1983: 231).

State persecutions and general repressions have been depicted as expressions of “Gajo” repressed psyches and systematic intolerances, as summarized in Shuinear’s chapter, Why do Gaujos hate Gypsies so much, anyway? (1997):
“I want to put it even more precisely: just as Santa Claus is the idea of Christmas cheer and giving all rolled into one fairytale person – their personification – Gaujos need Gypsies to personify their own faults and fears, thus lifting away the burden of them. // This need is so overpowering that time after time, in place after place, Gaujos create situations forcing Gypsies to fill this role. // It is important to remember that what we’re talking about here are not ‘alien’ faults and problem’s but Gaujo’s own; therefore, the people onto whom these are projected must be clearly distinct from the Gaujo mainstream, but not utterly foreign to it: just as in cinema, the screen must be neither too close nor too distant if the image projected onto it is to remain sharply focused” (Shuinear, in Acton, 1997: 27).

The interdependence and tension between “Gypsies” and “non-Gypsies” is thus often narrated by Romologists as a process where the sedentary society manifests projections on its ill-known, internal “outsiders” who serve as mirrors of its own discontents (Liégeois, 1986). The minority also prefers to keep its cultural traditions and taboos a secret, so it willingly causes “Gajos” to project exoticized, exaggerated images of “Gypsy-ness” so as to serve their economic interests – particularly useful for occupations such as musicians, circus runners, and fortune-tellers. However, more often than not they also become subjected to negative stereotypes:
What Shuinear seems to say is that the identity of Gypsies and Travellers is not based on fact but is instead dependent on the projection of a given image from the settled community – the Gaujos. The fairytale image of a ‘true’ Gypsy is positive, much more in the vein of Shuinear’s Santa Claus. The ‘fake’ Traveller is a negative projected image and is seen to apply to many more people. This is because the rosy image of the ‘true’ Gypsy (as with Santa Claus) is not seen in reality, and therefore all Gypsies and Travellers become stereotyped by the projected image of the ‘fake’ Gypsy or Traveller (Richardson, 2006: 23).

Exaggerated images of “Gypsy-ness” account for most of the public knowledge about this minority, including the literature authorities have used in the past to explain their repressive measures. Romologists, on the other hand, take on as their target priority to debunk this as part of greater power and knowledge dynamics in society:
The social construction of the Gypsy creates a demon on whom society can pin any problem, so as to distract attention from other issues. […] The government can benefit by reducing expenditures on them, ‘it is their fault we don’t need to help them.’ They can also benefit from raising the climate of fear about ‘difference’ in order to shield their policy shifts and power struggles. The media also benefits from reinforcing old stereotypes as they sell more newspapers, and make more money. […] Fundamentally, we need to reduce the distance between the settled community and Gypsies and Travellers; we need [them] to understand more about each other. However, to do this requires real commitment from the government and from policy makers and it is not in their interest to help improve their situation. […] A scared society is easier to control and lead. […] the traveling community would benefit from a better understanding between them and the settled community as they would face less harassment and perhaps also benefit from an increased provision of new sites and an inclusion in mainstream welfare policies such as health, education and housing (Richardson, 2006: 135).

Romologists like Okely and Liégeois (1986) often make generalizations that non-Roma project their own “dark” fantasies onto the “exotic Gypsies,” of whom little is known:
Parallel to the various forms of control to which they have been subject, the Gypsies have also been exoticised by their allies and opponents. Outsiders have projected on to Gypsies their own repressed fantasies and longings for disorder. They have credited Gypsies with the inverse of all that they consider normal. Thus the Gypsies have been represented as lawless, amoral, unclean, and part of nature in opposition to others’ notion of culture. This study has confronted such fantasies (Okely, 1983: 232).

Thomas Acton’s article Modernisation, moral panics and the Gypsies (1994) further supports this argument in his literature review, raising valid points about previous Roma studies:
The ‘visitors’ to Romani studies have used a bewildering array of sociological theories to incorporate Gypsies. The racist anthropology of the nineteenth century saw them as genetic primitives in our midst. More modern anthropology continues to see their culture as a cause of their situation rather than their history and situation as the root of their culture; even the ‘culture of poverty’ had a brief vogue. Functionalists have seen them as a ‘middle-man minority’ with a particular specialized trading function (Lauwagie 1979). Marxists have seen them variously as sub- or lumpen-proletariat, while interactionists have seen them as hereditary deviants. These theories, whether macro or micro, or somewhere in the muddled Mertonian middle, are usually supported by an ethnography of some particular Gypsy group, and may offer some partial insight into that group; but they say nothing about Gypsies as a whole (1994: 25).

Acton best summarizes the research context around “Gypsies and Travellers” as he analyzes the epistemology of researchers from Marxists to Functionalists. “He also discusses a problem which is true of many areas of research – that of generalizing about a diverse group” (Richardson, 2006: 6). Fortunately, there is also available literature that examines the history of “Gypsies and Travellers” in greater depth, for example Acton (1974, 1994 and 2000), Acton and Mundy (1997), Hancock (2002), Hawes & Perez (1996), Kenrick & Clark (1999), Mayall (1995), and Tong (1998).

Just copy and paste the links. The first link should appear as follows:

Valery_Novoselsky
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Posted: Fri Oct 17th, 2008 04:46 pm
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Roma or Gypsy?

We have set out with the discourse of “I am a Gypsy”. This expression is an ordinary one for most of the people. For example, it is meaningless for a German to say “I am a German”, since she/he repeats an obvious reality in this way. But this kind of declaration has a different meaning for our community. If a Gypsy says “I am a Gypsy”, this expression is not a commonplace; on the contrary, it is an example of heroism on its own. People who can say “I am a Gypsy” are the real heroes. This article dedicates to these heroes.

Our people are living all around the world. Although Gypsies are different in point of various characteristics, all the ancestors of these people have been commercial nomads. All of our ancestors have survived through selling crafts like sieves, baskets and metal things in villages and cities. Despite the fact that some members of our community have settled in course of time, we all are substantially from tents. So, formidable paths have been gone.

At the present time, we cannot come to an agreement about ourselves. What is our name? Are we Romani, Abdal, Elekçi, Poşa or Gypsy? Our people cannot say “I am a Gypsy” due to lack of self-confidence and diffidence has been accumulated throughout the years like they condemn the people who can say “I am a Gypsy”. Furthermore, they can use the word of “Gypsy” to insult poorer brothers or sisters, people who live in another district or any person who anger them. What a pity that a Gypsy reviles to another as “dirty Gypsy”. Unfortunately, we often witness this kind of circumstances.

Different words like Roman, Abdal, Elekçi are used to mean “Gypsy” in different dialects around Turkey. People sometimes hide themselves behind these words for protection. What a delusion! As if you could change the mind of people who use the word of Gypsy in a negative meaning when you say “I am a Romani, not a Gypsy” “I am a Poşa, not a Gypsy” or “I am an Abdal, not a Gypsy”. As if the people who insult you when you say “I am a Gypsy”, would respect you. As if the people who do not employ you when you say “I am a Gypsy”, would employ you if you say that you are a Romani. This is a big delusion. This is one kind of self cajolery.

And some people hide themselves behind national and religious values. These people are those who say “I’m not a Gypsy, I’m Turkish citizen” or “I’m not a Gypsy, I’m Muslim”. These people cannot achieve their goals; on the other hand, they insult themselves. These expressions mean imply that a Gypsy cannot be a Turkish citizen or a Muslim. This is funny! Of course, a Gypsy might believe in any religion as well as there are Muslim Gypsies. Besides, Gypsies in Turkey are Turkish Gypsies. Gypsies have proved that they are sincere patriots in difficult days of the country. A person whose social origin is Gypsy might belong to any nation. French, German, Turkish, etc… Hiding behind the national and religious values is not just improper, but also harmful to these values.

Then, what is the proper one? Courage is required.

Unfortunately, our name is used as a curse word. In this instance, the solution cannot depend on changing our names. This problem can be solved through keeping and purifying our name bravely. Of course, this is very difficult.

Ali Mezarcioglu
Editor
http://www.cingeneyiz.org

Last edited on Fri Oct 17th, 2008 04:48 pm by Valery_Novoselsky

Valery_Novoselsky
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Posted: Fri Oct 17th, 2008 05:45 pm
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Dear Ali,

I do not know if you speak Romani, but with the Roma a have spoken in Romani they never used the word cingene, cypsy or ciganin and it is simply because there is no such a word in our Romani mother tongue. In order to name myself in my mother tongue I use the expression Me sijom Rom. And again I never he4ard a Roma to say in Romany Me sem/sijom Cingene or Gysy or Ciganin. It seems these names are given to us by outsiders and I'm not sure whatever it fits to our self-identification.


The same is the example with bulgarians. In Bulgarian language they call themselves balgarin/balgarka - with the bulgarian impression and they ask others to call them the same way as bulgar, bulgarian, bolhar etc. and not like when someone calls them gyaur (the word is used mainly by ottomans and nowadays from some turks to call with negative connotation the Bulgarians). That's way I honestly do not prefer the others to call me cingene, gypsy or ciganin, because this word doesn't exist in my language.

Probabaly you already know that the ethimology of the word shows that it comes from greek and means - untouchable.


Best
Biser Svetlinov

Valery_Novoselsky
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Posted: Sat Oct 18th, 2008 05:48 pm
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Hello all,

I am wondering why none asks anymore: "is the earth round or plate"?

This is my short answer, in the form of a question. As for a longer one, I warmly invite you to read the Chapter 2 of the Frame-Statute of Rromani People in the European Union, on Rromani National Identity. You can read it in many languages here: http://www.rroma-europa.eu

Best regards,

Saimir MILE

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

Growing up in Romania, I thought the colorfully-dressed, dark-skinned, boisterous strangers were quite distant from my own culture, quite exotic by any Romanian social standards, although present among us "Romanians." I believed at the time that "they" had only one name: "tigani" in Romanian. The term seemed linked to social expectations of negative, asocial behavior or personalities. I learned only much later to critically analyze the ways in which this term was a historical construct and how because of historical patterns of marginalization - which included slavery in the Romanian territories and extermination during the Holocaust - the name became loaded with pejorative connotations such as "thief" or "worse than animals." The spite with which the word was pronounced around me by other Romanians much too often, as I was growing up, was so powerful that it felt like transgression, outright rebellion, on my behalf, when I decided during my sophomore year at Stanford University that I would go back to Romania for the summer and study the ways of the "tigani." My own friends and family regarded them as unworthy of my time, the worst possible choice in many ways, and seriously began to doubt my academic prowess and sense of direction in life.

I had learned English upon immigrating to the States at the age of fourteen, but nonetheless successfully completed 8th grade and excelled in the International Baccalaureate Program featured at my public high school in Chicago. I had done well on my pre-SAT tests, was a National Merit Finalist, and graduated as the Valedictorian of Class of 2000. At graduation, the mayor of Chicago congratulated me on my speech, which focused on cheering students on as they would go on and try to improve their own lives and the lives of others. My admission to Stanford was well deserved, I felt, and it was not on a whim that I chose to study the unknown others, the "tigani" - I was intellectually helping myself figure out a puzzling dilemma: who were these strangers among us, back in Romania? And am I possibly very much like them now that I feel such a stranger surrounded by the rest of America?

My initial Internet searches and loads of library books allowed me to win a summer grant that would allow my research, and so I embarked on a voyage of discovery which lead me to think now, almost nine years later, that observing these people holds as many enigmas and variety of is subjects as the sea. First lesson I learned was that indeed, the term "tigani" along with the term "Gypsy" and their popular equivalents in many languages "zigeuner" and so forth derrive from the Greek term "atinganoi" which meant untouchables. To let the people speak for themselves, here is an Internet link which features a useful condensation of the debate about the names these people often have been associated with or with which they associated themselves - which I will later unfold: file:///Users/Diana/Desktop/DATA.DONTOPEN!!!/NAMING%20ROMA.webarchive

The debate that appears at this link is between people who self-identify as insiders to this minority. I let them speak for themselves. The European Union consensus or the official international standard for naming the whole ethnic minority is the following, deriving from their own language, Romanes: the "ROMA" or the "ROMANY PEOPLE." The "Romany identity" therefore appeared primarily as political discourse driven by an activist agenda to raise above historically constructed, loaded terminologies. The birth and shape of the "Romany ideantity" is fully represented on the official EU site: http://www.rroma-europa.eu/uk/sc_en.html and its associated links.

OUTLINE of DOCTORAL THESIS / BOOK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

 

CHAPTER

 

1. THEORETICAL ORIENTATIONS

 

Introduction

Literature Review

Statement of Problem

Methodological Concerns

 

2. BRAZILIAN “CIGANOS” / “GYPSIES”

 

Introduction

 

Entering the Brazilian Gypsy Communities

           

            The History and Composition of the Calon and the Roma Communities

                        Of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo 

 

                        Self-Identification(s): Public and Private

           

Social Organization – Degrees of Kinship

                       

                        Gypsy/ Gage Boundary

            The Natsia

                        The Vitsa

           

            Collective Memory – Fragments                                    

 

                        Oral Histories

                        Myths of Origin

                        (S)language(s) and Issues of Translation

                        How I Introduce Myself – My Memories

           

Socioeconomic Niches

                       

                        The Kumpania

                        The Kris

                        Socioeconomic Differences: Localizing Poverty and Wealth

                        Fortunetelling and Magic: Borderland Performances

                        Gage Acting as “Spiritual Gypsies”

 

Conclusion

 

3. HONOR AND SHAME: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MAXRIMÉ

 

Introduction – Honor and Shame versus Guilt (or Its Absence)

 

Upper-Lower Body Symbolism and Pollution Taboos

 

Gender and the Social Body

Purity and the Gago/ Gypsy Boundary

 

Child-raising and Gendered Differences           

           

                        Education in Public Schools and in the Family

                        The Marriage Institution – Gender-Specific Expectations

 

Age Grades and Life Cycles for Women

           

Chaj Status

            Bori Status

            Romni Status

            Phuri Status

 

Age Grades and Life Cycles for Men

           

Chavo Status

            Zamutro Status

            Rom Status

            Phuro Status

 

Kinship with the Dead – Fear of Ancestors’ Punishment for Dishonor

                       

Funeral Rituals

Murders and Suicides

                        Ghosts

                        Fear and Humor

 

            Honor, Dissent and Public Shaming

 

Dissent from Rules for Marriage and Sexuality: “We can pay the fine”

Techniques of Punishment and Surveillance

            Gossip as Social Knowledge and Action

            Secrets as Private Knowledge – Ritualizing Dissent

            The Social Functions of Silence

            The Kris and the National Law

 

Conclusion

 

4. ACCULTURATION VERSUS ASSIMILATION – WHAT IS A BRAZILIAN GYPSY?   AND CAN BRAZILIANS BE GYPSIES TOO?

 

Factors Contributing to the “Brazilian Gypsy” Subjectivity

 

Brazil as a Special Space for Ethnic Inclusion

Notions of Race and Color as Determinant Social Factors

            Slaves versus Slave-Traders Controversy

            Stereotypes of Gypsies: Positive, Neutral and Negative

            Gypsy Self-Mythologizing Trends: Passion, Magic, and Fortunetelling

Brazilian Gage and “Spiritual Gypsies”

 

Memories of Discrimination and Attitudes towards the Brazilian Society

 

            Calons versus Roma Trends in Memory and Self-Identification

                        Colonial Repression of Calons: Exile to Brazil

                        European Repression of Roma: the Holocaust

            Degrees of Desire for Social Inclusion and Ethnic Anonymity

           

Public Images of “Gypsy-ness”

 

            The Calons Walk the Streets

            Soap Opera: “Explode Coração”

Popularizing the “Queen of the Gypsies”

            Music and Dance Groups: “Encanto Cigano”

            Music and Dance Reserved for Private Gatherings: Pakiv / Honor

            “Fake Gypsy Dancers”: Defending Ethnicity Against Intruders

Gypsy Attitudes towards Brazilian Genres of Music and Dance:

                        Pagode, Forro, Samba, and Baile-Funk

 

Religious Trends

           

            Brazilian Religious Syncretism and Magical Beliefs

            Inventing the Gypsy Saint Cult: St. Sara Kali

Evangelicals Renounce Slava and Dancing

            Pomba Gira Cigana, Condomblé and Umbanda: Gypsy Spirit Possessions

                        “My Friends Love the Tarot Cards, So Does My Mother”

           

            New Media and Vectors for Change

 

Orkut and Internet Possibilities for Young Lovers

Anonymity and Visibility:  A Voice Without a Face

Internet Links to International Gypsy Networks, Music and Videos

 

            Conclusion

                       

5. POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

 

Political Representation of Gypsies in Brazil

 

            The Roma and the Calons Represented Together

            Circulating St. Sara for Political Ends: the Gypsy National Day            Internal Politics of Gypsy Representation in Brazil

                        União Romani versus the Queen: Rio de Janeiro

                        A.P.R.E.C.I.S.P.: São Paulo

                        “Fake Gypsies” in Brasilia

                        “You can be a representative too!”

                        Orkut Battles for Representation: “In-Between” Gypsies

                  Citizenship Awareness

                  Building Cultural Centers: No Romanes in Public Schools

                  Gypsies at High Political Levels: President Juscelino Kubitschek

 

            Connecting with International Gypsy Communities

 

                  Latin American Gypsy Networks

Relatives across the Oceans:  North American and European Kin

                  Receiving Romanian Roma in Brazil

                  Invitation for the Queen to Come to Romania

                  Translating Websites into English: A.P.R.E.C.I.S.P

                  Searching the Internet for Historical Accounts of the Holocaust

 

            The Challenge to Care

 

                  “Who cares about the poor Roma in Europe?”

                  “We are the best gypsies” vs. “We’re not what we used to be”

                  Moving Towards Altruism and Public Self-Identification

 

            Conclusion

     

 

6. FURTHER QUESTIONS

 

Equal Rights and Equal Duties

Education and Language Centers: New Possibilities

Economic Empowerment of Roma Women and Feminist Directions

Recognizing Gay and Lesbian Rights within Gypsy Communities

Coming Out with Gypsy Ethnicity

Performing the Borderline: Politically Correct Gypsies

New Forms of Gypsy Performances:  Gypsy Punk and Gogol Bordello

Gypsies in the High Levels of the Music Industry:  Madonna’s last tour

 

Conclusion