"Gypsies" in the United States

Several groups, all known to outsiders as "Gypsies," live today in the United
States. In their native languages, each of the groups refers to itself by a specific name, but all translate their self-designations as "Gypsy" when speaking English. Each had its own cultural, linguistic, and historical tradition before coming to this country, and each maintains social distance from the others.

Rom
The Rom arrived in the United States from Serbia, Russia and AustriaHungary beginning in the 1880's, part of the larger wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Primary immigration ended, for the most part, in 1914, with the beginning of the First World War and subsequent tightening of immigration restrictions (Salo and Salo 1986). Many people in this group specialized in coppersmith work, mainly the repair and retinning of industrial equipment used in bakeries, laundries, confectioneries, and other businesses. The Rom, too, developed the fortune-telling business in urban areas. Two subgroups of the Rom, the Kalderash("coppersmith") and Machwaya ("natives of Machva," a county in Serbia) appear in the photographs in Carlos de Wendler-Funaro's collection. De Wendler-Funaro identified some, but not all, Kalderash as "Russian Gypsies." Another group he identified as "Russian Gypsies" seem to be the Rusniakuria ("Ruthenians"), musicians and singers who settled in New York.

Ludar
The Ludar, or "Romanian Gypsies," also came to the United States during the great immigration from southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1914. Most of the Ludar came from northwestern Bosnia. Upon their arrival in the United States they specialized as animal trainers and showpeople, and indeed passenger manifests show bears and monkeys as a major part of their baggage. Most of de Wendler-Funaro's photographs of this group were taken in Maspeth, a section of the borough of Queens in New York City, where the Ludar created a "village" of homemade shacks that existed from about 1925 to 1939, when it was razed. A similar settlement stood in the Chicago suburbs during the same period.

Romnichels
The Romnichels, or English Gypsies, began to come to the United States from England in 1850. Their arrival coincided with an increase in the demand for draft horses in agriculture and then in urbanization, and many Romnichels worked as horse-traders. After the rapid decline in the horse trade following the First World War, most Romnichels relied on previously secondary enterprises, "basket-making," including the manufacture and sale of rustic furniture, and fortune-telling. Horse and mule trading continued to some extent in southern states where poverty and terrain slowed the adoption of tractor power (Salo and Salo 1982).

"Black Dutch"
Gypsies from Germany, whom de Wendler-Funaro refers to as Chikkeners (Pennsylvania German, from the German Zigeuner), sometimes refer to themselves as "Black Dutch." They are few in number and claim to have largely assimilated into Romnichel culture. They are represented in de Wendler-Funaro's photographs by a few portraits of one old man and briefly referred to in the manuscript "In Search of the Last Caravan."

Hungarian Gypsies
Hungarian musicians also came to this country with the eastern European immigration. In the United States they continued as musicians to the Hungarian and Slovak immigrant settlements.

today's gypsies
Are you proud of your culture and values? Do you have a strong sense of family? Do you respect older people and show human loyalty and compassion? Of course you do do... But you are a gypsy.
back to gypsy

Gypsies

Why does discrimination against Andalusian gypsies still exist today?

Some facts:

60% of all gypsies in Spain are found in Andaluca. Approximately 300,000 gypsies live in Andaluca. Some 100,000 gypsies in Andaluca are still "excluded" even by the authorities (papers not in order). The Social Affairs Ministry (under Javier Arenas) has earmarked for Andaluca only 20% of the whole countrys funding for integration of gypsies, when 60% of all gypsies in Spain are found in Andaluca. According to Social Services, absenteeism among gypsy schoolchildren has decreased in the last five years from 52% to only 20%, yet 10,000 gypsy children still do not go to school.

This is discrimination by another name: marginalisation.

Romany Association

Young gypsies from 35 Romany Associations met up in Sevilla during November 1997 to discuss issues and create an organisation to defend their rights.

Some views:

When it comes to having a good time, said 28 year old Mari Carmen Soto, a member of the Torre del Mar Gypsy Association in Velez-Mlaga, gypsies are more "flamenco" than non-gypsies and tend to enjoy themselves singing and dancing, rather than going to a discotheque, but otherwise there is no difference to other young people. Love and family come before all else. We are not directly discriminated, but we do not have the same opportunities as others, said Mari Carmen Carrillo of Jaen. Gypsies prefer to marry gypsies, but if one marries a non-gypsy then it is the non-gypsy family that is reluctant to accept the gypsy than the other way round. Juan Antonio Bermudez (23 years old) said you can't go out with a gypsy girl or be involved sexually with her - it's either an official engagement or nothing. But you can go out with a non-gypsy girl in secret. It is the older gypsies (over 40 year olds) who warn against marrying a non-gypsy woman, because it gives a gypsy man a bad reputation. Juan Antonio Fernandez admits the relationship between the sexes among gypsies is more complicated because you have to ask the father's permission and commit yourself for life, rather than just go out on a date. Non-gypsies are more liberated. Constantino Corts, chairman of the elders board of Romany Associations, acknowledges times have changed but still insists that a woman's place is in the home. Gypsy men do have complete freedom, and gypsy women have the same freedom as any other women, but

inside the family environment.

Solution?

The conference urged young gypsies to learn about their heritage from their elders and fight to receive education.
Any solution?

Just communication, understanding and a great deal of patience. In fact the outlook is not so grim. Most flamenco gypsy families really do know how to enjoy themselves and do not feel marginalised!

American Gypsy a stranger in everybody's land Many Americans are familiar with them, but to most they are still strangers. Outside mainstream America, beyond the consciousness of mass media, excluded from discussions about minorities, there are a million familiar strangers living in this country: American Gypsies. Americans, but are they really? Gypsies, but what does that mean anyway? Gypsies worldwide, more properly known as "Rom," are part of an ethnic group whose ancestors left India a thousand years ago. Today, many American Rom combine the extremes of what is very foreign and very American: they speak to ghosts in a foreign language, and wear Stetsons while driving Cadillacs to the local shopping mall for MacDonalds hamburgers. They also maintain ancient traditions and a societal structure revolving entirely around the family. By contrast, fairy tales and Hollywood churn out images of Gypsies as romantic nomads and cunning thieves: aimless wanderers with not a care for the past and no plans for the future; just read a fortune, steal a chicken and move on to the next town. Newspaper headlines talk of being "gypped" and police officers declare themselves experts on "Gypsy Crime" (just imagine a "Jewish Crime" specialist!). They get away with it because most people think that "Gypsy" describes anyone who fits the popular traveler fantasy. So, while the real Rom are strangers, their stigma is very familiar. A New York Times poll in 1992 reported the social standing of 58 ethnic groups: Gypsies were at the very bottom. "AMERICAN GYPSY: a stranger in everybody's land" is a film about the real people behind this image, about a people struggling between the cultures of ancient India and modern America, about the advantages and disadvantages of assimilation and about a family at the heart of this battle. The Marks family stepped into the limelight in 1986 after a controversial police raid of their homes, during which police destroyed sacred items, searched babies' diapers, body-searched women, removed decorative gold finger nails from their hands and seized a large amount of cash - without a valid search warrant. The Marks were charged with trafficking in stolen goods, but they claim they were suspected only because of racist assumptions that Gypsies are born thieves. More importantly, they say that police robbed them of their honor by misconducting the search, in the belief that Gypsies would not fight back. Police probably weren't even aware of the degree to which their search would affect the family: ritual purity laws mean that women are permanently tainted by the touch of outsiders. The family still has not recovered, but they have retaliated, in one of the most American ways of all: they filed a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit against their hometown, Spokane, in Washington state. However, the family's public demands in court defied the hush-hush conventions of their own community. Historically, the Rom are silent in the face of hostility: better to shrug it off than become embroiled in the outside world. Romani Americans remain apart from mainstream society, partly because they are shunned, partly because they fear that contact with non-Gypsies contaminates their own people and values. This is why so little has been explained about their culture. Even their label is a misnomer; they were named "Gypsy" by Europeans who wrongly attributed their swarthy complexion to being vagabonds from Egypt. The people whom we call Gypsies refer to themselves as Rom or Roma which means "man" in Romani, the language of Rom across the globe. But the myths go uncorrected because, in a sense, Rom are protected by stereotypes about their being unapproachable or dirty: it keeps outsiders away.

Nevertheless, Jimmy Marks and his father, Grover, wanted respect for their heritage and an end to what they felt was police harassment. So, like members of other American minorities, they decided to fight the system. As a result, the family has been ostracized by their own people; the rest of Spokane's Romani community left town to avoid associating with the Marks family. Now, they are pariahs in both American and Romani society. And they long for the good old days. Before the raid, Grover Marks, like many other Romani Americans, ran his own business, as a car salesman. He would take the men in the family to buy second hand cars in Las Vegas - we see these roadtrips in old home movies, which also show family feasts, and the wedding of a teenage couple who had never met until their grandparents arranged a marriage. Grover was a community leader whose oldest son, Jimmy, was set to follow in his footsteps. Instead, Jimmy became obsessed with the lawsuit, and Grover sat alone in the same chair every day, all day, smoking Marlboros and staring out of the kitchen window. Waiting. This haggard grandfather barely moved for a decade. Jimmy began to rant about the case, which he saw as the only way for his family to regain acceptance among his people, and for his people to gain acceptance among the rest of society. Initially the Markses had won their case, but it was then placed on appeal - until 11 years after the raid. In the end, Spokane City paid the family an out-of-court settlement. Jimmy Marks has been called "the Gypsy equivalent to Rodney King," because his landmark civil rights battle against the Spokane police helped demonstrate the widespread prejudice faced by Romani people. He has also been called a madman, because he was consumed by this obsession. His tale is irresistibly human: as timeless as Don Quixote or Hamlet, as they go crazy battling to reclaim lost honor For this documentary, the Marks family allowed their lives to be captured on camera over the course of five years - long enough to see their ups and downs, moments of intimacy and public grandeur, and a rollercoaster of emotions. Eventually, the whole family was along for the ride, and allowed the camera unprecedented access into their home. The filmmaker is present as a first person narrator, highlighting that this is a portrait from the point of view of someone who is, like most of the audience, an outsider. As a woman, the filmmaker also provides a contrast to the apparently traditional role of most Romani women - but the subservience of a Romani housewife is deceptive: she's excluded from official decisions, yet she governs the family in an entirely family-centered society. In addition, she has an unusual prerogative: a woman's lower body is deemed ritually impure, which both confines her to long skirts, and gives her the unrivaled power to defile and ostracize a man for life just by raising her skirt in his presence. The Marks' legal case is a window onto this world of American Roma, who are unknown but not unknowable. In this film, we see that secrecy has helped keep Romani culture as distinct as that of many new immigrants. Yet, Roma have been coming to the United States for centuries, beginning when they rowed ships for the early European settlers, later to escape slavery in nineteenth century Romania, and, more recently, to flee Nazi gas chambers. These scattered waves of immigration mean that there are now many different groups of Romani Americans. We meet Ian Hancock, an English Rom who has spent much of his life representing his people in academic and political settings. Hancock is a professor at the University of Texas and a world authority on Romani linguistics and history. In Minneapolis, we meet Bill Duna, a jazz musician whose grandparents emigrated from Hungary to play at the 1880 Chicago World's Fair. Nowadays, Duna straddles both worlds: playing music at weddings accompanied by his sons, and teaching university classes on musicology and the history of the Romani Holocaust.

After centuries of protection behind a huge misunderstanding, several of today's younger generation Rom are adopting new survival tactics that include a more open attitude to outsiders and a desire to see themselves accurately portrayed in the world around them. This has facilitated the first candid portrait of a culture that is either on the verge of extinction or at a critical turning point for survival. In this documentary, the Marks' story weaves together: poetry, music, home movies, historical archives, news flashes, footage and interviews; personal stories of painful rejection and resilience; of traveling in camps at the turn of the century, or calling a tribunal to decide whether community laws have been broken; and of finally being acknowledged alongside Jews at the Holocaust Museum. This is a poignant story, illustrating some of the most painful ambiguities of immigration, of culture clashes and of modern America. And this is the first opportunity to present it on screen.