Living Roma: Identity and Culture of the Romani People

[00:00:06] Howe in Cornell phone calls I am.

[00:00:08] Roma up andgrown woman do not have a male voice anything, Madame C Report or RingGco whenever

[00:00:11] newborn calls I amtering a family of еm them and my parents cancel.

[00:00:29] slave or something like that hi everyone welcome back to rhythm in rome and we're so glad to have

[00:00:39] you today how are you doing berneth paul good i think i just said whoa which is so much you did

[00:00:48] i'm so sorry can we do that again can we do that reaction i loved it i loved it i was stuck with

[00:00:56] that paul we ain't redoing that i can't believe i just came out oh my god that's right if anybody

[00:01:03] knows that's uh i thought you were doing i was back in the military that's the military way of saying

[00:01:11] yes but it means so many different things who has like 7 500 words in and of itself yes yes so okay

[00:01:19] all right today we want to welcome you all to take a little journey with us um we are actually

[00:01:25] our show today is about a very interesting um people uh you know culture the roma people and

[00:01:33] binef had uh you know an opportunity to be able to interview with some fellow podcasters of ours

[00:01:39] and we're so excited to be able to share this with you um because it's it's been fascinating you know

[00:01:44] getting to know um you know the the history behind the roma so binef i'm gonna i want you to take us in

[00:01:52] and and really uh give us a you know an introduction into yeah to talk about today sure so i was able

[00:02:01] to interview two women um that are roma jasmina vantila and paulina stevens and they have their own

[00:02:07] podcast romanistan podcast they've had that for about three years now um and so i met jasmina in

[00:02:14] 2012 when uh i was doing my yoga teacher training at kripalu so we were there together for the whole 30 days

[00:02:20] so that's when i met her and one of the first things that she made us very aware of was that she

[00:02:26] was roma and that the use of the word gypsy is a slur and so it's it's not to be used by people

[00:02:33] that are uh that are not roma um because it's it's a pejorative and i didn't know that because i'd grown up

[00:02:40] using that word so when you said roma and most people in the world i would say i'm exaggerating

[00:02:50] probably know roma as what as gypsy is that what you just said well i think that they might not know

[00:02:57] that they're actually called roma or romany people yes because i didn't know buying them only as just

[00:03:04] gypsies and that word is an actual it's a slur it's not a um a nice or a good or a kind of

[00:03:12] to use yeah and so i didn't know that but uh yes i made that very clear that brought that to my

[00:03:18] awareness back in 2012 and so um and i've you know kept i've been following her on social media

[00:03:24] and so i i thought of the the the opportunity to interview them because when we think of travel or

[00:03:32] we get warned about these people in europe uh thieves pickpockets you know stay away from them

[00:03:40] typical stereotype yeah they will use the the gypsy slur to to to classify these people and i and i know

[00:03:46] you know that's not correct it's they are there are thieves and pickpockets yes to be sure but these

[00:03:53] are not all roma um and so i wanted to talk to her or talk to them about that like where did this slur

[00:04:01] come from where you know why why do uh have we been taught to believe that the roma are um dangerous

[00:04:10] or to be avoided um and basically in in all areas of the world because they don't have their own state

[00:04:17] it's a stateless um group of people that they're all over the world um they originally came from 10th

[00:04:24] century or from india in the 10th century and started migrating down to europe um so yeah and so it's

[00:04:32] been it was fascinating like the interview was super interesting for me and i feel like unless you're an

[00:04:36] anthropologist or someone that's really well read and just taking the time to understand you're just

[00:04:43] i didn't know um and so i had to do my research listen to some of their podcasts uh just to

[00:04:49] understand a little bit more of who these people are and so roma have been on the move for a really

[00:04:56] long time because of violent persecution and even when the persecution wasn't overtly physically violent

[00:05:02] roma have been economically discriminated against for a really long time so a lot of our traditional

[00:05:08] trades are things that you could work on the road or might even be seasonal that you might need to work

[00:05:13] on the road um like harvesting or fortune telling performing flowers selling animal training lates making

[00:05:19] we have lots of cool jobs metal working because roma were nomadic for a long time this also became a

[00:05:27] reason to discriminate against roma so a lot of romani people then were forcibly settled

[00:05:32] which was also not good um because a lot of these settlements ended up being tenements or

[00:05:37] camps with little to no sanitation and this is still an issue um roma live in a lot of different ways but

[00:05:44] are disproportionately living in poverty i think our podcast has a lot to do with creating community

[00:05:51] the internet really changed the game for a lot of people um including the generation before us my

[00:05:58] parents generation like our generation i feel like we're allowed we're able to connect and have a

[00:06:04] stronger community now more than ever yeah that's really interesting too that you say that as stateless

[00:06:09] people because um i i happen to be taking a media global globalization class right now um and uh they

[00:06:18] specifically spoke to the relationship of um the globalization from above and global globalization below

[00:06:25] and basically what that means is is what that means in terms of um uh and in terms of caste like a caste

[00:06:33] system which you know immediately brought this to mind because you know we're talking about a stateless

[00:06:39] people and that's exactly what they were kind of making that relationship and how uh it's always if

[00:06:45] you're stateless all of it is determined for you so you know you don't really have a home basically so it was

[00:06:51] just really interesting to the you know i i just went totally historic historical on you and totally

[00:06:57] like literature on you but i mean it it is a thing right so like you said it's not a topic that's

[00:07:02] yeah in the norm for everybody and no one to include myself did not know you know the appropriate

[00:07:09] word is roma instead of um you know gypsy and i i i find it uh interesting because because

[00:07:19] even though and and it's mentioned as everywhere in documentaries and stuff like this because i was

[00:07:25] doing a little bit of research on my own too as well is that it is considered a derogatory word

[00:07:30] like biracial and um growing up in a white community was a little i don't know i just kind of always felt

[00:07:37] off like but i in fact but i don't identify with being afghan or with being black and i wonder if um

[00:07:43] like you guys were growing up in roma communities or romanian communities or like white communities

[00:07:50] or other race that other races like was that an issue growing up in america and feeling different

[00:07:58] uh so i grew up um i'm mixed and assimilated not all my room not all of my family it's romani

[00:08:05] really only my maternal grandmother but i was so close with her and i look a lot like her

[00:08:09] yeah you know it was she really raised me so closely um and yeah i grew up in a predominantly

[00:08:17] white community in new hampshire which is still predominantly white and it i did feel really out

[00:08:24] of place and um sometimes i wonder if i grew up in a different community would i have um found my

[00:08:34] identity so important i think um if i had grown up with a lot of other people who were like mixed and

[00:08:40] from you know different kind of cultures would i have like zeroed in so much money identity because um

[00:08:49] yeah for new hampshire and i'm not even particularly dark-skinned but i stood out a lot

[00:08:53] and and was like very racialized and um yeah so i i felt uncomfortable it was something that i had to

[00:09:01] keep a secret what i find interesting was that um it's everywhere so and when i mean everywhere there's

[00:09:13] movies with the name gypsy in it titled there's you know songs with the word titled gypsy so i guess

[00:09:22] you know it's like we're we're perpetuating that stereotype you know what i mean and and society

[00:09:30] says it's okay to do versus others um i know i kind of got went a little deep on that but it was

[00:09:37] it's interesting that's the issue i think that's their mission because the majority is the one that

[00:09:42] makes the decisions for everybody yeah so the notes so just so that our you know our viewers know

[00:09:47] the notes that we have you know certainly uh that we've learned um is that about the history of the

[00:09:54] roman people is that the 10th century there were 10th century uh india which you did mention um

[00:09:59] binef to europe at the end of the crusades um 500 years of slavery in europe um they were

[00:10:05] discriminated against for skin color culture and religion yeah um they basically like you said were

[00:10:11] on the margins of society and jobs they did you know they did were easily mobile why they were such

[00:10:17] a transient people right they were being the persecution they were forcible yeah you said you

[00:10:23] said that they they were well it is still prominent uh in society so it's not a past tense it's still

[00:10:31] currently happening um and and and i i say this because i'm very familiar with how certain countries

[00:10:39] are that i lived in in europe specifically and how they are either um treated uh i can't because i

[00:10:47] don't even know if i've yes i have in the states we have but we really didn't classify the way how

[00:10:52] they strongly do it in in in in europe here the french has an interesting way of dealing with you know

[00:10:59] um it's not interesting it's downright shitty but go ahead well i was trying to be politically

[00:11:06] correct it's shitty like you say it is shitty because they they literally do stereotype they

[00:11:12] literally say you know they'll go in they'll bust up their their their camp camp encampment and you

[00:11:19] know tell them they have 30 minutes to move somewhere else or whatever your your um guests also refer to

[00:11:25] themselves as gypsy because it's easier one for people to know and relate and understand oh that's what you

[00:11:33] are kind of thing because that's what you know uh was mentioned in some sort when i said when i was

[00:11:40] five that i was a gypsy because kids kept asking me where i was from it went terribly kids threw rocks

[00:11:45] at me i had a teacher discriminated kids discriminate against me but again it wasn't as bad as it has been

[00:11:51] for lots of other romani people but yeah it's my experience of feeling like oh this is something i

[00:11:55] gotta keep a secret i gotta just keep telling everyone i'm italian and move on you had talked about

[00:12:01] the like the gypsy slur i didn't know that because all i i mean i guess the average american just has no

[00:12:09] idea and we it's what we see in movies and like the hollywood version of roma and the romani people and

[00:12:16] i'm just like is that not even accurate where are they getting this stuff from

[00:12:21] um when it comes to growing up so i did grow up in community and we really weren't like very

[00:12:31] assimilated into the outside world and when i say that like we couldn't even really go to school all

[00:12:37] the way like we would be put in elementary school kind of to learn the basics and we wouldn't show up to

[00:12:42] classes all the time like school outside world like you know we call it like amerikanska like culture

[00:12:48] like americanized like that was kind of like looked down upon and it still is today

[00:12:53] to some communities not all communities but to my specific community and so a lot of growing up

[00:13:00] in america was based on pop culture like that was kind of our thing like um i don't know i remember

[00:13:08] like coming out and being like whoa like arrange seating like for a wedding like i went to my first

[00:13:13] like american wedding i was like this is super crazy and like just i think regular american life

[00:13:19] um i think is different compared to how it is in the movies which i thought it was going to be like

[00:13:23] just like it is in the movies and to a degree it is but there was um there were times where things

[00:13:31] would overlap i guess i think there there is that but um it's different it's different for sure like

[00:13:39] growing up as um as romani and of course like i realized there was a difference in privilege as well

[00:13:44] where when i was in the community i think when i was wearing my head covering like i would always get

[00:13:51] um i guess racially profiled that and again i think that's just like looking middle eastern in america

[00:13:56] like you know always doing something like that but then when i took my head covering off um i never really

[00:14:03] got any kind of not i mean i wouldn't say never but i feel like there was a lot less racial profiling

[00:14:10] but as soon as because i never told anyone i was a gypsy just like you said jess like i'm just gonna say

[00:14:15] i'm italian and move on i say like yeah yeah i'm greek and like i move on or something but um

[00:14:22] whenever i would say that i was a gypsy there was always those big misconceptions like i remember um

[00:14:28] um but one of the first times i had told someone it was a couple that i was hanging out with and

[00:14:34] the the lady was like well oh you know as soon as i said like yeah i'm a gypsy she she was instantly

[00:14:42] like oh well i knew gypsies and they were both um what was it prostitutes and like all this stuff

[00:14:49] and like i'm like and you know no no shame to that or anything but i just feel like there's all these

[00:14:54] little things that you have to deal with um so sometimes we're just like whatever we don't even

[00:14:59] say like we're just kind of tired of explaining it but yeah when when um when they said that it it i i

[00:15:06] i totally get it and understand because i know folks specifically from romania specifically who get

[00:15:13] really shitty shit on um outside of romania because shitty shit on i love that okay yeah

[00:15:19] well so not but not all roma are from romania let's just i i know that even though the name

[00:15:26] sounds similar but it is not that is correct but when okay yeah within europe majority of them are

[00:15:32] from the east like romania eastern or bulgaria yeah bulgaria and those places so there's a heavy

[00:15:41] you know and that's from that region and and anyone who's from from those those countries please do chime

[00:15:47] in and and and we would love to hear from you but uh that being said it comes with stigma and then one

[00:15:55] thing that i i understood as well from just things that i've read and and and things that i know and heard

[00:16:02] a lot of times they're not well educated because they're always on the go the kids are stereotyped

[00:16:11] especially here in france they they are either not uh given jobs because they they want to work but

[00:16:18] they can't because as soon as they find out that they're they're well they don't have the education

[00:16:23] they can't get the education because they don't have permanent homes and the school is like well you

[00:16:27] don't have a permanent address you can't correct go to school and but if you did say it the reason why

[00:16:32] they are nomads or moving around all the time is because of what reason they were getting persecuted

[00:16:40] and and so it's like they weren't allowed to be integrated into the society because of their skin

[00:16:46] color because of their religion because of their culture so they get pushed out to the margins of

[00:16:52] the city and society and then they they have to keep moving you you mentioned that i mean the article

[00:16:58] that bbc article that you sent me where they're um just not allowed to get jobs or get homes because of

[00:17:06] the um the stereotypes but also the policies against immigrants in general um so that they have to live

[00:17:14] in these camps that don't have water or electricity and the police are going to come around and vacate

[00:17:18] these camps and now they've got to move again they're they're like the pol the political um the

[00:17:24] policies aren't allowing these people to present day integrate into society yeah and which is and

[00:17:33] i mean disturbing because they don't have any representation or it's very few represent if

[00:17:38] they do have any representatives in any of the european governments or in the eu as a whole so

[00:17:43] who's advocating for them so we have a list because i love that you asked this question about good

[00:17:49] representation and i also wanted to address the word gypsy for a second because that's you know what

[00:17:54] we hear the most um so gypsy has been used as a racial slur for a really really long time

[00:18:00] it's also used way more neutrally in the uk so you might even meet roma who are like gypsy's not a

[00:18:06] racial slur even though gypt means to cheat like a gypsy and is used as a slur and so yeah i'm

[00:18:12] definitely not going to argue any anytime with any roma about how they want to be called um because that

[00:18:19] varies from place to place and the word for gypsy in other languages is often really rough

[00:18:24] like might directly mean slave or something like that and so um yeah so roma and romani tend to be

[00:18:32] the preferred words unless you were talking to someone and they're like please do call me a gypsy but um

[00:18:38] you know paulina and i use the word gypsy a lot to describe ourselves because that's how our families

[00:18:43] grew up talking but it doesn't feel comfortable for non-roma who we haven't like given that invitation

[00:18:49] to call us gypsies like if that makes sense yeah no it doesn't so so yeah you'll also um because

[00:18:57] gypsy is probably the word you're going to see in a lot of media but i think if you want to see better

[00:19:02] representations of romani people start this is so simple but a lot of people forget that this is a

[00:19:07] thing you can do just by looking for romani creators and organizations who put out romani work

[00:19:13] um and you can google that and and find a bunch of cool stuff but we also have cool things for people

[00:19:18] to find more specifically so really recently john henry phillips created the documentary searching for

[00:19:26] romani heritage it's a uk film it's really cool then there's also a yearly film festival called

[00:19:32] ake dikia which is spelled a-k-e and then the next word is d-i-k-h-e-a and this is an international

[00:19:41] roma film festival that's held in berlin yearly and so anything out of there is roma made and it's

[00:19:47] a really interesting place to find um like international films about or by roma also the

[00:19:53] independent theater hungary is known for excellent roma representation and collaboration as well as

[00:20:00] the romani feminist theater troupe juve le pen which is g-i-u-v-l-i-p-e-n and that was founded by

[00:20:08] michaila dragon and zita moldaban and they do incredible feminist romani work they play with

[00:20:14] themes of romani futurism they're awesome and then i also love the film la chodrom it's a really

[00:20:22] beautiful musical documentary that traces the travel route of roma from india to spain there's not a lot

[00:20:27] of dialogue it's more focused on music and performance stunning um actress alina serban

[00:20:33] has worked on some really powerful films like gypsy queen alone at my wedding housekeeping for

[00:20:39] beginners we recommend those there's also um a netflix uh series called infamy or in polish because

[00:20:48] it's a polish series called infamia and it came out last year and we were really impressed by it it

[00:20:55] was made with romani input it doesn't represent all of romani culture but we thought it was a really

[00:20:59] important series and we interviewed um joanna tolovich and um toby gorniak who both worked on

[00:21:06] the series um on romanistan and we gave a review too we wrote a detailed review we did yeah we really

[00:21:16] got into it yeah we weren't obsessed or anything no and um i'm gonna rattle off some writers as well

[00:21:26] if you're more of a reader so there's yeah there's luminita mihae chuaaba who's an amazing poet

[00:21:32] um and she does a poetry festival in romania every year um karen gustav sumption francis roberts riley

[00:21:41] oksana marafiari rain gay again maynard lakatos rajko jurick cecilia vola louise doherty joe clement

[00:21:49] we can give you a list of these if you want what has hollywood and our culture and society has a way

[00:21:54] of romanticizing i'm you know anything and and uh you know putting it in movies and you know uh

[00:22:02] you know with the the savior complex and all those wonderful things that you know that makes that

[00:22:07] makes up the the dream world of hollywood but the but the bottom line is that you actually have

[00:22:11] people who are living it and i think um as uh and again speaking from an american perspective

[00:22:19] because you want to integrate and because you want you want uh you know you want to belong

[00:22:27] per se you go along with that but speaking out against that and speaking and i mean here they are

[00:22:34] you know they're telling you that this is wrong but still you know we're grasping onto the fact

[00:22:40] that oh well no it has to be okay you know that no we don't mean that but they're telling you it's not

[00:22:46] right i think we're being biased to ourselves you know so well yeah i mean what the majority does

[00:22:53] absolutely in this case we are in the majority even though we are minorities right so basically

[00:22:59] so basically what i'm trying to say is is that you know it and i probably we've probably said this

[00:23:06] many times before uh but if if someone is telling you that something's not right or they're not

[00:23:12] comfortable with that we should listen you know we should have we should have that discourse and

[00:23:16] that conversation um and and and you know make it make it a point to to find out or listen to what

[00:23:24] the point is and i think i think for us as a people and as a as a society we don't do that enough

[00:23:30] um why we wanted to bring this story and why we wanted to bring to light so i think i i mean i think

[00:23:36] what you're saying paul is is yes you know we do go along with that and you know we didn't know

[00:23:42] what this was but here's our chance to kind of turn that around and and not keep feeding into

[00:23:48] that stereotype but no no you're absolutely right and it is the fact i think what it is is and this is

[00:23:53] the good thing on reasons why i think it's great that we're doing this topic is that we can somebody at

[00:23:58] least if it catches one person that's listening to say oh shit i didn't know the word gypsy

[00:24:03] actually means something bad so yeah and to be gypped is a horrible slur i mean and i grew up using that

[00:24:13] i mean yes and this is why i was i was having a little bit of confusion because it is bad but yet

[00:24:21] the romans still decide to use that bad slur so that society understands what they're saying so what

[00:24:29] they're doing to is not helpful because what they're doing to is they're playing into the fact

[00:24:34] that okay you don't know what roma is it's this yeah they they're trying to reclaim the slur for sure

[00:24:41] and and we see people doing that all over like women reclaiming the slur bitch and be like oh my bitches

[00:24:48] you know using it as kind of like a but i don't know man calling me that you know and that's the

[00:24:55] yeah that's the hypocrisy of it right that's the well it's so weird let me give some some uh background

[00:25:04] uh to that and just so in case you're not you don't know who the roma people are or personas

[00:25:10] that has been portrayed right so let's talk about the many traditional jobs because uh just

[00:25:16] and it's jasmina right did say yeah jasmina did say she gave she gave some examples of some

[00:25:22] traditional jobs that you know really that we think of um as menial jobs really but it was

[00:25:29] survival right survival yeah so metalworking flower selling harvesting animal training lace making

[00:25:38] basket weaving fortune telling um performing which you know fortune tellers are everywhere if you go to

[00:25:45] any carnival or you do anything that's the first thing oh yeah we gotta do and i i asked that question

[00:25:50] like how do we know are they actually roma are they just using this for entertainment i mean right

[00:25:55] because they that the fortune telling is is for them is is actually it's it's a cult it's a part of

[00:26:01] their culture like they that is passed down through generations taught to you as a young child and and

[00:26:08] both of them um their grandmothers or their mothers taught them the art of fortune telling and divination

[00:26:14] and so it's not just something to be taken flippantly and from their you know in their in their eye um so

[00:26:21] people dressing up as you know gypsy fortune tellers and they're not actually of the roma um culture or

[00:26:29] roma people is cultural appropriation this is so interesting that you know all the things that

[00:26:36] you know that were seen as um derogatory or something yeah well not derogatory but just seen

[00:26:44] as so ingrained believe it or not within our own culture is not right you know it hasn't and it hasn't

[00:26:51] been um so the the fact that that everyone is labeling them as criminals gives allows the society to

[00:27:00] justify the the persecution and the discrimination and to just evict them from these camps and not allow

[00:27:07] them opportunities to work i mean so it ends up being like this a horrible cycle that doesn't end exactly

[00:27:14] um so uh but yeah so we'll put a lot of this information um definitely in in the uh in the

[00:27:21] description so please make sure you check it out it's going to be chock full of information um with

[00:27:24] this episode uh but we definitely want to thank you for tuning today i hope you learned a little bit

[00:27:30] i mean i know i learned tons i mean just you know just from our discussion and being hopefully you

[00:27:35] won't look at people in the light you know in a weird way when you see somebody on the train right

[00:27:41] just have an open mind right right we don't know their story yeah absolutely so this is this is kind

[00:27:47] of the theme uh basically of our podcast is is having an open mind and hopefully what we're bringing

[00:27:52] to you is is definitely going to help to enlighten um you know you and um in your travels you know and

[00:27:59] being able to immerse yourself so with that we want to say thank you uh don't forget to tune in

[00:28:05] um for another episode of rhythm and roam you know on wednesdays at noon eastern and more importantly we

[00:28:10] want you to subscribe we want you to like we want you to comment we want you to share uh we love

[00:28:16] bringing these shows to you and being able to um to connect collectively so please tune in um and uh it

[00:28:23] was so great speaking to you all and i look forward to uh seeing you guys soon all right thank you

[00:28:28] au revoir ciao

[00:28:31] you

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