Historical Dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanies) - Scarecrow Press

INTRODUCTION • xlv
meetings, with the aim of creating a unified voice, while passing resolutions
calling on national governments to work toward improving the living
conditions of Gypsies. The overall effect was that Gypsy people have
been recognized by cross-national bodies as a minority in their own right
and measures have been introduced, if not implemented, in most countries
toward improving their situation. The pages of the dictionary will reveal a
plethora of meetings and ad hoc organizations that have been trying to exert
pressure on national governments to ameliorate the living conditions of
the Romanies of eastern Europe in particular. As activist Nicolae Gheorghe
recently said, “There is a growing gap between an almost restless activism
on the international stage and the situation on the ground, where we
are not seeing as much tangible progress as we would like.”
The sedentary Gypsies of eastern Europe have quite different needs
from the nomadic Gypsies of many western countries. The former’s
children had not managed to acquire many new skills or paper qualifications,
as the years of compulsory education had often been spent in
segregated schools or classes. They were the first to go in the new capitalist
climate in the East when factories began to downsize and shed
surplus labor. They have found it the hardest to obtain new jobs because
of discrimination. The nomads of the west are self-employed and primarily
seek secure stopping places for their caravans.
Several eastern European countries, including Poland, entered the
European Union in May 2004. This has not yet led to the predicted massive
new migration to the west. It is noteworthy that the large Spanish
Gypsy population has not felt any great desire to migrate—at least no
farther than the south of France. Under Gen. Francisco Franco, they
were treated as second-class citizens, and the end of official discrimination
merely brought a new unofficial discrimination. The Spanish
Gypsies or gitanos are still at the bottom of the ladder for housing and
jobs, while their children are not easily accepted into schools.
In the west, some young Gypsies are coming out of houses and taking
to the caravan life again. In eastern Europe, the Romani language is
beginning to be taught in schools, and intellectuals of Gypsy origin are
finding their roots and reaffirming their identity. Writers have been, pessimistically
or optimistically, predicting the disappearance of the Gypsies
each generation since they came to Europe at the beginning of the
second millennium, but they have survived as an ethnic group and will
do so into the foreseeable future.