WHAT IT�S LIKE TO BE A GYPSY GIRL
In
1981* an article appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine written by martial
arts specialist Dave Lowry entitled �What it�s like to be a Gypsy Girl.�� It is valuable only in providing a good
example of the kind of widely-read misinformation that feeds the prevailing
fantasy Gypsy image.� A clue to the
moti-vation for a grown white man to tackle the topic in the first place may be
in the references to the �male libido� and �endless erotic fantasies� in the
very first paragraph, and while he claims to have allowed �Sabinka� to speak
for herself, it�s clear that Sabinka is Dave Lowry, who has gathered bits and
pieces for his story from the easily-available sources (prob-ably Gypsies
the Hidden Americans and Gypsies in the City, as well as some
British publication such as In the Life of a Romany Gypsy, all of which
appeared during the previous decade).�
����������� Evidently Mr. Lowry speaks �lilting
Romany,� the original language of Sabinka�s narrative, since he translated it
into English for the article, though why this was necessary since Sabinka by
her own admission already speaks English, is a mystery.� Sabinka too needs to know that gaje
is only plural, and that dukker is not a word used by the
Kalderash.� On the other hand she is to
be commended for her knowledge of her Hindu origins.��
The liberties taken with describing Romani
culture in this article only reflect the general lack of respect shown this
particular American ethnic minority, the only one left, evidently, about which
(as a lawyer said at about the same time) �one could say anything and get away
with it.�
_______________________________
*Number
191(6):180-188, December 1981
What
It�s Like to Be a Gypsy Girl
By
Dave Lowry
Consider the magic of the
caravan, its midnight revels, sweetness, mystery.� But do these vagabond delights still exist today? Listen as a
real-life Romany enchantress explains her wandering ways.���
The
Gypsy girl.� Dark, voluptuous, swaying
in sensuous, firelit rhythm against a backdrop of circled wagons. Her
provocative image has charged many a male libido and figured in the envious
daydreams of generations of under-stimulated and overworked women. The Gypsies
have persistently intrigued those of us who are outside their veiled society,
and their girls, bronzed and charming, are the source of endless erotic
fantasies.
��������������� Putting the myth aside, though,
what is the young Gypsy woman who lives in America today really like? Does she
still lead the carefree life of an exotic wanderer? Or is she tethered by the
same routines that anchor us all? For my answers I turn to Sabinka, a
twenty-three-year-old, black-eyed Gypsy of the Kal-derash tribe. Here, in her
words�translated from the lilting Romany she speaks�is the story of her exotic,
but often difficult life . . .
��������������� �Outsiders have an idea, from
books or stories, of what Gypsy girls are like. We�re pictured to be very
romantic, dancing in bright skirts and flashing jewelry, making a living by
staring at palms or crystal balls. Actually, all that is a part of my life, but
it�s not the whole story.
��������������� �Gypsies�that�s your
English word for us, or for any band of traveling folk. Among ourselves,
though, we are the Rom, the people of the earth, descended from a Hindu tribe
of street musicians, beggars, and magicians who left India centuries and
centuries ago, for reasons nobody remembers anymore. As the old Rom passed
through the Middle East and came into Europe, they picked up the skills of
blacksmithing and horse trading, and their women added fortune telling and
palmistry to the magic they�d learned in India. The tales of the Gypsies� evil
powers were actually launched and fostered by the Rom themselves, for
protection in those alien lands. Gypsies stole children, it was said; Gypsies
worshipped the devil and could cast spells with only a look. In France, we
pretended to be a group of lost Egyptians�that�s how we got the name Gypsy�and
in Hungary, the Rom brought forged letters saying they were on a holy
pilgrimage for the Pope.��������������
��������������� �We Gypsies have never stayed
put long enough to come under the control of any country�s laws. We don�t keep
permanent addresses and it is our custom to keep changing our names. My mother,
for example, is called Kera Pulnetshi by other Rom, but in Argentina, where I
was born, her passport said she was Mary Salvatore, and in Montreal, where my
sister arrived a year later, she was Mary Adams. In St. Louis, my mother is
known as Christina Fooso, and in New York, the ticket she got for fortune
telling without a license was written to Tinya Kaspe.
��������������� �This has always been the way
among Gypsies. We may caravan in cars now, instead of wagons, and we live in
apartments instead of tents, but our ways are still those of long ago. We speak
to other Gypsies in the tongue of our ancestors, Romany, and we earn our money
from the practice of magic. My sister Shusha and I support our family with
palmistry, just as my great-great-grandmother kept her kin together by reading
the tarot for farm wives in the mountains of Transylvania.
��������������� �Gaje is the word we have
in Romany for anyone who isn�t a Gypsy, and these outsiders supply us with our
living. Why do the gaje pay us to make predictions and give advice about
their personal lives? Because we have persuaded them that we can see ahead and
know the past. This is how we make our living, of course. Also, we prefer the gaje
to be a bit frightened of our �powers,� so we�ll be left alone and
unthreatened. Perhaps a few of us actually can foretell the future or divine
the past. My father�s aunt was supposed to have done so. But for the most part,
when we are among ourselves, we scoff at the superstitions of our customers and
laugh at their worries. Gypsies themselves never rely on fortunetelling and
have contempt for those who do. Among the Rom there is a saying: �0nly gaje
wish to see tomorrow, because they are afraid of today.�
�As soon as Gypsies come to a city, we
find a small store or an apartment downtown where an ofisa, or
fortune-telling shop, can be opened. My father rents it and then my mother and
sister and I ready the room where clients will be seen. We drape heavy, velvet
curtains to make the area seem smaller, more private, and put up all kinds of
religious or occult decorations. Little statues of the Hindu goddess Kali are
set alongside crucifixes; astrology charts and posters show the important
palmistry lines. Before a client enters, we light incense and arrange big bowls
of flowers. The ofisa becomes a shadowy mysterious� place, almost
spooky, which encourages the gaje to believe.
�Rom girls are taught to dukker, to
tell fortunes, right after they start to talk. Shusha and I were four and five
when we watched from behind the thick curtains to see how to speak to a
customer and how to use our faces and bodies to be more dramatic. We also
practiced patterns of laying the tarot�memorizing their symbols so we could
explain the cards and learning to make them fall in the order we wanted.
�I started reading palms in my mother�s ofisa
at an amusement park in Florida the summer I was thirteen. In the beginning, I
was anxious, afraid I�d offend�or fail to convince the gaje. My voice
kept quivering and the clothes touching my skin were damp when I took my first
customer�s hand. She was a lady in her fifties, the sort who worries more about
silly problems than about money�that kind makes the best client. I guessed she
wanted to hear about children. My mother had told me that middle-aged women are
often sad about having no kids, or else worried about the ones they did have.
The lady took a quick breath as soon as I began to speak, so I sensed I�d been
right. I asked more questions about her children, pretending I already knew the
answers, and she told me her biggest concern was a son, who planned to marry a
girl she didn�t like. It was an especially difficult heartache, I agreed, and
shaking my head I looked more closely into her palm at the spot just beneath
the thumb that we call �the devil�s saddle.� There I �found� indications that
the marriage of a son was not in her near future and warned her hot to interfere,
saying the romance would break up and he would find another and be happy. When
I finally finished that dukkerin, I�m not sure who felt better�the lady,
who�d gotten the news she wished for, or me, still shaking from nervousness,
holding the first five dollars I made from fortune telling in my hand.
�It�s not unusual for a girl to be working
at thirteen, as I did; Rom children are expected to bring in an income early.
When I was seven, I played during the day with other Gypsy kids whose families
traveled with ours, but in the evenings I sold red paper carnations on the
street corner. Playing, watching TV, or selling trinkets�these are the ways
Gypsy children spend their time.�
They�re forbidden by their parents to play with gaje. It�s feared
that this will make the Gypsy children lazy and disrespectful of tradition.
Worse yet, they might be taken by the gajo choromos, the �gaje�s
misery.� That�s the name we have for drug addiction, which is feared and
loathed by the Rom.
�This may surprise the gaje, but we
believe you to be a bad lot�Gypsies are terribly prejudiced against outsiders.
For that reason, and because we move so often, not many Gypsy children go to
school for long. If they do, they stick together, without making any gaje
friends. During the years I was at elementary school in Canada, I was always
with other Gypsies, and when I went to high school in this country, I didn�t
exactly fit in. The first day I came wearing a long skirt and a chambray shirt
that was much too big for me. I had on three necklaces made of coins and a
man�s sport coat with leather patches on the sleeves. Also, my English wasn�t
that clear, and since I�d never been among so many gaje before, I was
very shy. I stayed in school off and on until I�d finished my sophomore year
and had learned to read and write fairly well. After that, working in the ofisa
took up all my time and, anyway, I had other more important matters on my mind.
�At Rom parties, fathers of boys in our
tribe began talking privately to my father.�
Some of the younger married girls teased me and winked, and I figured
that soon I was going to join them. I was right.
�Rom marriages are still arranged, just as
they have always been, by the couple�s parents. In my case, the father of a boy
I�d known since I was a child came to my father, as is the custom, with a
bottle of brandy. They agreed that I�d become Stephano�s wife and in return,
his family would give mine eight hundred dollars and promise to keep me from
harm. In the old days, the price for a bride was much higher, and it was paid
in horses or gold.
�The actual wedding ceremony is different
in every Rom tribe. Stephano and I were both Kalderash Gypsies, and the
marriage celebration we have, patshiva, lasts for three days. On the
first day, over a hundred of our friends and relatives came to a rented hall.
The food was wonderful. Whole lambs were roasted in the yard and pots of paella
were served, too, along with sarmi�a favorite Gypsy food that�s
sausage-stuffed cabbage. Everyone ate plenty and then danced till they tired,
and ate again. And drank, of course.
�As the party went on, the men gave
speeches about what a good dukkerer I was and how I�d make lots of money
for Stephano. My father made a great fuss, saying he should have gotten a
better price for me. The kids played games on the floor and the adults were
gossiping about absent relatives while the old grandparents sang sad songs.
Gypsy celebrations are very noisy but always warm and full of affection.
Dressed in a white, ankle-length skirt and a scarlet blouse, I sat by my mother
with my head down, embarrassed at being the center of attention. According to
tradition, Stephano and I couldn�t even look at each other during this part of
the celebration. So he ate with his guests and pretended not to notice me.
�On the second night, I was permitted to
join Stephano�s family during the dancing. His mother stayed close when I
rested between dances, patting my head and whispering, �dordi, dordi�
Romany for �everything will be all right.�
Finally,
Stephano and his friends gathered around me, the traditional signal that the
bride and groom should depart. But when we were at the door, Pulnetshi men, my
relatives, shouted that I was being taken too soon and tried to break through
Stephano�s group to grab me back. This, too, is tradition. The bride must then
scream and yank herself away from the groom, who tries to keep her close. This
shows that the girl will miss her own people and that her husband is willing to
protect her. Sometimes the ritual scuffle becomes really rough: The men get
bruises and black eyes, and the bride�s clothes are torn away. I liked
Stephano, though, so I didn�t try very hard to get away. Together we pushed
through the crowd and hurriedly made our escape. Later that night, we slept
together, as man and wife.
�The next day, Stephano and I came back to
the hall for the last night of partying. My husband�s mother held up the
blood-stained sheets we�d slept on so that guests would see I�d been a virgin.
According to Gypsy law, a girl must be untouched until she marries�though, of
course, not all of us are. We�re just as interested in sex as gaje
girls. Sometimes the people in the wedding party wonder where the blood
actually comes from, though that�s a question nobody ever asks out loud.
�After the wedding, my hair was braided
and covered with a scarf, to show that I�d become a married woman, a rani.
I lived with my husband�s family then, working in his mother�s ofisa.
Some Gypsy girls are slapped around by their in-laws, made to do all the work,
and treated badly. Stephano�s parents were kind to me, but even so, I had many
more responsibilities than when I was single. Besides the tasks we all do, like
shopping and fixing meals, I had many special chores, all springing from the
Gypsy idea of marhime, or �impurity.� In the old days, traveling in
wagons and living outside, the Rom had to carefully avoid dirt and sickness,
and elaborate rules regarding hygiene came about. For instance, Gypsies believe
water for cooking, washing, and drinking must all be stored separately. Also, a
woman�s hips and legs are thought to be subject to marhime (that is why
Gypsy girls often wear long dresses), so I had to wash my upper and lower body
with different cloths.
�According to Gypsy law, a menstruating
girl mustn�t wash dishes or cook or even eat from the same utensils as those
around her. Once, while my sister-in-law was having her period, she
accidentally stepped over a box of dishes that were packed and sitting on the
floor. They were quite beautiful, but Stephano and his father broke each one
and threw them out. The dishes had become marhime�and no Gypsy would
ever have used them again.
�Certain forbidden sexual practices,
including contact with the gaje, can also make a person marhime.
However flirtatious and enticing we Gypsy women may seem, brushing up against
our male customers as we lure them into the ofisa, very few of us would
ever voluntarily go to bed with an outsider. To do so would bring about
uncleanliness of the worst sort.
�I can remember, when I was small, seeing
a Rom woman who was shunned by other Gypsies and who lived away from the rest
of us. My aunt told me that she had had an affair with a gaje long, long
ago. As far as Gypsies were concerned, nothing would ever make her clean again.
She wasn�t one of us any longer. That�s how strong the dislike of gaje
is in us, and how powerful the rules of marhime.
�I was Stephano�s wife for two years.
Then, when his family left America to go to Europe, we divorced�I didn�t want
to be so far from my own people. When girls marry young, as I did, they often
separate I and marry again a few times before finally finding the right
husband. You suffer no loss of reputation for this. My father gave back part of
the price he was given for me and I returned to my family, where I live now.
�Stephano was a loving husband and my
experience with him has made men important to me. Having been married once, I
can now be alone with a man if I like�without the older people gossiping as
they would about a never-married girl.
�I know that I�ll take advantage of that
freedom for a while, to find out more about men and about myself. I don�t want
to marry again right away. I�d rather stay with my parents for a while,
traveling. Last winter we had an ofisa in Los Angeles. And when the
weather grew warmer, we came East, to Philadelphia, and on to New York. With
the autumn, we moved back West, as far as St. Louis, on our way down to Florida
for the next winter.
�So, you must wonder, how do I see myself?
What do I think of my Gypsy life? Basically, I think it�s always to be
different. Every now and then, a Rom girl gets bored and decides to leave her
family in order to make a life in gaje society. But this almost never
works. Girls who�ve tried to forget they�re Gypsy have told me they always felt
dirty around gaje, and lonely. They�ve grown up depending on other
Gypsies for protection and friendship and for company, and the difference
between our ways and those of the gaje is great.
�That doesn�t mean I haven�t considered
breaking away.� When I was in school
with gaje, I glimpsed the greatness of your world, which I have never
known. I�ve been to a movie only once�Star Wars�and I have never gone to a
theater or a concert, or eaten in a fancy restaurant. These days I dress with
the fashion�in jeans and sweaters, except in the ofisa and at Gypsy
parties, where I�m still in long skirts. But when I go out, gaje hear my
accent, notice my dark color, and they ask if I�m Syrian or Israeli.� I�ll never be the same as them.
�When a gaje girl close to my age
comes into the ofisa, I�ll look at her and imagine what it would be like
to be one of you. Maybe it would be nice. But then I remember the happiness of
my marriage consummated at an age when gaje kids are still in �puppy
love.� And I hear my grandmother�s voice, talking about how free the Rom were
in the old country, before Hitler and his death camps. Seeing my customer�s
hand, so white against my brown one, a Romany saying runs through my mind. �The
darker the berry,� it goes, �the sweeter the fruit.�� And I think then that I like being a Gypsy; I like it very
much.�����
�����������
Facts About the Gypsies
When, in 1972, the federal government
declared Gypsies a recognized minority group, the Rom culture was already well
established in every part of this country. Though their activities and customs
may be nearly invisible to bureaucrats, census takers, and the general public,
an estimated 200,000 Gypsies now live in the United States, part of a worldwide
population of approximately 10,000,000.
In the United States, Gypsies separate
themselves into four major tribes called vitsa. They are the Kalderash,
whose women tell fortunes; the Machwaya, talented flamenco dancers and
musicians; the Tshuraran, the tribe most likely to engage in the illegal
swindles for which Gypsies are notorious; and the Lowaran, who were once
renowned for their prowess in horse trading, who now buy and sell cars with the
same shrewdness and breath-taking rapidity.�
Vitsa are further divided into kumpania, caravans of
loosely related Gypsies who wander together and, in the colder months of the
year, all occupy the same apartment building or neighborhood.
The common assumption that Gypsies have
been absorbed into the melting pot, though totally erroneous, is vigorously
reinforced by the Rom, who customarily deny their background to strangers. The
reasons for this are both practical and historical. Gypsies sometimes operate
on the wrong side of the law, and in concealing their identity is a check
against the threat of arrest and prosecution. But. Gypsies have also known much
persecution in their wanderings, from minor police harassment, common today, to
their attempted annihilation by the Nazis a generation ago. Concealing their
identity has become a method of preserving it, and considering their hidden,
yet healthy, existence everywhere in the world, the timeless ways of the
Gypsies appear to be working still.
The following essay also addresses the
fascination white males have with �women of color�:
Copyright
The Afrikan Frontline Network,
unless otherwise noted.
Contact (205)-389-0062. All
rights reserved.
RELEASE: June 19, 1996
Author
Boycotts Disney�s �Hunchback� Cartoon
Because
It Disrespects Women of Color
PHILADELPHIA�Author Shahrazad
Ali is not happy with Peter Schneider, President of Disney�s Feature Animation
Division, about his planned June 21 premier of their 34th movie-length cartoon,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
In the
midst of Disney�s mega-buck promo for the movie, Ali injects a downer by
claiming that �Hunchback� is �Just another mockery of women-of-color and insult
to non-white males by showing Esmeralda, a dark-skinned Gypsy woman being wooed
and protected by a tall blond haired white man named Phoebus.�
�Ali
says that Team Disney tends to claim that their animated series contains
something for everyone offending none. Not this time, says Ali, �Hunchback
presents the same insidious racism showcased in their previous cartoon-movie
wherein another dark skinned beauty named Pocahontas was linked to another wavy
haired blond white man named John Smith.�
Shahrazad
Ali, an activist and writer, known for her controversial self-help guides
filled with recommendations and solutions for repairing the Black family,
criticizes Disney by pointing out that �it seems that John Smith who used to go
with Pocahontas in America, moved to Paris and changed his name to Phoebus and
now dates Esmeralda.� Ali says there are four major characters in Hunchback,
three white men named Frollo, Phoebus and Quasimodo (a deformed hunchback), and
all three of them vie for the love and attention of Esmeralda, a 15th century
Gypsy, loose and flirty who�s also the only one barefooted in the movie,
Esmeralda is obviously a trickster of sorts.
Historians
are quick to point out that the word Gypsy was a title applied to
certain nomadic tribes from N. India who eventually ended up in Europe and
North America.. Some say they are not really considered as (Afro)-Black. To
this Ali rails �Every child and adult who sees Esmeralda instantly recognizes
her as a woman-of-color, as in �Blacky.� Ali says she also wonders why Disney
gave Esmeralda cleavage, in a movie designed for children under 10, The
best-selling author also reminds Black parents that the three white female
heroines of other Disney attractions, Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping
Beauty were all fully attired in long elegant gowns with neatly fixed adorned
hair�and all three of them had white boyfriends as princes, knights or
woodcutters.
To
date, none of Disney�s white female characters have been mated with Black or
non-white suitors, yet the animated women-of-color are exclusively tied to
white men, embracing them and ignoring their own races. Is this Disney�s
attempt to be inclusive?
Ali
says she has several questions to ask Don Hahn, Producer of Hunchback,
and the first question is 1) Why does Disney put women-of-color in romantic
situations with white men instead of men of color?, and 2) What kind of
subliminal message do you think it sends to little Black or Gypsy girls by
repeatedly implying that the only hero or savior they have is a white male?,
and what about little Black or Gypsy boys who have yet to see themselves in a
strong hero role in a Disney film? What about their self-esteem?� Ali says that
�Hunchback makes visual a continuing racist myth that every woman on the
planet, whether Black or white, has only one everlasting hero�a white man.� Ali
denounces the negative stereotypical images of women-of-color in Disney films.
We can expect to see dozens of little Esmereldas this Hallowe�en, and another
traditional ethnic dress a play-costume along with the witches and Freddie
Krugers.
She
says little Black preschoolers see Esmeralda and Pocahontas as Black women and
may identify with them and seek to copy their dress or behavior.
�We are
not barefooted floozies baring our breast to chase after white men,� Ali says,
�We have yet to see a Disney cartoon-movie depicting a dreadlocked Black male
hugging and kissing a blue-eyed white woman who gazes up lovingly into his
eyes.� Would white parents take their little white kiddies to see such a movie?
Probably not, and Disney knows this, so they don�t tamper with the formula. It
is only women-of-color who are interchangeable in racial roles.
The
last reason Ali uses to discourage African-American parents from patronizing Hunchback
is by informing them that Blacks represent 25% of the movie-going public which
means that they contribute a quarter of every dollar that Hollywood or Disney
makes, and for this constant financial support Blacks should expect, and demand
that women-of-color be portrayed (especially in cartoons) as dignified and
respectful and exhibiting racial pride. Children�s videos and movies impart
ideas and lasting impressions are made, images are memorized and opinions are
formed. Esmeralda in the Hunchback of Notre Dame is not a good role
model for little Black girls to emulate because this movie delivers 86 minutes
of an unwholesome lewd impression of a women-of-color, promotes racial denial,
suggests the easy elimination of non-white males, and is sexually innuendoed.
Disney executives could not be reached for comment.