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America’s gypsies
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by YankeeJim | October 12, 2010 at 03:24 am
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I am an American gypsy as I moved from three locations in Ohio to Chicago to Florida to two locations in California and back east to Virginia – a gypsy by definition is a laborer who moves from place to place as demanded by employment as in itinerant gypsy.
Though I am not a person of dark skin and hair who speaks Romany and who traditionally lives by fortunetelling. However, I would gladly tell a fortune on request if a sum were to pass my palm worthy of the effort. My DNA would link me to having come from northern India, though my grandmother from Luxembourg so polluted my genes with fairness that one cannot identify me as such.
I must investigate Romany, the language of the Gypsies.
America’s gypsies are the people who travel in small bands, living on the streets in public spaces, often by libraries. They camp on benches and avail themselves of public facilities. At night, when the weather is inclement, they take advantage of shelter for the homeless, yet by design, the street is their home.
Meals come from who knows where, a public benefit or a helping hand.
As fall is upon us in Washington DC and winter is just around the corner, it is time to search for an open space on the grate above the Metro where warm air will flow upward into the freezing temperatures where I may lie with a blanket covering my exposed side, turning I will rotate to keep warm.
“Italy's crackdown on Gypsies reflects rising anti-immigrant tide in Europe
GALLERY
Italy cracks down on Gypsies and their camps as part of an anti-immigrant effort.
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, October 12, 2010; 12:25 AMMILAN - This venerable city, long known for savory saffron risotto and the leggy models of Fashion Week, is moving to establish itself as something else: a zero-tolerance zone for Gypsies.
Anti-Gypsy campaigns in neighboring France have sparked international criticism, with officials there in recent months deporting more than 1,000 ethnic Roma - a clannish people migrating west in large numbers from Eastern Europe. But with great bravado, Milan is taking the lead in responding to Italy's own "Gypsy Emergency."
Blaming rising crime on the new waves of Roma immigrants, authorities are moving to dismantle Milan's largest authorized Gypsy camp, Triboniano, a teeming shantytown of street musicians and day laborers that officials decry as a den of thieves. At the same time, Milan is bulldozing hundreds of small, impromptu camps inhabited by newer arrivals and issuing mass eviction notices to Roma families living in another long-established camp in the city's largest immigrant neighborhood.
"These are dark-skinned people, not Europeans like you and me," said Riccardo De Corato, who is Milan's vice mayor from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ruling party and who is in charge of handling the camps. He later added: "Our final goal is to have zero Gypsy camps in Milan."
The campaign underway here is part of what observers are calling the most intense wave of anti-immigration sentiment to wash over Western Europe in years.
The immigration debate in Europe, just as in the United States, has dramatically intensified in the wake of the Great Recession, with voters increasingly blaming immigrants such as the Roma for taking away jobs, driving up crime rates and disturbing time-honored traditions.
Across the continent, governments are boldly throwing up new barriers to immigration, increasing enforcement and targeting groups such as the Roma, who are also known as Gypsies. Even in some of the most progressive nations in the region, such as Sweden, voters are showing new support for ultra-right politicians whose platforms center on a tougher line on immigration.
In Britain, the new Conservative-led coalition government has slapped a temporary cap on immigration from non-European Union nations, limiting the ability of companies to hire foreign nationals in a bid to drive down the unemployment rate. A permanent cap set to go into effect next year is expected to make it more difficult for even Americans to get long-term work visas there.
In France, a proposed law could strip citizenship from foreigners naturalized for less than 10 years if they commit violent crimes against the police or a government official. New detention centers would be set up to make it easier to deport illegal immigrants. Citizens of other European Union countries - who theoretically enjoy freedom of movement across the 27-nation zone - would find it harder to stay in France if they are not law-abiding and gainfully employed.”
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YankeeJim
Arlington, Virginia, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 07:08 on October 12th, 2010
Jim, in a way, one could almost say ALL of the homeless on the streets in American society exist as gypsies since, as is the nomadic tradition, they keep all of their belongings portable so the can move quickly when they are shooed away from spot to spot throughout most of America's cities.
at 08:39 on October 12th, 2010
Exactly, Karen.
My concern is that many, if not most, truly don't have the mental capacity to be responsible for themselves. Yet, we use respect for their independence as an excuse to leave them out in the cold.
at 10:01 on October 12th, 2010
Homelessness in America is such a complicated issue.
At the height of this heart rending issue in the 1980s, I would enter downtown Philly to use the Market-Frankford El and the Broad Street subway, heading for work.
One stop opened onto a stairway off to the side of a Center City clothing store leading down to the subway. On any given morning during the winter, there were homeless huddled on the two landings, trying to stay warm. For a time, it didn't matter where one boarded the subway; the homeless were everywhere.
The most disturbing realization occurred to me during my daily travels walking among the homeless. Each day I walked among them, sometimes literally walking over them, I noticed I felt less disturbed by their presence, not the parameters of their condition but visually seeing them there became less emotional.
It would seem in general America has experienced a similar, less emotive response to this problem.
Due to a cascade of events not of her making, my teen aged relative became homeless, shuffling through the barely adequate shelter system in Philadelphia in the 1990s.
A major complaint among the homeless, a complaint I perceive most difficult to understand by most of us, is the loss of belongings that often occurs when they seek any form of shelter from the cold. Most seeking shelter are banned from bringing those carts, bags, boxes and crates that contain shadows of their former lives and acquisitions obtained from the streets. Most often the shelter is only temporary.
Any remnants remaining in their possession from what most would argue to be a better life than the life they now experience being homeless are overblown in importance, almost like treasure.
Those taken into shelters report a high incidence of theft as no locks are allowed to keep possessions safe.
Under normal circumstances, one can successfully argue mental illness when faced with the prospect of a place to stay or losing one's possessions but, in these cases, minimally there should be a twinge of understanding when so many are faced with this dilemma.
at 12:24 on October 12th, 2010
Karen, you hit my hot button.
I once created a character, and avatar that I used named AliHoops, the man who lives at the library mostly.
I identify with him. If I were a little less fortunate, I would be there too. I am going to revive that.
(not the misfortune, but the character)