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How do you know if you have a Roma neighbor? Perhaps when they move in they go around the neighborhood knocking on doors to tell everybody about their background? Perhaps they have special tatoos on their foreheads? Perhaps they play wierd violin music at all hours of the night?

What is the distinguishing characteristic that allows you to tell them apart?

by asdf on Tue Jul 15th, 2008 at 08:55:18 PM EST
Well, that´s a good point and part of the question on Roma and Roma perception. Once the Roma become "middle-class" (or even "working-class"), they remain unnoticed (except artists, that keep the Roma-gipsy label, at least in Flamenco world). At least "socially" unnoticed, as a group.

Browsing the web, I found interesting listings on famous Roma people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roma,_Sinti_and_Mixed_People
http://www.imninalu.net/famousGypsies.htm

I don´t know many of them anyway, but, let´s forget about singers. Bob Hoskins, Charles Chaplin... Not bad. But, always artists? Well, there´s a nobel prize (August Krogh).

And well again, you know that soccer players in Spain are our pride... Real Madrid´s José Antonio Reyes, part of the team that won the European Cup a month ago, is Roma. Dani Güiza also is called often "the gipsy from Jerez" but I´m not sure if it´s a "school nickname" because he´s quite dark-haired, like calling "Chinese" someone with narrow eyes. Could be. Typical Spanish, not despective. Had "Chineses" in most of my classes when I was little...

"If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." (Fahrenheit 451)

by pereulok on Wed Jul 16th, 2008 at 06:33:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I forgot to add my point on this: that nononbe would think of all this poeple as Rima, gipsies or whatever.

"If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." (Fahrenheit 451)
by pereulok on Wed Jul 16th, 2008 at 08:41:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
As a US equivalent of 'racial recognition' think of Latinos instead of blacks.

On average darker skin than that of the rest of the local population, many with some recognisable facial characteristics, clothing if traditional, and many live with some off-the-local-norm social customs like living together in large quarreling families.

Of course, if people bothered to look at a sample of individuals from the group, they'd see what pereuleok says about middle-class Roma becoming unnoticed, and that non-Roma can have a "Gypsy appearance". (To examples close to home: I could trip up a more right-wing minded relative who argued about a 'Gypsy problem' by reminding him of his darker complexion; while the leader of main opposition party Fidesz, former PM Viktor Orbán not only has a darker skin but some facial characteristics normally recognised as "Gypsy", inspiring some nasty racist digs from Socialist voters to annoy his nationalist voters.)

And the ironic part is that for practically the whole Balkans, it is true that in the country neighbouring to the Northwest, many locals will see you as a Gypsy. (I.e. if you come from Turkey to Bulgaria, or from Bulgaria to Serbia, or from Romania to Hungary, or from Hungarí to Austria.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Wed Jul 23rd, 2008 at 10:20:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In the southwestern U.S., there are so many Latinos, and there is such a gradation between them and Anglos, that it is hard to put a dividing line between the two. If you speak Spanish that's one thing, but otherwise it's hard to tell.
by asdf on Wed Jul 23rd, 2008 at 08:38:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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