Romani Trail Dust
The American Migration
Dr Raven Dolick MsD/Rom Baro
May 30, 2016
Chillicothie Romani Familia 1935 Taos, New Mexico
Kai zhal o vurdon vurma mekela
Where the wagon goes a trail is left
All rights reserved
Romani Gypsies Caravan-ed Through Early New Mexico
The Romani Gypsies are a colorful, nomadic people numbering about 1.3 million who roam throughout the Americas even into today!
Originally from India, we speak our own language, called Romany, and specialize in the business of trading and in public entertainment.
Holding firmly to their native customs, they refuse to assimilate.
After 1850, Gypsy bands from Mexico began to make periodic excursions into the Southwest. They wore flamboyant costumes. The men, for example, were garbed in loud shirts, baggy trousers and a silk sash. Many men wore an earring, and on their heads, a fez with a long tassel.
Actually, most of the “Mexican” Gypsies had been born in the Near East — hence, their use of the fez. Seeing those distinctive caps, the Hispanic folk of the upper Rio Grande Valley always called their wearers Los Turcos (Turks) or Los Arabes (Arabs).
In the popular mind, the Gypsies were sometimes confused with genuine Arabs, who appeared in New Mexico in the 1890s and became involved in the sheep business.
They were the originator's of what the Americans call the Sheepherder wagon which was modified from the original Vardo (Gypsy Wagon!)
For reasons many find difficult to understand, folklorists have not paid much attention to New Mexico’s fascinating body of Gypsy lore. It is a subject that has been buried and is now almost forgotten.
Thirty years ago, we began sharing more of the stories of old-timers who could remember as children the annual coming of the Gypsies. In those days, they traveled, like Spanish Gypsies, either on horseback, with pack mules or in caravans of brightly covered wagons.
The late Samuel Lucero of San José, on the Pecos River, recalled that the wagon trains of the Turcos came to his village each spring when he was a boy early in the 20th century. They always camped along the river where water, firewood and grazing were available.
In those sleepy farming villages where nothing much ever happened, arrival of the Gypsies was eagerly anticipated. The women would fan out through the community, offering to tell fortunes, and the men would parade performing bears and monkeys in the streets. For payment of a dime, they would have the bears dance.
Olibama López Tushar, who grew up in a tiny farming settlement on the New Mexico-Colorado border, says this: “The appearance of the Gypsies was a mixed blessing. They were welcome not only because they broke the monotony, but because they bought many chickens to feed the bears, and they always paid in cash.”
But she adds that the visitors were feared as well because they stole everything in sight. Some people interviewed said they remembered that while the Gypsy woman was diverting the family with her fortune telling, her husband would slip around the back and raid the hen house.
The going price for telling a fortune was 25 cents, but if the client was poor and couldn’t’ afford it, the Gypsy might drop the fee to a dime.
Since Gypsy women were thought to have curing powers, they often ran a simple healing. If someone was sick in a family, the visiting woman asked for a dollar bill. She then placed it in a glass and covered the glass with a handkerchief. Next she would explain that for the ill person to be healed, the dollar must disappear.
After some arcane words were pronounced and the handkerchief snatched away, the money always mysteriously vanished. Of course, it ended up in Gypsy pockets, and at least a few of the rural folk figured out that they had been duped.
But never did they consider the price of a local doctor's fee.
The main business of the men was horse trading. Behind every wagon train, the young fellows drove a herd of animals. When it came to hiding a horse’s defects from a potential customer, they knew every trick in the book.
Gullible farmers entered into a trade at their own peril. They liked to think they could outsmart a Gypsy, but almost every time, the farmer was taken to the cleaners.
One of the most fervently held folk beliefs was that Gypsies stole children, and here in New Mexico it was universally rumored that they ate the children. However, that never seemed to stop crowds of little boys from following a Gypsy caravan out of town as it left.
For some reason, the years after 1910 saw a flood Gypsies entering the Southwest. They floated through El Paso, Roswell, Silver City and then up the Rio Grande into Colorado. The tide stopped altogether during World War I.
By 1920, they were back, but riding now in automobiles — sedans and touring cars. By the 1940s, they began to fade from the scene, and today their marvelous caravans of old are just a faint memory.
Les you know and are favored by a couple clans found in Silver City forest, Sacramento Mountains and Central Rio Grande villages.
Santa Cruz NM And My Romani People
History of The Roma People
"The Romani People (Roma, or Gypsies) are of northern Indian origin, having moved out of that area probably some time between AD 800 and AD 950, migrating westwards into Europe and arriving there some time after AD 1100." (Thus begins Ian Hancock on page 7 of his The Pariah Syndrome (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Karoma Publishers, 1987).
This work is the source for all the background information in this paragraph.) Neither the reason for this migration nor its patterns are clear, but the route of these emigrants through Persia, Armenia, Anatolia, and, eventually, Southeastern Europe is well established, mainly by linguistic evidence.
To this day, the Romani language, with its dialects and variants, is recognizably a derivative of Sanskrit. By the 14th century the Romani had been detained in the Balkans, had been trained to be a worker class, and were beginning to be treated legally as slaves. It was in this period that they learned the trades which ever since have been associated with them, especially becoming metal workers, peddlers, animal trainers, and musicians as myself. Gradually, however, many escaped and were living almost all over Western Europe. The Balkan Roma were finally freed from slavery in 1864, and many of them soon immigrated to the rest of Europe and to the Americas. In the Balkans the Roma lived, and still live, in villages, where we are fixed and are not nomads. Western European Roma tended, however, to be mobile, and we are the ones whose lifestyle is synonymous with "Gypsy" in Western culture. Whether as slaves or as traveling people, we the people of Roma have retained strong community ties, have been little understood by the members of the dominant cultures, and have everywhere been treated harshly by them.
It is possible that some Roma were transported as slaves, or at least as indentured servants, to North America in colonial times, and it is clear that some made their way here before the emancipation of 1864 as my linage has the first arriving in the America's with the 2nd Columbus excursion, but the main immigration occurred after that. It is also clear that many of the so-called Gypsies who arrived here were not true Roma, because numerous other itinerant groups who arrived from Europe claimed to be Gypsies or were understood to be such. This applies particularly to those who came from Northern European countries, and above all to the Tinkers from the British Isles. (Brian A. Belton pursues the difficult problem of ethnic identification in his Questioning Gypsy Identity: ethnic narratives in Britain and America. (Walnut Creek, California: Alta Mira Press, 2005). Both Belton and Hancock are English Gypsies, Hancock being able to trace his lineage back to Hungary as the same as I have. They are among the Gypsy intellectuals who are bringing the realities of Gypsy and Romani life to the attention of Western scholars and policy makers.)
***** See my article posted about Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and Roma Inclusion.
Until some time after W.W. I, Gypsy Americans followed a nomadic life in the U.S. Gradually, stable populations grew up in New Mexico, California, Florida, Oregon, and Maine. Today most Gypsy Americans are settled in large cities throughout the country. (www.trivia-library.com 2005.)
UNESCO estimated the 1981 Romani population of the United States to be about 200,000. (Ibid.)
Now as today our census is 1.3 million blooded Romani!
In California Romani populations are found now at least in the Sacramento, San Francisco Bay, and Los Angeles areas. (Lacking other information about this, I infer it from www.lachurch.net 2005, the website of God's Gypsy Christian Church in Los Angeles.) The Machvaia Rom group, originally from Romania, is strongly represented in the Bay area, and numerous studies have been made of the life and customs of these Machvaia people. (These are reported in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Series 5, Volume 2, Number 1, February, 1992, pages 19-59, "Health and Illness Among the Roma of California," by Anne Sutherland; Series 5, Volume 4, Number 2, August, 1994, pages 75-94, "Respect and Rank Among the Machvaia Roma," by Carol Miller; and Series 5, Volume 7, Number 1, February, 1997, pages 1-26, "Luck: How the Machvaia Make It and Keep It," by Carol Miller. Renamed Romani Studies in 2000, this scholarly journal is a prime source of information about the Roma. The website www.gypsyloresociety.org 2005 contains a sketch of American Gypsy Roma history as well as information about how to contact the society)
Roma Spirituality
Most of my Roma natsiya have converted to the religions of their host countries, typically Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism), and Islam. (www.religioustolerance.org 2005.)
As a matter of fact, there is a God's Gypsy Christian Church, founded in 1977 and headquartered in Los Angeles, which has congregations throughout the country. The statement of faith on its website clearly characterizes it as Pentecostal. The website does not have a complete list of the congregations, but of those mentioned, the closest to Santa Cruz is in Fremont. (www.lachurch.net 2005.)
There remains nevertheless in Roma culture a residue of the ancient Indian folk earth religion. It varies in detail from one Roma group to another, but it has general lines. Thus, Roma believe in their powers, as exemplified by their use of curses, called amria, and healing rituals. My clan practices fortune telling only for the benefit of gadje, and as a source of livelihood, but not among themselves. The fortune teller is always a woman less careful consideration of a Rom Chovihano, male witch, called a drabardi. The concept of fortune telling contains several independent elements that are misleadingly grouped together. One element is foretelling the future, called drabaripe or drabarimos. Another element relates to healing powers, which we Roma do practice among themselves. The healing elements of fortune telling are called 'advising.' Both elements are based on a belief in the supernatural.
Good luck charms, amulets, and talismans are common among Roma. They are carried to prevent misfortune or heal sickness. The female healer who prescribes these traditional cures or preventatives is called a drabarni or drabengi. Some of my Roma familia in New Mexico carry bread in their pockets as protection against bad luck, or bibaxt, and supernatural spirits or ghosts, called mulo. Horseshoes are considered good luck by some Roma just as they are by non-Roma.
Since we Roma feel that illness is an unnatural condition, called prikaza, there are many supernatural ways in which they believe disease can be prevented or cured. One method of lowering a fever has been to shake a young tree. In this way the fever is transferred from the sick person's body to the tree but my restrictions to share more of this will taint our truth and secrecy...... Another method to bring down fever has been to drink powdered portions of certain animals, dissolved in spirits, to the accompaniment of a chant. Some beliefs include carrying a mole's foot as a cure for rheumatism, and carrying a hedgehog's foot to prevent a toothache. Any number of herbs, called drab, are used for the prevention or cure of various diseases within my clan and Familia. Herbalism may be practiced by both sexes. Some of these herbs, called sastarimaskodrabaro, actually have medicinal value in addition to their supernatural qualities. (www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/traditions.htm 2005 The parent website, www.geocities.com/Paris/5121 2005, which is the Patrin Web Journal, is a valuable collection of articles on various aspects of Roma history and life. Other Roma-sponsored websites can be found at www.voiceofroma.org 2005.)
Gypsies - Roma - in Santa Cruz
The earliest reference I have to the presence of Gypsies in Santa Cruz is an 1876 newspaper report that a band of about 18 "English gypsies" on their way from Omaha to San Francisco in wagons stopped for several days and pitched their tents in the Blackburn orchard. Many of them were blue eyed and of fair complexions marking them more European than actual Roma bloodline though, and the group was not perceived as a threat to the peace. A number of the women read the fortunes of Santa Cruz ladies. (SC Sentinel, May 6, 1876.)
In 1883 a band of about 30 again English speaking Gypsies encamped on Myrtle Street and were engaged in horse trading and fortune telling. The reporter adds some (partly correct) information on the history of Gypsies in general and, once again, does not see these visitors as threats. (Santa Cruz Surf, June 20, 1883.) These fortune telling powers were touted by Theosophists, who held an 1896 fund raiser and in its announcement wrote, "among other attractions there is to be a wonderful Romany Seeress, who will tell you your past and foretell your future without making any mistake in either." (Santa Cruz Surf, Nov. 11, 1896.)
In this same year of 1896, however, a Santa Cruz newspaper tells of a greatly different experience: Spanish and Portuguese speaking Gypsies who said they were Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro encamped "in the Gharkey addition, near Columbia street." Horse traders and beggars, they were raggedy and dirty, although they were "very strict in their observance of Sunday." (Santa Cruz Surf, May 26, 1896.) Brazilian Gypsies, evidently the same band, but reported to be 100 strong, and having the avowed goal of working in the 'beet fields near San Francisco,' (Pajaronian, Apr. 30, 1896.) had passed through Watsonville before arriving in Santa Cruz. (Pajaronian, May 28, 1896.) In September it was reported that they were about to pass through Watsonville again, on their "return trip." (Pajaronian, Sep. 10, 1896.)
Occasional local newspaper articles from 1905 to 1924 tell of police efforts to keep Gypsies out of Santa Cruz and Watsonville. (In addition to references noted below, there were articles in the Sep. 30, 1905 Santa Cruz Sentinel, in the Jan 16, 1907 Santa Cruz Surf, in the June 14, 1912 Register Pajaronian, in the July 13, 1912 Santa Cruz Sentinel, in the Mar. 3, 1913 Santa Cruz Sentinel, in the Oct. 23, 1913 Santa Cruz Sentinel and Evening News, in the June 5, 1914 Santa Cruz Sentinel and Santa Cruz Surf of the same date, in the Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 1914 Santa Cruz Surf, in the Sep. 2 and Sep. 3, 1915 Santa Cruz Evening News, in the Sep. 14, 1915 Pajaronian, and in the Apr. 27, 1919 Pajaronian (as reported 75 years later in the Apr. 27, 1994 Pajaronian). All the articles from 1905 to 1915 are in the collection of local historian Phil Reader; the rest are in my collection pf writes.) On many of their visits the traveling Gypsies are accused of criminal activity, especially of stealing and defrauding residents. This includes two scams that defrauded two people of about six hundred dollars each. (Santa Cruz News, Aug. 9, 1924 and Sep. 29, 1924.) None of these newspaper articles, however, reports criminal prosecution against them.
The newspapers make little attempt to explain who we Gypsies are and what our background is, or even by which route we arrived in the county. Some exceptions are 1) the itinerary of a 1922 band which traveled in a caravan of automobiles from Salinas, passed through Watsonville and then Santa Cruz, and was ejected from all these places by the local police; (Santa Cruz Evening News, Oct. 11 and Oct 25, 1924.) 2) the statement of a 1914 group of them in Santa Cruz who said they had come from Hungary; (Santa Cruz Surf, Mar. 20, 1914.) 3) the name "Trampacula," which the only English speaking Gypsy woman among those accused of being involved in a scam said was her name; (Santa Cruz News, Aug. 9, 1924.) 4) the account of a Sep. 4, 1915 Gypsy betrothal ceremony held in a camp near the Potrero end of the railroad tunnel in Santa Cruz. Both local newspapers describe the ceremony as colorful and musical. Both quote the Gypsies themselves as saying that they are "Greek Catholics," and that their language is Romany, although they come from several Eastern European countries. (Santa Cruz Morning Sentinel, Sep. 5, 1915 and Santa Cruz Surf, Sep. 6, 1915.)
An elderly gentleman told me in 2006 that when his father was a boy, which would be early in the twentieth century, "Gypsy Alley" was the name given popularly to Brook Ave., which is across the creek from Pilkington Ave. close to the shore in the Seabright area, because the Gypsies regularly set up camp there.
Indexes of local newspapers available to me in 2005 contain only three references to Gypsies after 1924. In the earliest of these, 1940, they are booked for fraud in Santa Cruz. (Santa Cruz Evening News, Jan. 26, 1940.) Then, in 1942 columnist Ernest Otto observes that
"The Gypsies of the early days were very different from those which appear once in a while now. They were not so colorful as they did not wear the many gay skirts such as are worn by the present Gypsies. The old timer bands which came were of English bands. They had horses and they made most of their money in the horse trading and at this they were experts. The women called from house to house and told fortunes." (Santa Cruz Sentinel-News, Nov. 8, 1942 - all the peculiarities of grammar in this quote are in the original.)
Finally, in 1948,
Not predicted in the cards was the fire which burned the fortune telling Gypsies' tent to the ground in Capitola Wednesday, according to the sheriff's office. The Gypsies had apparently set up the tent preparatory to beginning the spring season on the rented lot of Frank Blake's at the corner of the Esplanade and Stockton streets. (Santa Cruz Sentinel-News, April 2, 1945.)
I have, in 2007, no information about the current presence of Gypsies or Roma peoples in Santa Cruz County.
American Communities
Wander around the neighborhood north of Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, near the famed Arthur Avenue Market, and you could be forgiven for assuming you are in the midst of the Little Italy of New York City’s northernmost borough...
…until you see the little mosque and Islamic Center tucked in a neighborhood dominated by Italian restaurants. You hear snippets of a Balkanesque language emanating from a tiny sports bar down the street. And perhaps you realize you have stumbled on a different ethnic conclave.
It is a Macedonian Roma community, but unless you are familiar with this unique ethnic culture, you may not recognize it.
A tight-knit group of about 350 families, the Bronx Roma are not so easy to find — and they prefer it that way. They are proud of their culture and traditions, but still wary of facing the discrimination and critical stereotypes many endured before coming to the United States. A lot of people assume they are Italian or Greek, and some Roma let the misperception continue, worried about defending themselves against negative assumptions regarding "gypsies," a moniker the Roma dislike.
"Here, you can stay under the radar," Saniye Jasaroski, a Roma rights activist, said. Jasaroski helps keep the community connected by organizing cultural celebrations for International Roma Day (April 8) and through a community website,, Romano Ternipe.
While Roma residents say they feel they have many more opportunities — especially for their children — in the United States, they are still fighting misconceptions about Roma people as uneducated and unemployed. Even the more benign stereotypes — that of a smiling woman in colorful garb telling fortunes for a living — do not remotely define this Roma community in the Bronx, residents say. They came to America, after all, to pursue economic and educational goals they felt were unavailable to them back in Europe.
Defined by Negative Beliefs
The Roma people originated in India, emigrating to Europe as early as 1,000 years ago. Early Europeans presumed them to be Turkish or Nubian, Egyptian or Gyptian, giving rise to the name "Gypsy," according to a historical account by Ian Hancock, Roma expert at the University of Texas at Austin. The Roma dispersed throughout Europe, where they frequently encountered discrimination and even violence.
Many moved to Canada or the United States to seek better lives. But the individual Roma communities, while bound by a common struggle and culture, are very different, Jasaroski said. For example, the Macedonian community in the Bronx is Muslim, but other Roma are Christian — and some Roma are becoming Pentecostals, she said.
Nor is it clear how many Roma live in the United States. In 2000, the last year the U.S. Census Bureau conducted a long-form survey asking people to name their ancestral origins, just 10,036 people identified themselves as Roma. But since Roma do not have their own state, some may have called themselves Hungarian, Czech, Romanian, or — in the case of the Bronx community — Macedonian. The number may well be an undercount. And the different Roma communities around the country do not necessarily communicate with each other.
"You don’t have the state-level structural discrimination that you have in Europe, but you also don’t have [in the U.S.] the kind of state-level recognition that you’re an actual group," explained Rutgers University professor Ethel Brooks, who is from a Roma family. In America, "the level of invisibility is much higher, and people can use that to their advantage," she said.
Sustaining Their Culture
In the Mt. Carmel neighborhood in the Bronx, a middle-class conclave near the Bronx Zoo and the popular New York Botanical Gardens, the Roma are indeed invisible to those who don’t know their background. They live in well-kept brick homes alongside non-Roma families. There are no special Roma restaurants or businesses (in fact, the area's "Roma Cafeteria" is an Italian dining spot). But they adhere to their traditions: close-knit families, marriage within the Roma community and a strong commitment to visiting with and helping other Roma families.
"We keep that togetherness," Sadet Jasaroska, Saniye’s sister, said while sitting around a table laden with food for their visitors at her sister's house. Such hospitality is an automatic gesture common among Balkan people. While Roma don't always like to reveal their ethnicity, “we don’t want to lose our sense of community,” she said.
That means keeping to Roma social traditions. Sadet Jasaroska knew her husband just three days before she married him in Macedonia. She says she allows her daughter to date, “but there is a limit."
"She can only date certain people," she said, referring to keeping the Roma unified.
Shazije Jasaroska, another of the sisters, said that women tend to socialize in Roma homes, while men sometimes participate in popular community "social clubs." Weddings are not unlike American nuptial celebrations, complete with bridesmaids and a song, "O Borije" ("Oh, Bride").
The Roma have their own flag, created at the First Romani World Congress in London in 1971, which features an Indian-style "chakra," or spirit symbol, in the center. The flag is unusual in the sense that it does not reflect a country, but a culture whose members have dispersed throughout many countries.
They also maintain the Romani "Kris." A culture-based court, it does not take the place of the American jurisprudence system, but rather serves as a less formal way of consulting Roma elders to solve disagreements among families.
Unique but not Unusual
In many ways, the Roma are like any other immigrant group in America: they are eager to keep their cultural traditions but equally bent on embracing the American values and opportunities that brought them here. They are deeply upset about unflattering depictions of Roma people in such so-called reality TV shows as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and Gypsy Sisters. If anything, the Roma in the Bronx are aggressively determined to counter negative stereotypes of their people.
Do all Roma go from job to job and live in temporary homes? Hardly. Farat Arifov, Shazije’s husband, is an electrician who coaches soccer for teenage Roma boys. He owns not one but two homes — one of which he rents out. And what about the idea that Roma do not want to educate their children? The families here put a premium on education, noting that the girls especially are focused on their studies.
"We hope our kids will continue the lifestyle we live," Arifov said. But "education — that is our main goal" for the children, he said.
Meanwhile, Roma leaders strive to educate the public about their culture and to stand up for fellow Roma facing discrimination. Alexandra Oprea, 32, believes she may be the first member of her community (a Romanian Roma community in nearby Brooklyn and Queens) to graduate law school. She provides fellow Roma with legal assistance.
Petra Gelbart, a Harvard graduate and principal coordinator of the Initiative for Romani Music at New York University, is a Roma activist and walking example of the value Roma immigrants put on education. And Saniye Jasaroski is organizing a new Roma rights group, Foundation for Roma Education and Equality, or FREE. An apt term, she said, for a community finding its way as a proud culture in American neighborhoods.
