Romani Americans


It is estimated that there are one million Romani people in the United States. Though the Romani population in the United States has largely assimilated into American society, the largest concentrations are in Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, Texas and the Northeast as well as in cities such as Chicago and St. Louis.
The largest wave of Romani immigrants came as a result of the abolition of Romani slavery in the occupied Balkan region of the weakening Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Romani immigration to the United States has continued at a steady rate ever since, with an increase of Romani immigration following the 1989 collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
The size of the Romani American population and the absence of a historical and cultural presence, such as the Romani have in Europe, make Americans largely unaware of the existence of the Romani as a people. The term's lack of significance within the United States prevents many Romani from using the term around non-Romani: identifying themselves by nationality rather than heritage. The U.S. Census does not distinguish Romani as a group since it is neither a nationality nor a religion.
Romani Americans are the least integrated group in the United States, along with Native Americans. Some Romani Americans prefer to pass as another ethnic group such as Native American, Mexican or Romanian.
Residing in all states, their largest concentrations are in New York, Virginia, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, and the Pacific Coast.
Romani Americans usually sell used cars and trailers, black-topping driveways and roofing to earn money. Romani American careers are also psychics, astrologers, palm readers, tarot card readers, metal recycling and auto-body and fender repair. Other sources of income for Romani Americans is seasonal farm labor, welfare, selling flowers on the street and begging. They usually live in mobile homes and trailer parks.

History

Origin

The Romani people originate from Northern India, presumably from the northwestern Indian states Rajasthan and Punjab.
The linguistic evidence has indisputably shown that roots of Romani language lie in India: the language has grammatical characteristics of Indian languages and shares with them a big part of the basic lexicon, for example, body parts or daily routines.
More exactly, Romani shares the basic lexicon with Hindi and Punjabi. It shares many phonetic features with Marwari, while its grammar is closest to Bengali.
Genetic findings in 2012 suggest the Romani originated in northwestern India and migrated as a group.
According to a genetic study in 2012, the ancestors of present scheduled tribes and scheduled caste populations of northern India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the likely ancestral populations of modern European Roma.
In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External Affairs stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India. The conference ended with a recommendation to the Government of India to recognize the Roma community spread across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora.

Migration to the US

There were Gypsies with Christopher Columbus on his third voyage to Hispaniola in 1498. The first Gypsies came to the New World as a result of deportations from England, France, Portugal, and Spain. Romani slaves were first shipped to the Americas with Columbus in 1498. Spain sent Romani slaves to their Louisiana colony between 1762 and 1800. The Romanichal, the first Romani group to arrive in North America in large numbers, moved to America from Britain around 1850. Eastern European Romani, the ancestors of most of the Romani population in the United States today, began immigrating to the United States on a large scale over the latter half of the 19th century coinciding with the weakening grip of the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman Wars in Europe in the 19th century, which ultimately culminated in the Russo-Turkish War, freeing many ethnic Eastern Europeans from Ottoman dominance and producing new waves of Romani immigrants.
That wave of Romani immigration comprised Romani-speaking peoples like the Kalderash, Machvaya, Lovari and Churari, and ethnically Romani groups that had integrated more within the Central and Eastern European societies, such as the Boyash of Romania and the Bashalde of Slovakia. Bashalde reside principally in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Chicago and Las Vegas. Romani immigration, like all Central and Eastern European migration, was severely limited during the Soviet era in Central and Eastern Europe but picked up again in the 1990s after the fall of the Eastern Bloc.
The British, the Dutch and the Scottish sent Romani slaves to Virginia and the Caribbean such as Jamaica. Germany banished them to Pennsylvania. Sweden sent them to the Delaware region.
In 1999, the United States received Romani refugees from Kosovo.
In the nineteenth century, non-Roma referred to Roma as “colored.” President Andrew Johnson, when vetoing the 1866 Civil Rights Bill, said: “This provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood.”
Roma in the United States mainly came from Serbia, Russia and Austria-Hungary and largely worked as coppersmiths and fortune tellers. Romani Americans also came from Italy, Greece, Romania and Turkey.

Groups