Class went overtime today. It almost went over an hour- but there was no place I’d rather be than listening to Dimitri Argiropoulos. He spoke no English but my eyes were still eagerly fixated on this gap-toothed guest speaker, a professor at the University of Bologna. He had a distinct smirk, and whenever he sported his smirk, I couldn’t help but smile- and at times I don’t think I should have smiled. The situation, what he was speaking of, did not call for a smile. In fact, when he spoke I didn’t need to know what he was saying to feel sadness. Emotions don’t need words.
Professoresso Vittorrio Buffati translated for Dimitri Argiropoulos after almost every two or three sentences and my eager eyes switched their fixation from one professor to the next. Each spoke a different language, but they spoke the same story- a silenced story. This is the story of the Gypsies. Also known as Rom or Zingari or Sinti For their story to be spoken even in this classroom is a shouting of the story, of the gypsies story, of their life, of their suffering, their prevailing suffering lasting centuries and still horrifically existing and embedded in the world (especially European word) today.
I had heard the word “gypsies” before, and when I hear of the word I may think of Jasmine from Aladdin, or my long Indian sequined skirts I used to wear when it was fashionable to do so, and sometimes (most often) I think of the beggars on the street I saw when I fist visited Europe five years ago, they too were gapped toothed but these people were hungry and desperate.
Never did I think of these people, these people whose history has been shunned from the world and from its very own people. Substitute Gypsies for Jews in the holocaust and the story is the same, - yet not spoken or recognized as much about- and even not at all. As a matter of fact, the gypsies were sent to concentration camps, one being Auschwitz.
Zingari comes from the word therapy, which refers to the term “to touch.” The Greeks call the Rom the untouchables. (Ironic that the guest speaker is Greek, if it was not hinted enough by his un-anouncable last name, yet he believes these people are indeed people who can “be touched”). The word “to touch” comes from Jesus “touching” the people he cures as he performs his miracles. So I think to myself, are these people hopeless? Are they incurable?
They want to integrate, but they are strongly denied the chance.
The Greeks call them this because they think they are useless and thieves. Yet, they bring with them a highly esteemed migration, bringing with them the technology to build any metal tool and also work superiorly with jewels. Yet, this is just another way that the rest of the people can claim dominion over them. The Rom become present day slaves! Slavery still indeed exists this very moment! I call them Roma because this is what they call themselves. Roma means man, not as in gender, but as in “human being.” They are living human beings. This is the way they see themselves and this is the way I will see them too. Forget Jasmine, forget skirts, these are people and I would like to say they are like you and me, but they are not. They have no address, no home. Some parents hide the history of their people because it’s too horrific, too sad. Others depend on their children to beg for them. And when these children beg and someone asks them where they live they reply, “I have no home.” And it is true. They have no home, and when there “homes” are bulldozed they have nowhere to go.
As I sat, my back against the heater of the lobby, reading articles on the gypsies the Italian students, as they always do, asked me what I was “studiando.” We began to speak of the gypsies, and once I explained to them the word, they knew exactly what I was talking about. Sara told me there was a gypsy family just one minute from school- right near the bridge in their caravan.
I gasped inside of myself… I knew exactly whom she was talking about. Well, I had no idea about whom she was talking about, I did not know them. But, I had seen them several times the first week I was in Bologna. Their caravan- their home, had pink sheer curtains- and when one of the family members moved I could see their thin shadow move. Their dark shadow against the bright pink curtain- like their dark skin in contrast to the rest of the community who does not want them to be a part of it.
Their clustered caravan is one caravan of many clustered caravan camps where millions of gypsies live- but do have a permanent address, and therefore cannot get jobs. The Italian Berlusconi even says that is the right of the Italian citizens to feel safe and he is therefore “bulldozing” the gypsy communities.
The Rom want to integrate but they are not allowed too. Is it to preserve the Italian, European culture? Well, I am here. And I am not a European. I am an American. And I am not here to preserve my culture. I am here to absorb the Italian culture and simultaneously share my American culture.
If I am here, why can’t they?
Side Notes:
(I ask questions sometimes because I do not know. I do not know, therefore I ask questions. I ask questions even if sometimes I feel I know. But I still ask anyways- sometimes just to bring attention to the question).
(Just like the class went into overtime and I did not mind, in fact I loved it, I love studying almost everything in Italy because the professors make it all so relevant to where I am or where I will be- even if I don’t know it, like my new caravan neighbors—who’s caravan actually just went missing two days ago.)
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