Roma in America

we’ve been here since the beginning…

Romani slaves were first shipped to the Americas with Columbus in 1492. 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, came 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, following their liberation from slavery in Romania. Like all Central and Eastern European migration, Romani immigration 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.

Almost all Roma in the United States originated from some part of Europe, for reasons similar to those of other immigrants; however, since European powers have tended to oppose Roma, this hostility has hastened Gypsy emigrations. Suspicion between Gypsies and established institutions also spurred Gypsy emigration. Christian churches of Europe attacked Gypsy fortune-tellers, prompting deportations. Sending Gypsies home was not an option—no nation welcomed them since their origin in India was unknown to the Western world until the eighteenth century.

Although Europeans have historically treated the Romani community poorly, Roma tended to fare better in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe, where they suffered the extremes of racial prejudice, including enslavement. Still, the Roma hoped to escape social oppression in the New World. Other Roma were annexed into America with territory itself: for example, Napoleon transported hundreds of Roma men to Louisiana during the two-year period before selling the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803.

Many Americans have romanticized Roma as exotic foreigners. Some Americans draw on the supposedly romantic appeals of Roma (“gypsy”) traditions—especially traditions of dancing and music-making, lives on the road, and maintaining a traveling culture. Often, established Americans maintain or adopt European prejudices against Roma and treat Roma immigrants poorly. Just as Europeans have often attributed the fortune-telling skills of Roma to "black magic," Roma traders have been accused of fencing stolen goods, and of stealing their goods themselves. Laws attempting to deter, prevent, and punish fortune-tellers and thieves in America have singled out Romani Americans.

Until 1930, Virginia legally barred Roma from telling fortunes. And in New Jersey in the middle 1980s, special regulations and licensing requirements applied to Roma who told fortunes. Roma households have been labeled as "dens of thieves" so that charges brought against one resident may apply to any and all. In Mississippi in the middle 1980s, such application of liability "jointly-and-severally" is law. There have also been cases in the Pacific Northwest. As recently as the 1970s, New Hampshire expelled some Roma from that state on the grounds merely that they were Roma.

Prejudice against Romani people has strengthened their isolation, yet many Gypsy Americans, as a survival mechanism, present themselves as Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, and as other local ethnics in order to obtain jobs, housing, and welfare. To many Americans, Romani Americans seem to be sinister foreigners. Within the Roma community, prejudices toward non-Roma also may also prevail, however, because Gypsies depend economically on non-Roma as customers for their services, they cannot afford to isolate themselves physically from non-Roma.

Until relatively recently, when some Roma activists and scholars have begun to try to present their people in a better light, stereotypes faced little or no opposition. Roma had little basis of trust for attempts to reveal how they "really" are and lacked the resources to publish denials of specific claims. However, many Romani Americans now are actively trying to debunk oppressive stereotypes of Roma and promote a new public image.

Americans who are said to have Roma ancestry include Elvis Presley, Cher, Charlie Chaplin and Bill Clinton. Internationally, Michael Caine and the famed jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt lead an illustrious group of entertainers, politicians and businessmen offering their talents and unique acumen.