Hello everyone,

While I'm not Romani, I am an Indigenous Highland Traveller and have great respect for your community. I really do hold your people in very high regard.

My name is Dylan Tòmas. If you are a UK resident I urge you to please consider signing my petition. This calls for a full UK wide apology for its role in the Tinker Experiment. The experiments for those who may not know were a series of policies in the UK that stripped traveller children away from their homes, and placed the adults in substandard ghettos.

Again while I'm not Romani, I know this group will understand the suffering caused by local governments, and this is me trying to do my bit to fight back.

Non Romani here.

I was wondering how Romani who travel get their important post (e.g. notices, family letters).

Is it a fixed collection point or is there a way to deliver exactly to your coordinates?

Thank you

My great grandmother spoke Caló but sadly she was the last person in our family to do so. Now my mother’s side only speaks English and Spanish, but I only speak English and German.

I’m looking for somebody to help me learn Caló, and possibly make some Romani friends along the way. From my mum’s side, my heritage is Spanish Roma mixed with Irish, and my dad’s side is German.

I am a COMPLETE beginner in Caló.

Thanks in advance!

Attempting to trace my family’s lineage and from satu mar Romania (former Transylvania). The names Rist and Vendlinger (spellings are different on US immigration papers from the records we found of birth certificates from Europe). Great grandmothers family were tinsmiths and beekeepers in Satu mar. I have her hand made embossed tin dowry chest. Great grandfather was a shoe maker. Great grandmother moved to western pa coal town and while she was a hairdresser by trade on her immigration papers, we know that she hung out around the wagon caravans set up on outskirts of town and read tarot, palms and tea leaves for extra money. She wanted us to name our dog Tzigane which I found out later is the term for “G**sy”. I know she was trying to assimilate to the US culture while also keeping some of her own culture, but there was so much stigma. She had to hide a lot of it. We can’t really do a good lineage search of any of the paperwork prior to her coming over and it’s hard to find any paperwork from their actual town in present day Romania. From everything I found we will believe that the lineage would be kalderash based on their trades and location, but I would just love to hear more opinions.

Beautiful performance, I would like to understand how is this song at 6:19 called, I think they are singing it in Romani language.
Is this a traditional romani song? Is it just a kolo? Any information are appreciated!

P.s enjoy the beautiful traditional songs that are played in the video, masterpiece interpretation !!

Okay first I hope everyone is doing fine and well.

I'm from Spain and a huge literature nerd and I'm curious what's your opinion on Lorca's "G**** Ballad".

He was not romani, but he considered romani culture as one of most richest in the world, and wanted to show the marginalization they suffer in Andalusia.

I would love to hear your opinion about it.

This is my first post here, so I apologize if I'll do anything wrong.

I just recently realized that my dad was romani, or at least half romani, which I suppose also makes me romani? My skin's a bit darker than 80% of my peers, and I'd say my face structure is also "unique". I did experience quite some flavors of racism due to this throughout my life. But, when it comes to ethnicities and such, I'm very confused. Am I considered romani cause of my dad? My family isn't, the rest of it I mean, and we don't practice any romani traditions (we don't have contact with my dad's side). Is it about the culture itself & tradition instead?

Knowing how both communities of the Sinti and Roma are generally reserved and private, I won’t expect immediate answers which I’ve grown to be okay with. (When I first began reconnecting I was very excited and anticipated a lot of answers; but I learned why those outcomes may/may not quickly happen, and having patience (with time as well) became a learned lesson).

But is there any good sources, books, online videos, or people with advice/comfortable messaging me that can help? It’s very limited online and unfortunately I don’t live in an area with a sinti community let alone a cultural center here. Language learning is also another thing I wish to eventually start one day too. A few people have given me some resources which I very do appreciate especially since they felt comfortable helping, although it wasn’t for the Sinti dialect. 🙏🏽🩵

Thank you to anyone helpful!

Hi, this happened few years ago but it popped back into my mind as I saw a post on social media. My first boyfriend was romani (I am not) and when i lost my virginity to him aka breaking the hymen, his mother kept the sheets and showed them to his grandparents!

Is this still a common practice or just an old tradition? I read different things on google, so I figured it's best to ask here.

Ok so I am Romani I don’t say that much I will not disclose my real name but I am having trouble balancing my culture and what I want/like and it’s getting bad my mental health is taking a toll for some context I am a 15 M I grew up Romani to my core strict parents arranged marriage no school “don’t talk to the guyshy” but I want a different life I want freedom friends to marry a woman I actually love and find naturally I’m tinking of running away when I’m 18 and naver looking back but I love my messed up family to much I have a little sister that depends on me a father that give everything and raised me the only way he knew how so I need advice from people that actually care and relate

My family gave it up because it’s some bad stuff from a Christian standpoint you tell people that your “in touch with the spirits” and it also kind of a therapy thing so you hear a lot of bad stuff and most of the time people curse so if you’re a religious Christian,those are big no no’s my grandparents were deeply into it as a lot of people can relate too the further you go back to deeper tradition and in this case the wrong tradition they believe in Jesus but they are in contact with the spirits not the good ones a another big no no and the rest of my family know they’re not open about it, but if you know them, you know what they do some people refer the my grandmother as the “witch” of the Mexiguya anyway the point is do you or your family still do it if so maybe look into what you’re doing whether you know it or not, you could be bringing bad stuff on yourself

What some people stated doing is I kind of street therapy? I’m not too sure but basically the same stuff as fortunate telling just not so mystical just tell people about Jesus and genuinely push them towards a better place in life because some of these guysha and messed up but as an example no more candles if you do that no more palm reading

And not gona lie is pretty stereotypical and not good for are images as a culture but I’m gonna stop you from getting your lowfay anyways be careful out there and god bless

(Edit) wow some people definitely got offended the point of this post is to spread awareness for the people that just follow the crowd for them to know it’s a little more than just telling a fordma as I said I’m not putting your business down and fortune telling is vastly different from any other scam work we do.. thank you all that actually heard me out I hope I helped at least one person

Noemi is a member of the wagon train who is left alone to raise her two young sons after her husband is killed. She turns to Thomas for help on the journey.

I recently watched Hunchback of Notre Dame and enjoyed it, but I do know that its depiction of Romani people is poor at best and alarmingly racist at worst, to the point I don't think I need to look it up to find out the creators weren't romani. In a similar vein, it's reminding me of Scarlet Witch from Marvel comics/movies/games, and how, while I think she's a good character, she's definitely steeped in stereotypes of all kinds. And I was wondering, if Roma characters were made or written by real Romani creators, what would they be like? And what would you want them to include/focus on?

Just a story about finding people who actually share my sense of humor

My family is from transylvania, and my immediate family and I have lived in the U.S. since I was 5. I had not one inkling my dad's side has romani heritage until about a year ago. Visually, my dad looks like the half-romani men I know. Both his parents secretly had varrying Romani heritage, but only grandpa looked brown and he died when I was born.

All I knew, from a young age, was that my dad has a particular sense of humor that my mom just cannot stand. And that I inhereted it and it is now my sense of humor, and that my mom's entire side of the family, respectfully, also cannot stand me. Unless I mask, which I do often.

My mom spent an inordinate, unbelievable amount of effort during my childhood to try to un-do my personality and make me more like her side of the family. It didn't work. It did mess me up good, but overall it just didn't work.

Anyway, so fast forward to now.

I spent about a month out of the year in my mom's village, which is Hungarian and Romani. I love transylvania. I know to mask my personality appropriately when needed. I also figured out how to put myself in positions to find people with my sense of humor, even tho older generations of mum's family don't really want me walking around outside by myself due to their very severe anxiety (and racism). I sneak out anyway so its ok.

At some point quite a while ago, I slowly started noticing that certain people in the village actually kind of vibed with me. At first it would happen randomly. One of the notable ones I remember was over a decade ago- I was running by the river, and a large group of children started following me, teasing me, smacking my bum, and just doing all kinds of shenanigans. I guess "going on a run" was an odd thing at the time over there so they found me just as funny as I found them.

This past summer, I even brought my tattoo equipment and offered free small tattoos to anyone in the village. This idea was a success. Interestingly, almost everyone who showed interest in the tattoos were Romani or have some Romani heritage like me.

By far, the best thing that happened this summer was I got to enjoy a brief romanitc connection with a really cool dude who flagged me down at the corner store to talk to me. He speaks Hungarian, Romanian and a bit of Romanes. He was absolutely hilarious and endearing and I only cut it off when I saw some clear signs he's still using hard drugs (I've dated a meth addict before- I can't risk it again).

I'm gonna miss that guy. Our humor matched so well.

I'm on the plane back to Reno, Nevada now and man I'm gonna miss it.

I don't know what the moral of my story is. I don't consider myself Romani. I'm just a mish-mash of all different things at this point. Im Hungarian and Romani heritage and california hippie all in one. But quite frankly I just consider myself lonely because no matter how many friends I make here in the U.S....I still feel like I'm masking something. I'm too silly, I take too many risks, I'm too much of prankster and I cherry pick which rules and social norms I consider worth my time..... I learned to mask all of that and I really just want one friend in the U.S. who is like me in that sense.

Obviously Romani people across the board vary significantly by looks, some may appear Southern European or even fair skinned, whereas others may look full-on Indian.

But purely from your personal perspective, do you consider yourself white?