“Although WandaVision’s Wanda is from the fictional Eastern European country Sokovia, the original comic book versions of Wanda and her brother Pietro face violent persecution for their Romani ethnicity as a major plot point. Particularly in Europe, Roma still face police brutality, systemic racism, disproportionate levels of poverty, and lack of access to clean water housing because of antigypsyism.”
“The few Roma who work as fortune tellers and witches, like myself, do not do so because we are magical, but because it’s a job that we were historically forced into. Roma are a diasporic ethnic group originating in 10th-century India, and when they arrived in Europe in the 1300s and 1400s, dark-skinned with many gods, they were relentlessly persecuted. Enslaved, legally hunted, murdered, and shunted off into the margins of society, Roma were allowed to work as performers, metal workers, horse traders, craftspeople, agricultural workers, and fortune tellers, but little else. Palmistry, card reading, tea leaf and coffee reading, and other forms of divination were brought by Roma from India and the Middle East, and Roma were consulted by Europeans for their magical, un-Christian needs because they were seen, along with other nonbelievers, as dangerous, demonic, and mystical. Roma women were cast as witches, and discriminated against, but made the most of this means of income to survive.”
“In the US, Roma are targeted by ‘Gypsy police task forces’ and face persistent discrimination, as shown in this Harvard Study. But we are not represented in the US Census or in politics, and barely feature in the media. In fact, many Roma in the industry hide their ethnicity if they’re able to and pretend to be something else to avoid repercussions.”
2087
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