Good evening, I was wondering if you had any good sources for people trying to learn/reconnect to Romani culture? I’ve been trying to learn more lately as my great grandmother left Europe during ww2 and was only allowed to keep her new children (in our current country, the one she fled to) if she didn’t tech them her language, religion or anything really (same with her new husband who was a refugee from another country). Wouldn’t even tell grandma what country she was from to narrow it down, but we recently found out about her eldest kid in Denmark. Would you know of any reputable resources I could access?? There’s a lot of bull shit floating around the internet and I’d hate to be misinformed
I'll start this by apologizing ahead of time for the length, as there is so much information that I feel is important when you are wanting to reconnect with Romani culture. Also, I'm not an expert and a didicoy myself. I do not have Romanipen and do not speak for all Romani. I am just someone who wants to help Roma and didicoy alike with their struggles.
First thing to understand is that Roma are not a monolith (obviously) and that our culture, religious practices, food, clothing, music, art, etc. all varies from vitsa to vitsa and even family to family. There are similarities of course, but never assume that just because one vitsa does one thing that means that its universal. A lot of gadje that try and write Romani characters get this wrong.
Some of our biggest similarities, though, are what keep us together across vitsas, especially our language, our oppression, and our Romanipen. Romanipen is a serious thing, often dictating whether you're "truly" Romani or a gadjo. Whether or not someone has Romanipen is based on whether they speak Romani Chib, were raised in a Romani community, follow Romani laws and traditions, know Romani history and oppression, etc. Because of the importance of Romanipen, some vitsas do not consider didicoy (Roma who were raised in gadjekane society and do not have Romanipen) as Roma and consider them to be gadje. This does not mean didicoy can never be accepted back, but it does mean that there is a lot of work that goes in to reconnecting with the culture.
So, where can you start? In my opinion the easiest way to start learning is through Florian Tacorian. He's Kalderash Romani and he talks about Romani culture, language, traditions, and oppression, including rating characters that represent Romani people in fiction. He's very digestible for gadje and didicoy to learn from. His YouTube channel is found here:
History and Culture | 🇷🇴🇦🇲💙❤️💚
Once you feel comfortable with the info you learn from him, you can delve deeper by reading books about the Romani experience. Many Roma have written their experiences and history into published works (I'll link a list later in the post), but one that I've personally read from is Ian Hancock. He's Romanichal from Britain and he now teaches linguistics and other subjects at the University of Texas in Austin, TX.
Ian Hancock's works:
Ian Hancock has 39 books on Goodreads with 2934 ratings. Ian Hancock’s most popular book is We Are the Romani People.
I suggest: We Are the Romani People and Pariah Syndrome
And here's a compiled list of Romani authors if ever you want to extend your knowledge to other experiences:
Furthermore, I truly believe that advocating for Romani Rights and learning from current events is half of learning about Roma as a whole. Our oppression is on-going with public opinion of Roma being wholly ignorant at best and vehemently hateful at worst. Reconnecting should also be spearheaded by a desire to uplift Romani voices and to advocate for equal rights. To be more educated on current Romani events, the European Roma Rights Centre is the best place for it.
European Roma Rights Centre:
ERRC.org - European Roma Rights Centre - Challenging Discrimination Promoting Equality
Next, the most desired part of reconnecting I'd say, is learning Romani Chib. The reason you may not see easily accessible lessons for Romani Chib is because it is closed, meaning only Roma are allowed to learn it. This doesn't mean lessons for didicoy don't exist and there are resources available to learn Romani Chib. Personally, I'm learning American Kalderash from Ronald Lee's books. Even though I'm not Kalderash (at least to my current knowledge), it is still a useful dialect to learn, especially if you live in North America and want to converse with other American/Canadian Roma.
Keep this in mind, pretty much each vitsa has its own unique dialect and, based on the region, each dialect may have different loan words from the country that that vitsa resides in. Ronald Lee will not teach you how to speak every dialect, but, if you get the ground work in and talk to more and more people, you may be at least able to understand what someone from a different vitsa is saying using context clues and thus build your own vocabulary.
Link to Learn Romani by Ronald Lee:
Link to it's sister book, Romani Dictionary (English - Kalderash) by Ronald Lee:
Lastly for this section, community is a huge thing for Roma, it's the biggest thing that has kept us alive through being exiled, persecuted, enslaved, and assimilated completely in the over 1,000 years we've been out of India. It's also something that many didicoy have a big problem with, considering the points above on how hard it is for didicoy to be accepted by Roma. It's not impossible, nor is it hopeless however.
Some Roma will take pity on you because you didn't choose to be raised a gadjo, some Roma will see you as an aspect of racism and be defensive, some won't care and treat you on the basis of your character instead, and some will just ignore you. Again, Romani people are not a monolith and 10-12 million minds all with different lives will have incredibly varied opinions.
It is key to keep this mind and most importantly, to be neutral about this internally. You did not choose for your ancestors to undergo persecution, you did not choose to be raised in the dark about your heritage, and you did not choose to be born with mixed blood.
The best you can do when approaching the community is to be respectful, but engaged. As a didicoy you both can't be entitled to practice every aspect of the culture, but you also can't be too afraid to try what you're allowed to. If you are unsure of your place, ask. If you have a question about a practice, ask. If you are interested in aiding and actually being a cog in the community, you can also just ask. "No" is not a bad word and understanding why you're rejected if and when you are is a good mindset to have when you're trying to build trust in the community, too. On the flip side, if you are presented an opportunity to practice within the culture, take it. If there are Romani events in your area with an open invitation, visit and actually experience first-hand. Talk to people, tell them your intention and if you are genuine, you'll get farther than you might think.
As for online communities, I suggest starting with r/Romani on Reddit. There are a lot of posts from didicoy asking about where to start, like you. Read the comments on those posts and you'll see a lot of advice from Roma with all different experiences. And don't gravitate towards the advice that makes you feel good, just the advice that makes logical sense to you.
r/Romani:
Again I'm sorry that this is not only so long, but also that it took so long to get out. When answering these questions, I try to help with any aspect that I can, but I still want people to engage with the community themselves. I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you find the answers you've been looking for.
We are all in this together. Te aves baxtalo 💙❤️💚
