Erroneus and counterproductive stereotypical misconception has been the hallmark of the attitudes of the
non-Roma (Gadje, Gadze, Gajo) over the centuries the Roma have lived outside their native India. A complete accounting of the unfairness could
easily fill hundreds of pages. That such misconception
persists today is dramatically evidenced by the following example - an excerpt from a program aired on American Public
Radio, produced at WGBH in Boston, in association with Public Radio International. The fact that it was aired
all over the USA on public radio, the bastion of supposedly enlightened radio journalism makes it particularly
reprehensible. We look to such sources for information untainted by commercial, political, or prejudicial viewpoints and motives.
Spain, Romania, the British Isles, the US - gypsies live in all these places but most do not
consider themselves to be OF these places. Journalist Isabel Fonseca, who lived and traveled
with gypsy families throughout eastern Europe writes,
"Nostalgia is the essence of the gypsy song, and seems always to have been, but nostalgia for what? Nostos is the Greek word for a return home. the gypsies have no home. And perhaps uniquely among peoples, they have no dream of a homeland. To traditional gypsies history is not an important concept. The gypsy language, Romany has no written form, and few of the world's gypsies have acquired literacy in other languages. Knowledge of past events often does not extend beyond what the oldest gypsy in a community can recall."In her travels, Fonseca observed that many east European gypsies knew nothing of their people's origins or even of their recent history. For example, most did not know that half a million gypsies had been killed in the Holocaust 50 years ago, nor were they particularly interested. Without history there is no happy past for the gypsy to fondly recall. Instead gypsy songs tell of present joys and of present sorrows. Their music is passionate blend of melancholy and independence, as in this song from Spain, "We the Gypsies, we were meant to be wanders, no one will change our ways..."