A student of gypsy ethny learns to bear her identity
After I told her that I would like to take her an interview, Georgiana prepared thoroughly with notes. She turns on her tablet with her forefinger easily trembling and I foresee the first lines: My name is Georgiana C*, I am 23 years old, I am a Bachelor in Journalism at the University from Bucharest and I am of gypsy ethny. You probably already labelled me, but I am asking you to read more than that.
Up to the age of 14, Georgiana wondered many times for she why her father is darker skinned than her, but she never confronted him, and he avoided the subject, even sometimes refused to visit her relatives in Ilfov – themselves being with darker skin as well. When she was 14, during a visit at the relatives from her father’s side, Georgiana’s uncle explained her that they belong to the gypsy ethny, that it’s not a shame to be gypsy, that we are normal people, but of gypsy ethny. In that moment, Georgiana had a shock. She thought that people will always see her as those from the street.
Immediately after she found out that she belongs to the gypsy ethny, Georgiana told her best friend, but she didn’t accept that. She told her that she is Romanian and she will always be Romanian, after that they never talked about this. These two girls spent their childhood together somewhere at the border of a district from Bucharest, in a disreputable area, where people lived in improvised houses, where they went by carts and with horses full of iron things, where you were deprived of the idea of safety. This was my childhood and in this way we shaped ourselves. In the middle school, Georgiana tried to get closer to all the children, even to the gypsy ones, although she didn’t know that she herself belongs to the same ethny, but her friend always rejected them.
Georgiana lives in a happy family, modest, in which, if there aren’t money for a bike, a doll is bought, in which it is ensured the access to education and support is given.
Georgiana’s parents, the mother Romanian and father gypsy, met each other in Vâlcea and they got married after her mother’s family facilitated their meeting, then they moved to Bucharest. Since then, Georgiana’s father kept his family away from his relatives, by living among Romanian people, and now, at 64, continues to say that he is Romanian, not gypsy, refusing to identify himself with his relatives. Nevertheless, his darker skin was the reason of many discriminations started even from childhood, that’s why he riots himself when he sees gypsies stealing or living on the streets, gypsies that contribute to the deepening of this discrimination and to the propagation of the stereotypes. My father expressed his desire to be buried in Bucharest, not in Ilfov where he already has a burial place, because he is afraid of the opinion that Georgiana’s friend could have and his family when they will come to the funeral and he will see so many gypsies around him.
With the help of the uncle and of his cousins who work at the Gypsies Party, Georgiana passed over the shock and her identity crisis, she understood
that things can change, that things can be made for the community, and in 2012 she took part in the first event created for and about the gypsy community, where she was surprised to see different people, educated people, workers, clean, with a better or worse financial situation, people like her, among which she easily adapted herself. But, she still can’t speak openly about who she is because she is afraid of classifications, of stereotypes, because she feels inhibited. After you say that you are a gypsy, nothing else matters. The look changes, the voice level, attitude, it doesn’t matter who you are behind your classification.
Georgiana’s parents didn’t have money for the faculty preparation, so that the girl entered one of the three places dedicated to the candidates of gypsy ethny. Here she felt for the first time the discrimination, after that the secretaries asked her defiantly why she doesn’t still know how to fill in a request. It was about the declaration at her own risk on the gypsy identity, a document which she saw for the first time.
The second time when she felt discriminated was in the 1st year of faculty. During a seminar, a few colleagues were saying their anger and their irritated mood on the existence of the special places for gypsies which, they thought, are taken from the budgetary places for them. Georgiana remembers about a colleague who said that gypsies are gypsy, they will never change, and they won’t give up begging or stealing, reason that made her to confess in front of everybody that she is of gypsy ethny. Georgiana’s fair skin surprised her colleague, the only one who asked her then details about her family, about her childhood, about her life as a member of the gypsy community.
But, until the 2nd year, when she made friends with her colleague, Roxana, Georgiana was isolated, she went out immediately after the classes finished, I felt that I didn’t belong to the group. ‘’I felt that I shouldn’t be there, I wanted to give up the faculty because of my inner experiences and their despise’’ when they talked badly about her calling her, in secret, gypsy.
The first question that Roxana asked Georgiana was if she knows to dance in a gypsy way. She knew from her grandmother, she is the only one from the family that knows the moves and was glad of Roxana’s curiosity. She behaved normally with me, and this helped me.
At the suggestion of the coordinating teacher, Georgiana chose herself for the Bachelor’s Thesis the subject Representations of the gypsy ethny in the Romanian press, a paper suggested by her coordinating teacher. In a trembling voice and easily choked, she started the presentation of her paper in front of the Evaluation Committee with the message: Good afternoon, my name is Georgiana C. and I am gypsy. If in the first year we think that I cannot do anything for the gypsy community, now my opinion changed.
At present, Georgiana is a promoter and she likes that because the field proved her that she can talk to different people from all points of view. She would like to open herself a blog in which she can write little stories of the people of gypsy ethny from around her who didn’t have the chances that she had. But she is still afraid of speaking openly. She feels sorry that she couldn’t help an ex neighbor who lives in an improvised place with his children, after the city hall evicted them from their house. She would like that at least to write about problems and about people as her neighbor. She will try, in the same way she tries to say openly now who she is, although she still chokes herself and she loses her voice when she does that.
*Georgiana wanted me and chose not to mention her family name, that’s why I used initials.
This article can be read here as well:
https://anamcostache.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/etichete/
