The one million Roma in the U.S. are used to living in the shadows, but lately activists are actively promoting a sense of ethnic identity
In the U.S., they’re scattered: coming from a multitude of countries, speaking many dialects, practicing disparate traditions, and observing various levels of traditionalism. But few Americans realize that there are Roma living in their midst, or that they’ve been here since the beginning—three Roma are said to have accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. And the Roma count a number of high-profile figures in their ranks. Guitarist Django Reinhardt was Romani, and some theorize such disparate icons as Charlie Chaplin, Michael Caine, Elvis Presley, and even former President Bill Clinton come from Roma roots.
Undocumented by the U.S. Census, American Roma may keep their heritage under wraps, but when it does emerge, they’ve faced discrimination from friends, landlords, waiters, classmates, strangers, cops, store clerks, and professors. Many were raised with warnings not to tell others of their ethnic identity, and so they remain a hidden ingredient in America’s melting pot.
“American Roma come from many different sub-groups, so it is hard for them to organize when they may have little culturally in common,” says Dr. Carol Silverman, head of the anthropology department at the University of Oregon. But in the past decade, a new crop of activists has emerged, and they’re forming advocacy organizations and school programs to aid their underserved communities, determined to set the record straight on their cultural identity. But each headline-making event or raid can set their work back. Dr. Silverman calls the recent news from Europe “devastating for American Roma.”

Link: https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-gypsies-are-a-persecuted-minority-that-is-starting-to-fight-back

Today marks the 76th anniversary of the uprising of the Roma people as another victim and target of Nazism, which is rarely talked about in public.

On May 15, the highest command of the Nazi police decided to kill all the prisoners in the so-called "gypsy camp" in order to free up space for the transport of Jews from Hungary.

On the night of May 16, 1944, some 6,000 Roma from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp faced extinction in a desperate attempt to save their lives and oppose the German SS.

The Roma are raising the uprising with improvised weapons, fighting the soldiers with stones, iron pipes, wooden panels, barbed wire and smuggled planks. They managed to repel an attack by hundreds of German soldiers. They manage to delay the extinction. The next day, the German army, regrouped and heavily armed, quells the uprising. Half of the 6,000 detainees were sent to other camps, and the rest were killed on August 2.

However, such forms of resistance are largely not mentioned, nor are they adequately marked in today's commemorations of the struggle against fascism. In recent years, initiatives have been launched by Roma activists, recalling the historical resistance of the Roma people in brutal Nazi camps and (following the example of other movements) by updating the topic of reparations for past and current racist violence.

However, the failure of modern Europe in terms of the Holocaust against the Roma must be noted. Various programs adopted over the years to repair Holocaust victims provide financial compensation to certain groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, people with disabilities, and LGBT victims - some of whom include Roma. But reparations programs for Roma victims have not yet been adopted.

May 16 is a day to commemorate the resistance of the Roma, a lesser-known and forgotten target of Nazi Germany's racist policies.