May 28, 2012 • 27 mins
Does "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" accurately portray gypsy/traveler culture? In this episode, Caroline and Cristen examine the not-so-simple history of gypsies, as well as the culture of gypsies in the United States.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From House Stuffworks dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And we don't talk about
(00:23):
hit TV shows that often on podcast. I mean, we've
talked about New Girl, mad Men, we mentioned my strange addiction,
Nikita La fem Nikita, don't even get me started again
your favorite? Um, but it doesn't come up. I feel
like TV doesn't come up all that often, especially not
specific reality television shows like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, right,
(00:50):
which has caused quite a stir, especially since it's come
to America. And so now it's My Big Fat American
Gypsy Wedding or Gypsy American Wedding. I'm not sure it's
one of the two. But that debut late April of
this year, twelve and uh, it's It's caused a lot
of discussion to happen because, um, some people are saying
(01:10):
that it portrays the roma or traveler community in an
unfavorable light. Other people are saying that it's pure entertainment. Yeah,
and the show airs on the TLC Network, which we
should say is part of our corporate family. Um, but
we're really not wanting to talk so much about My
(01:31):
Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and what you might see on
the shows, but more to provide a factual background for
what is on there because you see the advertisements. You see, uh,
these typically preteen and early teen girls dressed up and
lots of makeup and dresses. And because the whole so
(01:56):
narrative arc of My Big fet Gypsy Wedding is that
each episode usually follows a group of travelers who are
preparing for some kind of celebration, whether it be a
wedding or prom. I've only seen one episode of it, actually,
and it was all about um, one girl who was
going to prom and her address was enormous huge. Uh,
(02:18):
they didn't she couldn't fit onto the limo with everybody.
We'll see if they'd have it of those limits that
has the pool in the back, they could have destrained
the pool and put her on that. I don't know,
I don't know. That's random solver. But okay, so we
should probably go ahead and talk about, um what these people,
(02:39):
these different groups of people are called. Because we've used
the word gypsy, and that is offensive too many. Um.
It's also being reappropriated by some groups as a general
term for their culture, but the actual word itself is
a misnomer throughout their history of existence. Basically, Yeah, figuring
out the the history of the Gypsy or Roma people,
(03:04):
it's tricky to do because for a long time, no
one really knew where these people came from. And there
was this assumption that because there was a large group
of them as the centuries ago, a large group of
them in Greece, they were assumed to have come from Egypt.
They had darker complexions than another Greeks, right, and one
(03:27):
book even positive that maybe some of them did tell
people they were Egyptian, just you know, why not. Um,
But this group's ancestors really have nothing to do with
Egypt Egyptians North Africa. They came from northern India and
about the eleventh century uh fleeing in the wake of
raids that sought to spread Islam. Yeah, and so they
(03:49):
were sent out of India and they gradually begin to
settle westward. And uh scholars put this together once they
realized that, Um, there were bits of Sanskrit in their
vocabulary and so they've traced them back to India. But
(04:09):
we should also distinguish between people of romani as these
folks are called, who came from India, and travelers, who
are featured very heavily in UM the British version of
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, who are nomads of Irish
or English origins. UM and travelers referred to non travelers
(04:30):
like you and I Caroline as settled people. Pretty sound
makes you sound pretty boring. I mean, I rent, I
don't own, so I'm not entirely settled. But I actually
when I lived in Augusta, UM, and if you're anywhere
from around that area, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I actually lived very near a settlement called Murphy Village,
which was in South Carolina, which isn't Irish traveler settlement.
(04:53):
And my sister in law, who went to nursing school
in Augusta, actually used to do outreach work in their
neighborhood because these are a very insulated people. They have
very insulated communities because they're suspicious of outsiders. I mean,
they've been treated pretty poorly for centuries based on you know,
observed differences, perceived differences, and so on. But I remember
(05:15):
my sister in law actually warning me that if I
ever went to go check out Murphy Village to make
sure that I had a full tank of gas and
had recently had my car toomed up. Well, it seems
like that that suspicion goes, Yeah, it goes both ways
of outsiders, um, you know, heaping all of these bigoted
stereotypes on Gypsies as thieves and liars, whereas you know,
(05:38):
gypsies have no interest in fraternizing with non settled people
because basically because we're jerks and they've you know, they've
they've existed outside of mainstream society for so long. Um.
And writing in response to the exposure that they've gotten
(05:58):
from my big Fat Chips the Wedding, Irish traveler Christine
Crawley riding in the Guardians says that most gypsies and
travelers try hard to integrate with their neighbors wherever they live,
but bigotry means some have to hide who they are.
And it's because we are so fiercely protective of our
children that we are so afraid so that that snippet
(06:19):
gives a hint at the just how deep these kind
of um I guess two way suspicions run. I mean,
it doesn't help that, for instance, recently in France, the
Roma have essentially been kicked out by the guy. Yeah,
nobody really wants them. It's it's sort of a massive
immigration issue without really being an immigration issue. Yeah, and
(06:40):
they're referred to as Roma or Romani because Romania has
historically been the friendliest to them in terms of government benefits,
actually allowing them to set up traveler camps there without
um hustling them on their way right, And Professor Ian Hancock,
who is the director of the Romani Archives and doc
Mentation Center at the University of Texas, himself a Romani
(07:04):
Gypsy of Romani Gypsy origin, says that, Yeah, for the
bulk of their history, these people have lived in the West.
They might have had an Asian origin, but that, as
he said, that was a thousand years ago. So for
the bulk of our existence, we've lived in the West
in places like Romania have given them sort of not
a settlement. They're not They're not settled people like we are.
(07:26):
So since TLC just kicked off this season of big
ed Gypsy wedding taking place in the United States, some
listeners might be wondering how travelers and Roman communities transplanted
over here. And some Irish travelers came to America during
the Potato famine of the mid nineteenth century, and about
(07:47):
thousand still live in Ireland. And Caroline, you mentioned uh
Murphy Village near Augusta, Georgia, and that actually is the
largest traveler community in the United States. It's it's a
very strange community. And of course I say this as
an outsider, you know, it's just like it's just like
a subtle person would, But it's very interesting they have.
(08:09):
They built these humongous houses, and travelers are are overall
sort of known as being devoutly Roman Catholic, and so
they build these huge houses with giant statues of Jesus
in the Virgin Mary in the front yard, and their
windows are covered in tinfoil. They don't actually most of
them don't actually live in the houses. They live in
(08:30):
nearby um trailer parks. Actually, it's it's a very interesting culture.
I was actually in the mall one time, trying on
shoes like I do, and I heard this woman near me.
She was with a bunch of other women and some children,
and she was talking in this weird accent, and all
I could think was, Man, that woman has a thick
Southern accident. I can't understand anything she's saying. And it's
(08:53):
because she was probably speaking Shelter, which is one of
their UM, it's one of their languages. Basically, that's kind
have taken directly from their Irish dialects that they spoke
when they were still in Ireland. And in addition to Shelter,
travelers may also speak Gammon or can't and all of
these combined elements of Irish, Gaelic, English, Greek, and Hebrew,
(09:15):
which UM is so indicative of their travels picking up
different elements of different languages as they moved across the
across the European continent, right, Well, just like the Romani
did um when they moved out of India. So a
lot of you mentioned Sanskrit earlier, so a lot of
their language, you know, maintained some of that Indian language.
(09:39):
But when they moved into the Greek speaking Byzantine Empire,
all of a sudden, now they're incorporating a lot of
Greek words. They just sort of picked up vocabulary as
they went along, and so it's interesting, um, Hancock, who
I who I mentioned earlier, points out that Greek words
are second only two Indian words in their vocabulary. And
(10:00):
the same time, it's been really difficult to keep track of, um,
the Roma language, because you know, it's such a diaspora
and everyone's speaking slightly different dialects. And that's one of
things that scholars like in Hancock I tried to do
is actually start to keep track of this history and
(10:20):
this culture, as scattered though it might be. UM. And
in addition to the travelers in the United States, we
also have Gypsy populations of the ram Ludar Romnicles. I
hope I'm not mispronouncing that Black Dutch and Hungarian Gypsies
who came to us from places like Serbia, Russia, Austria, Hungary. Um,
(10:44):
we have the romnica Ales, and I feel like I
must be saying that wrong. Um, But they are English
Gypsies who came over starting in eighteen fifty. UM, the
Black Dutch or Gypsies from Germany. Um, Hungarian Gypsies. Can
you guess where they came from? Yeah? And they worked
as musicians in the Hungarian and Slovak immigrants settlements here
in America. Yeah. A lot of um. Gypsies are music makers,
(11:08):
they are into animal husbandry, jewelry making, furniture making. There's
the whole thing of like the fortune tellers. Um. But yeah,
and that's and that's one complaint that some gypsies and
travelers have had about the portrayal on reality television is
that it's just showing this um superficial side of it
(11:29):
and not showing them actually working hard at these you know,
these traditional crafts that they have kept up for centuries. Now,
well you could argue that part of the issue now
is unemployment or underemployment among these communities because of their
traditional skills which really aren't in use now. I mean,
the original Irish travelers in Ireland would go from town
(11:51):
to town in horse drawn carts and they would earn
money through busting and ten smithing, which is how they
came to be known among outsiders subtle people as anchors,
which is a slur that they definitely do not like.
And along with the issue of unemployment, as we mentioned earlier,
there is the association with begging and pickpocketing. And if
(12:13):
you go into some communities and talk to some travelers
and some roma, they will they'll say, yeah, some of
us do commit crimes. Yes, this happens, but that is
not who we are. There's still that issue of of
prejudice um. But when it gets down to family structure,
it is about as paternalistic as it comes today. I mean,
(12:35):
the men and the women have their own kind of
separate well realms, and women definitely wield a certain authority
within the house. But when it comes to I mean,
when it comes to day to day living, it's still
the men who are calling on the shots. If there
is a dispute within the community. The men essentially form
these councils that will decide on things, whereas women are
(13:00):
expected to do the housework if their girls are expected
to stay virgins, help around with mom, and get married
pretty early. Yeah. Well, and Isabel Fonseca's book Burying Me
Standing the Gypsies and their Journey, it is very interesting.
She she sort of imbeds with some Roma families and
talks about how these very young girls are having children.
(13:21):
So these babies end up having grandmother's great grandmother's great
great great grandmother's um and there's all this support, which
is great because it's just the girl's job to be
young and have babies. Well, I mean, there's uh something
to be said for the younger girls helping out with
um their siblings. You know, that's something that a child
(13:42):
care system, family structure that goes back for a long time,
that's simply become outdated. For settled people, that still goes on.
But there is a concern over whether or not they
should be arranging a marriage for a fourteen year old,
and that's something that's a big controversy to that this
show has raised because as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
(14:04):
the title implies, yes, there's a lot of focus on
young girls attracting husbands and potentially getting married. Yeah. Well,
I mean, speaking of the show, it's an interesting kind
of duality. Uh. Slate magazine had an interview with some
of the young women that are featured in the show,
(14:26):
and one girl, who's a Roman gypsy from Georgia actually
said that, you know, we can't kiss or talk or flirt,
so this whole dressing and skinny clothes and everything is
the best way to get a boy's attention. And then
she says, plus, it's in my blood. We just love
to dress real fancy. Well, and along with that she is. Um,
(14:48):
she knows that boys who are not in the Roma
traveler community will look at her and assume certain things
based on the way that she is dressed that could
endanger you know, her, her purity. So yeah, I mean,
there is this, this whole duality. And she she talks
(15:08):
about how, Um, when she went to middle school, she
was no longer in like formal school, she was home
school a few days per week, but when she would
go to middle school, she would talk about kids making
out in the hallway, and she says, that's just something
a gypsy girl should not be exposed to. And yet
we're horrified by seeing, you know, the girls and belly
(15:31):
bearing shirts and super short shorts and lots of makeup
and spray tans. Well, as the writer at Slate points out,
it's sort of the clothing serves to separate these girls
because even though it's skimpy and we think, oh my gosh,
that girl is you know, potentially putting herself in harm's way. Um,
she knows to stay away from outsider boys because it's
(15:53):
been hammered into her head basically by her family. Um.
And speaking more to the issue of gypsy girls up
to seventy of women in the Roma community are illiterate.
This issue of schooling, or the lack of schooling UM
is a pervasive problem among Gypsy and traveler communities. UM,
(16:14):
and teenage pregnancy is expected and desired on top of that,
so you know, you don't really need to get all
that school because soon you're going to be a mom.
And as the Economist points out, some families take their
kids out of school not only because they expect their
young girls, their young daughters to start getting married and
having babies, but they also partially want to maintain their
Gypsy distinctiveness. Right, it's all about maintaining culture. UM. There's
(16:36):
a two thousand nine column and The Guardian by former
traveler Roxy Freeman who talked about how she had never
been to school to school, but that wasn't really a
big deal, because she writes, many like me never attend
school while others are illiterate because formal education is not
a priority in our culture. So while the lack of
education formal education has been UM a big concern for
(17:00):
public officials UM, who might have you know, Roma or
traveler populations in their communities. UH. The issue of health
is also a big problem as well, because Eastern European ROMA,
for instance, die ten to fifteen years earlier than the
general population and UM. A study published in the journal
(17:21):
Lancet attributes SET to social factors like poverty, substandard housing,
limited access to healthcare, and inadequate nutrition. Because I don't
know if we've noted uh, we've pointed out the statistics,
but poverty is a huge issue. UM. This is from
UNI set statistics from two thousand. Five percent of ROMA
(17:41):
in Bulgaria, in Romania and in Hungary live below the
poverty line. Well, I mean, if you if you're living
in poverty and you're an insulated society, will you go
out and seek healthcare? I mean unless it's an emergency
and you've you know, cut your foot off or something. UM.
But a lot of the health issues they face are
(18:03):
like diabetes, coronary artery disease, UM issues with a lot
of higher elevations of fat in the blood and obesity.
So all of these things are really tied together, all
these health issues, and there's also UM a higher infant
mortality rate UM in Italy it's three times higher. Among
the Roman and Ireland it's twice as high. And they
attribute that to Roman women beginning to have children earlier
(18:26):
and having smaller babies as a result. And in Slovakia
the low birthwate is four times more common among the Roma,
just underscoring um that issue of the infant mortality gap.
But again, it's that whole issue of UM, the installation.
You know, they might not be stepping forward to self
report these kind of health problems. Health workers aren't necessarily
(18:48):
being welcomed with open arms into the communities. So what
do you do because there's still this persistent problem of discrimination, right,
as I and Hancock, who we've mentioned several times pointed out,
we're the largest ethnic minority in Europe, but have no
political strength, military strength, economic strength, or a territory. And
(19:10):
and so it's interesting to make the argument of having
basically a home base for the Roman or traveler populations
because that kind of goes against their culture that they've
maintained for so many years and that some of them
want to maintain. But as but Hancock argues, you know,
when when people with like Americans, for instance, went from
the cart to the car, nobody thought that was a
(19:33):
bad thing. That was progress, But why is it bad
when my people want to do it. Why should we
try to maintain things that aren't in our best interest
just to maintain the sort of sense of culture or community.
Hancock describes the Romani people as a foreign, undesirable population
like the Jews. We were the quintessential outsiders. And speaking
(19:55):
of Jews, one thing that I didn't know until I
was researching on Um the Gypsies, that they were thousands
of them were also exterminated during the Holocaust as well,
and during the Nuremberg trials, only one um Nazi official
it was held accountable specifically for crimes committed against Um
(20:15):
the Roma people, And that's something that's you know, not
in the history books that often probably because they have
been such a blighted population, right, Well, they're not that
you can't point to a country or a religion and
say they are persecuting these people for this particular reason,
from being from this place, from looking like this. They're
(20:36):
more of a kind of a nebulous group of people.
And so, yeah, I guess it's harder to really tally
up the exact number of people who perished. And you know,
Hancock attributes that you know, they're non Christian, non white,
and associated with Islam. For centuries, and so that immediately
aroused suspicion they were outside the norm. And it doesn't
(20:56):
help that you have um people like check politicians too.
In a Night Economists article referred to them as born
criminal you know, I mean, how are you like, for instance,
take the situation in France where they were recently um
sent out of the the country and we aren't talking
(21:18):
about that many people. And yeah, there are these problems
of kids not going to school and girls being um
you know, raised in very uh patriarchal household structures, and
the poor health conditions and the issue of crime. But
if you just keep kicking them out of places, nothing
that's ever nothing's ever going to change, right. But I mean,
(21:40):
I guess too, you could stay on the flip side
that the you know, the groups don't necessarily want their
way of life to change. I mean, what we see
in the in the show for instance on TLC is
such a small sliver of their existence. And so that's
why some people are arguing, you know, either show show
us in a more uttering light, don't show any of
(22:01):
this at all, and some people are glad for the attention.
I mean, it just depends or even not as flattering,
but maybe more comprehensive than just following them to the
channing salons, to the dressmaker and you know, to the
playground when they during school hours, you know, show them working,
show them interacting with their families, with their communities instead
(22:26):
of just being ostracized essentially. So I gotta say, you know,
even though I have only watched one episode show, it
was it was entertaining, but having done the research as
well on their history, there was something uncomfortable about watching
it as well. I mean, this isn't the first reality
show to potentially, you know, exploit a a community or
(22:50):
a group because of those kind of differences that they
have from the mainstream UM. But with Gypsies, like you said,
because they had there's not that one country of origin
to point to and one concise history. They don't even have,
you know, a language that they all share. I think
that it makes them more vulnerable to these kinds of
(23:14):
UM I don't know, to people outsiders misinterpreting their lifestyle
and their values. There is and there is more activism happening.
For instance, I saw one website in the UK that
was seeking to basically provide um roma and traveler populations
children with the same educational opportunities like keep your children
in school, let's you know, provide lunches for them. There's
(23:36):
several charities that have sprung up over the years to
try to do that. So that's all that we have
to say about UM, the Roma Gypsy traveler communities. I
hope that we offered some kind of insight into all
of the pop culture coverage that they've been getting lately. UM,
(23:57):
but any feedback from listeners. Be interested to hear if
folks are into the show, if they've seen it, UM,
if they've had contact with Gypsy communities, if you are
of Aroma origin, yeah, I would absolutely love Oh my gosh,
I would love to hear from someone who's from Murphy Village.
(24:17):
And if they're offended by what my sister in law
said about, make sure you have a full take a gas.
But I mean people outsiders were scared of that community basically,
well a lot of times, you know, people are scared
of things that look different from them. So Mom stuff
at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters,
and I've got a letter here in response to our
(24:39):
episode on nail painting. Nail polish painting, painting, nails with
nail polish. This is from Carrie, who writes, I'm getting
married in September and my fiancee plans to get his
nails done with all the grooms men the morning of
the wedding. He was planning on all of them having
clear nail polish until I told them they could get
a manicure with any nail polish at all. Of all
(25:02):
the unique slash crazy ideas he has had for our wedding,
including walking down the aisle, wearing jerseys and having a
chemical reaction as a symbol of unity in the ceremony,
people seem to be the most opposed to the men
getting manicures. It is only it is the only one
of the ideas most people, both girls and guys, think
he must be joking about, whereas most of the other
(25:23):
ideas the girls seemed to think are crazy and the
guy's love with all the opposition. We'll see if it
actually happens or the groomsman mutiny before the wedding. I say,
get the manicures the man, clean up your cuticles a little,
get him buffed. Why not? Yeah, I can't hurt Thanks Gary. Well.
This is an email from Jenny about our prom podcast,
(25:44):
she said, I have a rather unusual prom story. My
tickets and dress were paid for by my school to
say thank you to my mother for doing so much
volunteer work, and because they knew my father had been
out of work for about two years and things were
tight for my family. I chose a simple tea length
a line dress that cost rounds seventy five dollars, and
at the last minute, my ten year old sister came
as my date. I had dinner with my friends at
(26:05):
the Hibachi Steakhouse, where we were all surprised by someone
anonymously paying our dinner bill. I met my sister at
the dance, most of which we spent waiting in line
for a horse drawn carriage ride around the block. While
we were waiting, we were entertained by a little band
playing swing music, and my sister and I put down
our things and started swing dancing in the street. Several
other couples joined us and we had a fantastic time. Afterwards,
she went home and I went to a co ed
(26:26):
slumber party with about fifteen people. We stayed up eight
junk food, watched movies, and crashed out on the floor.
Because my sister and I had our photo taken. My
prom cost me a grand total of thirty five dollars.
Even if I had paid for everything, my prom would
have cost less than two hundred dollars. And even more importantly,
my sister and I had a fantastic time. And I'm
the only person I know who, thirteen years later, can
(26:47):
still say I love the person I went to prom with.
Isn't that sweet? That that's We've gotten some great prom stories.
I gotta say, that's taken your sort of it is. Yeah,
that's great. So if you have any sweet stories to
send our way. Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is
where you can send your letters, or you can send
(27:08):
us a message. You can send us a message or
a message on Facebook, or you can follow us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast. And if you'd like to
learn more about what you've heard today, you can head
over to our website and read how Gypsies Work by
me at how stuff works dot com for more on
(27:30):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com brought to you by the reinvented two
thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From House Stuffworks dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And we don't talk about
(00:23):
hit TV shows that often on podcast. I mean, we've
talked about New Girl, mad Men, we mentioned my strange addiction,
Nikita La fem Nikita, don't even get me started again
your favorite? Um, but it doesn't come up. I feel
like TV doesn't come up all that often, especially not
specific reality television shows like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, right,
(00:50):
which has caused quite a stir, especially since it's come
to America. And so now it's My Big Fat American
Gypsy Wedding or Gypsy American Wedding. I'm not sure it's
one of the two. But that debut late April of
this year, twelve and uh, it's It's caused a lot
of discussion to happen because, um, some people are saying
(01:10):
that it portrays the roma or traveler community in an
unfavorable light. Other people are saying that it's pure entertainment. Yeah,
and the show airs on the TLC Network, which we
should say is part of our corporate family. Um, but
we're really not wanting to talk so much about My
(01:31):
Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and what you might see on
the shows, but more to provide a factual background for
what is on there because you see the advertisements. You see, uh,
these typically preteen and early teen girls dressed up and
lots of makeup and dresses. And because the whole so
(01:56):
narrative arc of My Big fet Gypsy Wedding is that
each episode usually follows a group of travelers who are
preparing for some kind of celebration, whether it be a
wedding or prom. I've only seen one episode of it, actually,
and it was all about um, one girl who was
going to prom and her address was enormous huge. Uh,
(02:18):
they didn't she couldn't fit onto the limo with everybody.
We'll see if they'd have it of those limits that
has the pool in the back, they could have destrained
the pool and put her on that. I don't know,
I don't know. That's random solver. But okay, so we
should probably go ahead and talk about, um what these people,
(02:39):
these different groups of people are called. Because we've used
the word gypsy, and that is offensive too many. Um.
It's also being reappropriated by some groups as a general
term for their culture, but the actual word itself is
a misnomer throughout their history of existence. Basically, Yeah, figuring
out the the history of the Gypsy or Roma people,
(03:04):
it's tricky to do because for a long time, no
one really knew where these people came from. And there
was this assumption that because there was a large group
of them as the centuries ago, a large group of
them in Greece, they were assumed to have come from Egypt.
They had darker complexions than another Greeks, right, and one
(03:27):
book even positive that maybe some of them did tell
people they were Egyptian, just you know, why not. Um,
But this group's ancestors really have nothing to do with
Egypt Egyptians North Africa. They came from northern India and
about the eleventh century uh fleeing in the wake of
raids that sought to spread Islam. Yeah, and so they
(03:49):
were sent out of India and they gradually begin to
settle westward. And uh scholars put this together once they
realized that, Um, there were bits of Sanskrit in their
vocabulary and so they've traced them back to India. But
(04:09):
we should also distinguish between people of romani as these
folks are called, who came from India, and travelers, who
are featured very heavily in UM the British version of
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, who are nomads of Irish
or English origins. UM and travelers referred to non travelers
(04:30):
like you and I Caroline as settled people. Pretty sound
makes you sound pretty boring. I mean, I rent, I
don't own, so I'm not entirely settled. But I actually
when I lived in Augusta, UM, and if you're anywhere
from around that area, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I actually lived very near a settlement called Murphy Village,
which was in South Carolina, which isn't Irish traveler settlement.
(04:53):
And my sister in law, who went to nursing school
in Augusta, actually used to do outreach work in their
neighborhood because these are a very insulated people. They have
very insulated communities because they're suspicious of outsiders. I mean,
they've been treated pretty poorly for centuries based on you know,
observed differences, perceived differences, and so on. But I remember
(05:15):
my sister in law actually warning me that if I
ever went to go check out Murphy Village to make
sure that I had a full tank of gas and
had recently had my car toomed up. Well, it seems
like that that suspicion goes, Yeah, it goes both ways
of outsiders, um, you know, heaping all of these bigoted
stereotypes on Gypsies as thieves and liars, whereas you know,
(05:38):
gypsies have no interest in fraternizing with non settled people
because basically because we're jerks and they've you know, they've
they've existed outside of mainstream society for so long. Um.
And writing in response to the exposure that they've gotten
(05:58):
from my big Fat Chips the Wedding, Irish traveler Christine
Crawley riding in the Guardians says that most gypsies and
travelers try hard to integrate with their neighbors wherever they live,
but bigotry means some have to hide who they are.
And it's because we are so fiercely protective of our
children that we are so afraid so that that snippet
(06:19):
gives a hint at the just how deep these kind
of um I guess two way suspicions run. I mean,
it doesn't help that, for instance, recently in France, the
Roma have essentially been kicked out by the guy. Yeah,
nobody really wants them. It's it's sort of a massive
immigration issue without really being an immigration issue. Yeah, and
(06:40):
they're referred to as Roma or Romani because Romania has
historically been the friendliest to them in terms of government benefits,
actually allowing them to set up traveler camps there without
um hustling them on their way right, And Professor Ian Hancock,
who is the director of the Romani Archives and doc
Mentation Center at the University of Texas, himself a Romani
(07:04):
Gypsy of Romani Gypsy origin, says that, Yeah, for the
bulk of their history, these people have lived in the West.
They might have had an Asian origin, but that, as
he said, that was a thousand years ago. So for
the bulk of our existence, we've lived in the West
in places like Romania have given them sort of not
a settlement. They're not They're not settled people like we are.
(07:26):
So since TLC just kicked off this season of big
ed Gypsy wedding taking place in the United States, some
listeners might be wondering how travelers and Roman communities transplanted
over here. And some Irish travelers came to America during
the Potato famine of the mid nineteenth century, and about
(07:47):
thousand still live in Ireland. And Caroline, you mentioned uh
Murphy Village near Augusta, Georgia, and that actually is the
largest traveler community in the United States. It's it's a
very strange community. And of course I say this as
an outsider, you know, it's just like it's just like
a subtle person would, But it's very interesting they have.
(08:09):
They built these humongous houses, and travelers are are overall
sort of known as being devoutly Roman Catholic, and so
they build these huge houses with giant statues of Jesus
in the Virgin Mary in the front yard, and their
windows are covered in tinfoil. They don't actually most of
them don't actually live in the houses. They live in
(08:30):
nearby um trailer parks. Actually, it's it's a very interesting culture.
I was actually in the mall one time, trying on
shoes like I do, and I heard this woman near me.
She was with a bunch of other women and some children,
and she was talking in this weird accent, and all
I could think was, Man, that woman has a thick
Southern accident. I can't understand anything she's saying. And it's
(08:53):
because she was probably speaking Shelter, which is one of
their UM, it's one of their languages. Basically, that's kind
have taken directly from their Irish dialects that they spoke
when they were still in Ireland. And in addition to Shelter,
travelers may also speak Gammon or can't and all of
these combined elements of Irish, Gaelic, English, Greek, and Hebrew,
(09:15):
which UM is so indicative of their travels picking up
different elements of different languages as they moved across the
across the European continent, right, Well, just like the Romani
did um when they moved out of India. So a
lot of you mentioned Sanskrit earlier, so a lot of
their language, you know, maintained some of that Indian language.
(09:39):
But when they moved into the Greek speaking Byzantine Empire,
all of a sudden, now they're incorporating a lot of
Greek words. They just sort of picked up vocabulary as
they went along, and so it's interesting, um, Hancock, who
I who I mentioned earlier, points out that Greek words
are second only two Indian words in their vocabulary. And
(10:00):
the same time, it's been really difficult to keep track of, um,
the Roma language, because you know, it's such a diaspora
and everyone's speaking slightly different dialects. And that's one of
things that scholars like in Hancock I tried to do
is actually start to keep track of this history and
(10:20):
this culture, as scattered though it might be. UM. And
in addition to the travelers in the United States, we
also have Gypsy populations of the ram Ludar Romnicles. I
hope I'm not mispronouncing that Black Dutch and Hungarian Gypsies
who came to us from places like Serbia, Russia, Austria, Hungary. Um,
(10:44):
we have the romnica Ales, and I feel like I
must be saying that wrong. Um, But they are English
Gypsies who came over starting in eighteen fifty. UM, the
Black Dutch or Gypsies from Germany. Um, Hungarian Gypsies. Can
you guess where they came from? Yeah? And they worked
as musicians in the Hungarian and Slovak immigrants settlements here
in America. Yeah. A lot of um. Gypsies are music makers,
(11:08):
they are into animal husbandry, jewelry making, furniture making. There's
the whole thing of like the fortune tellers. Um. But yeah,
and that's and that's one complaint that some gypsies and
travelers have had about the portrayal on reality television is
that it's just showing this um superficial side of it
(11:29):
and not showing them actually working hard at these you know,
these traditional crafts that they have kept up for centuries. Now,
well you could argue that part of the issue now
is unemployment or underemployment among these communities because of their
traditional skills which really aren't in use now. I mean,
the original Irish travelers in Ireland would go from town
(11:51):
to town in horse drawn carts and they would earn
money through busting and ten smithing, which is how they
came to be known among outsiders subtle people as anchors,
which is a slur that they definitely do not like.
And along with the issue of unemployment, as we mentioned earlier,
there is the association with begging and pickpocketing. And if
(12:13):
you go into some communities and talk to some travelers
and some roma, they will they'll say, yeah, some of
us do commit crimes. Yes, this happens, but that is
not who we are. There's still that issue of of
prejudice um. But when it gets down to family structure,
it is about as paternalistic as it comes today. I mean,
(12:35):
the men and the women have their own kind of
separate well realms, and women definitely wield a certain authority
within the house. But when it comes to I mean,
when it comes to day to day living, it's still
the men who are calling on the shots. If there
is a dispute within the community. The men essentially form
these councils that will decide on things, whereas women are
(13:00):
expected to do the housework if their girls are expected
to stay virgins, help around with mom, and get married
pretty early. Yeah. Well, and Isabel Fonseca's book Burying Me
Standing the Gypsies and their Journey, it is very interesting.
She she sort of imbeds with some Roma families and
talks about how these very young girls are having children.
(13:21):
So these babies end up having grandmother's great grandmother's great
great great grandmother's um and there's all this support, which
is great because it's just the girl's job to be
young and have babies. Well, I mean, there's uh something
to be said for the younger girls helping out with
um their siblings. You know, that's something that a child
(13:42):
care system, family structure that goes back for a long time,
that's simply become outdated. For settled people, that still goes on.
But there is a concern over whether or not they
should be arranging a marriage for a fourteen year old,
and that's something that's a big controversy to that this
show has raised because as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
(14:04):
the title implies, yes, there's a lot of focus on
young girls attracting husbands and potentially getting married. Yeah. Well,
I mean, speaking of the show, it's an interesting kind
of duality. Uh. Slate magazine had an interview with some
of the young women that are featured in the show,
(14:26):
and one girl, who's a Roman gypsy from Georgia actually
said that, you know, we can't kiss or talk or flirt,
so this whole dressing and skinny clothes and everything is
the best way to get a boy's attention. And then
she says, plus, it's in my blood. We just love
to dress real fancy. Well, and along with that she is. Um,
(14:48):
she knows that boys who are not in the Roma
traveler community will look at her and assume certain things
based on the way that she is dressed that could
endanger you know, her, her purity. So yeah, I mean,
there is this, this whole duality. And she she talks
(15:08):
about how, Um, when she went to middle school, she
was no longer in like formal school, she was home
school a few days per week, but when she would
go to middle school, she would talk about kids making
out in the hallway, and she says, that's just something
a gypsy girl should not be exposed to. And yet
we're horrified by seeing, you know, the girls and belly
(15:31):
bearing shirts and super short shorts and lots of makeup
and spray tans. Well, as the writer at Slate points out,
it's sort of the clothing serves to separate these girls
because even though it's skimpy and we think, oh my gosh,
that girl is you know, potentially putting herself in harm's way. Um,
she knows to stay away from outsider boys because it's
(15:53):
been hammered into her head basically by her family. Um.
And speaking more to the issue of gypsy girls up
to seventy of women in the Roma community are illiterate.
This issue of schooling, or the lack of schooling UM
is a pervasive problem among Gypsy and traveler communities. UM,
(16:14):
and teenage pregnancy is expected and desired on top of that,
so you know, you don't really need to get all
that school because soon you're going to be a mom.
And as the Economist points out, some families take their
kids out of school not only because they expect their
young girls, their young daughters to start getting married and
having babies, but they also partially want to maintain their
Gypsy distinctiveness. Right, it's all about maintaining culture. UM. There's
(16:36):
a two thousand nine column and The Guardian by former
traveler Roxy Freeman who talked about how she had never
been to school to school, but that wasn't really a
big deal, because she writes, many like me never attend
school while others are illiterate because formal education is not
a priority in our culture. So while the lack of
education formal education has been UM a big concern for
(17:00):
public officials UM, who might have you know, Roma or
traveler populations in their communities. UH. The issue of health
is also a big problem as well, because Eastern European ROMA,
for instance, die ten to fifteen years earlier than the
general population and UM. A study published in the journal
(17:21):
Lancet attributes SET to social factors like poverty, substandard housing,
limited access to healthcare, and inadequate nutrition. Because I don't
know if we've noted uh, we've pointed out the statistics,
but poverty is a huge issue. UM. This is from
UNI set statistics from two thousand. Five percent of ROMA
(17:41):
in Bulgaria, in Romania and in Hungary live below the
poverty line. Well, I mean, if you if you're living
in poverty and you're an insulated society, will you go
out and seek healthcare? I mean unless it's an emergency
and you've you know, cut your foot off or something. UM.
But a lot of the health issues they face are
(18:03):
like diabetes, coronary artery disease, UM issues with a lot
of higher elevations of fat in the blood and obesity.
So all of these things are really tied together, all
these health issues, and there's also UM a higher infant
mortality rate UM in Italy it's three times higher. Among
the Roman and Ireland it's twice as high. And they
attribute that to Roman women beginning to have children earlier
(18:26):
and having smaller babies as a result. And in Slovakia
the low birthwate is four times more common among the Roma,
just underscoring um that issue of the infant mortality gap.
But again, it's that whole issue of UM, the installation.
You know, they might not be stepping forward to self
report these kind of health problems. Health workers aren't necessarily
(18:48):
being welcomed with open arms into the communities. So what
do you do because there's still this persistent problem of discrimination, right,
as I and Hancock, who we've mentioned several times pointed out,
we're the largest ethnic minority in Europe, but have no
political strength, military strength, economic strength, or a territory. And
(19:10):
and so it's interesting to make the argument of having
basically a home base for the Roman or traveler populations
because that kind of goes against their culture that they've
maintained for so many years and that some of them
want to maintain. But as but Hancock argues, you know,
when when people with like Americans, for instance, went from
the cart to the car, nobody thought that was a
(19:33):
bad thing. That was progress, But why is it bad
when my people want to do it. Why should we
try to maintain things that aren't in our best interest
just to maintain the sort of sense of culture or community.
Hancock describes the Romani people as a foreign, undesirable population
like the Jews. We were the quintessential outsiders. And speaking
(19:55):
of Jews, one thing that I didn't know until I
was researching on Um the Gypsies, that they were thousands
of them were also exterminated during the Holocaust as well,
and during the Nuremberg trials, only one um Nazi official
it was held accountable specifically for crimes committed against Um
(20:15):
the Roma people, And that's something that's you know, not
in the history books that often probably because they have
been such a blighted population, right, Well, they're not that
you can't point to a country or a religion and
say they are persecuting these people for this particular reason,
from being from this place, from looking like this. They're
(20:36):
more of a kind of a nebulous group of people.
And so, yeah, I guess it's harder to really tally
up the exact number of people who perished. And you know,
Hancock attributes that you know, they're non Christian, non white,
and associated with Islam. For centuries, and so that immediately
aroused suspicion they were outside the norm. And it doesn't
(20:56):
help that you have um people like check politicians too.
In a Night Economists article referred to them as born
criminal you know, I mean, how are you like, for instance,
take the situation in France where they were recently um
sent out of the the country and we aren't talking
(21:18):
about that many people. And yeah, there are these problems
of kids not going to school and girls being um
you know, raised in very uh patriarchal household structures, and
the poor health conditions and the issue of crime. But
if you just keep kicking them out of places, nothing
that's ever nothing's ever going to change, right. But I mean,
(21:40):
I guess too, you could stay on the flip side
that the you know, the groups don't necessarily want their
way of life to change. I mean, what we see
in the in the show for instance on TLC is
such a small sliver of their existence. And so that's
why some people are arguing, you know, either show show
us in a more uttering light, don't show any of
(22:01):
this at all, and some people are glad for the attention.
I mean, it just depends or even not as flattering,
but maybe more comprehensive than just following them to the
channing salons, to the dressmaker and you know, to the
playground when they during school hours, you know, show them working,
show them interacting with their families, with their communities instead
(22:26):
of just being ostracized essentially. So I gotta say, you know,
even though I have only watched one episode show, it
was it was entertaining, but having done the research as
well on their history, there was something uncomfortable about watching
it as well. I mean, this isn't the first reality
show to potentially, you know, exploit a a community or
(22:50):
a group because of those kind of differences that they
have from the mainstream UM. But with Gypsies, like you said,
because they had there's not that one country of origin
to point to and one concise history. They don't even have,
you know, a language that they all share. I think
that it makes them more vulnerable to these kinds of
(23:14):
UM I don't know, to people outsiders misinterpreting their lifestyle
and their values. There is and there is more activism happening.
For instance, I saw one website in the UK that
was seeking to basically provide um roma and traveler populations
children with the same educational opportunities like keep your children
in school, let's you know, provide lunches for them. There's
(23:36):
several charities that have sprung up over the years to
try to do that. So that's all that we have
to say about UM, the Roma Gypsy traveler communities. I
hope that we offered some kind of insight into all
of the pop culture coverage that they've been getting lately. UM,
(23:57):
but any feedback from listeners. Be interested to hear if
folks are into the show, if they've seen it, UM,
if they've had contact with Gypsy communities, if you are
of Aroma origin, yeah, I would absolutely love Oh my gosh,
I would love to hear from someone who's from Murphy Village.
(24:17):
And if they're offended by what my sister in law
said about, make sure you have a full take a gas.
But I mean people outsiders were scared of that community basically,
well a lot of times, you know, people are scared
of things that look different from them. So Mom stuff
at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters,
and I've got a letter here in response to our
(24:39):
episode on nail painting. Nail polish painting, painting, nails with
nail polish. This is from Carrie, who writes, I'm getting
married in September and my fiancee plans to get his
nails done with all the grooms men the morning of
the wedding. He was planning on all of them having
clear nail polish until I told them they could get
a manicure with any nail polish at all. Of all
(25:02):
the unique slash crazy ideas he has had for our wedding,
including walking down the aisle, wearing jerseys and having a
chemical reaction as a symbol of unity in the ceremony,
people seem to be the most opposed to the men
getting manicures. It is only it is the only one
of the ideas most people, both girls and guys, think
he must be joking about, whereas most of the other
(25:23):
ideas the girls seemed to think are crazy and the
guy's love with all the opposition. We'll see if it
actually happens or the groomsman mutiny before the wedding. I say,
get the manicures the man, clean up your cuticles a little,
get him buffed. Why not? Yeah, I can't hurt Thanks Gary. Well.
This is an email from Jenny about our prom podcast,
(25:44):
she said, I have a rather unusual prom story. My
tickets and dress were paid for by my school to
say thank you to my mother for doing so much
volunteer work, and because they knew my father had been
out of work for about two years and things were
tight for my family. I chose a simple tea length
a line dress that cost rounds seventy five dollars, and
at the last minute, my ten year old sister came
as my date. I had dinner with my friends at
(26:05):
the Hibachi Steakhouse, where we were all surprised by someone
anonymously paying our dinner bill. I met my sister at
the dance, most of which we spent waiting in line
for a horse drawn carriage ride around the block. While
we were waiting, we were entertained by a little band
playing swing music, and my sister and I put down
our things and started swing dancing in the street. Several
other couples joined us and we had a fantastic time. Afterwards,
she went home and I went to a co ed
(26:26):
slumber party with about fifteen people. We stayed up eight
junk food, watched movies, and crashed out on the floor.
Because my sister and I had our photo taken. My
prom cost me a grand total of thirty five dollars.
Even if I had paid for everything, my prom would
have cost less than two hundred dollars. And even more importantly,
my sister and I had a fantastic time. And I'm
the only person I know who, thirteen years later, can
(26:47):
still say I love the person I went to prom with.
Isn't that sweet? That that's We've gotten some great prom stories.
I gotta say, that's taken your sort of it is. Yeah,
that's great. So if you have any sweet stories to
send our way. Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is
where you can send your letters, or you can send
(27:08):
us a message. You can send us a message or
a message on Facebook, or you can follow us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast. And if you'd like to
learn more about what you've heard today, you can head
over to our website and read how Gypsies Work by
me at how stuff works dot com for more on
(27:30):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com brought to you by the reinvented two
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