Knowing Roma as Classmates, as Colleagues, as Leaders

Being the only Roma scholar at Columbia University, doing this work on a daily basis for the past seven years, leads to interesting conversations: the administrator who said, “I’ve heard about the Roma people but I’ve never talked to a Roma person”; the professor who never had a Roma student before (at least not one who was publicly self-identified); or discussions with graduate students and young professionals at Columbia who are at first quite puzzled about what I mean by Roma — do I mean Romania? Do I mean Rome? Or do I do the catering with Roma tomatoes? Okay, maybe not the last part.

I remember one such conversation with a student professional. He looked at me with an empty expression when I said “Roma”, and I told him that Roma are commonly, but mistakenly known as Gypsies. “Oh, Gypsies,” he reacted, “I mean, I did meet Gypsies before, begging on the subways in Paris.”

It was not the first time that someone curious about my work made that immediate association, which is not only stereotypical and unfortunate, but is also telling about a larger phenomenon: The lack of Roma professionals and students in universities and cultural spaces, as well as many other professions. I know that there are Roma in these spaces, but they do not self-identify because they fear the repercussions of sharing who they are, or because they do not want to engage in the labor that comes with such conversations: the cost is too high.

Being a Roma person, who doesn’t want to play down her Roma identity but in fact brings it to the attention of educators and professionals, is the hardest thing I have ever done. Most of the time it doesn’t bring me happiness, but it brings me meaning.

Just about the time when I get too cynical and too tired, there is somebody in our community who does something incredible, or there is some crack in rigid, hierarchical systems that makes a little more space and a little more light for Roma justice and Roma rights.

It’s even more challenging to do this as a woman, and even more so, to try to do it in a way that is creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, and that doesn’t recycle the same narratives and structures.

We need more institutional support, which takes time, because the status quo is a great force. That is why, while my team and I are making extraordinary efforts that take so much of our resources, the progress would not be possible without the extraordinary support of individuals who believe in our cause.

I hope for a future when I will not be the only Roma in that professor’s class or who walks in that administrator’s office, and that young professional might think twice about his comments on the Roma people. Instead of him seeing us as beggars on the streets or subways, he would know us as his classmates, colleagues, and leaders.