Roma in Spain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roma in Spain are generally known as Gitanos. They used to speak a language known as Romany. Spanish Roma tend to speak Caló which is basically Andalusian Spanish with a large amount of Romani loan words. Estimates of the Spanish Gitano population range as low as 600,000 and as high as 800,000 with the Spanish government estimating between 650,000 and 700,000.[1]

[edit] History

It is generally accepted that the Roma migrated out of India into Europe as early as the eleventh century. There are records of their having arrived in Spain as early as 1425 and in Barcelona, in particular, by 1447. At first they were well received and were even accorded official protection by many local authorities. Spanish Roma are linked to Flamenco and have contributed a great deal to this Andalusian musical art. According to Blas Infante, in his book Orígenes de lo flamenco y secreto del cante jondo, etymologically, the word Flamenco comes from Andalusi Arabic fellah mengu, "Peasant without Land". Infante connects the huge amount of Muslim Andalusians who decided to stay and mix with the Gypsy newcomers instead of abandoning their lands because of their religious beliefs (Moriscos). After the Castilian conquest of Andalusia, the Reconquista, most of the land was expropriated and given to warlords and mercenaries who had helped the Castilian kings enterprise against Al-Andalus. When the Spanish Crown later ordered the expulsion or forceful conversion of the Andalusian Moriscos, many of them took refuge among the Gypsies, becoming fellah mengu in order to avoid persecution, or forced deportation. In 1492 the Gypsies were included too in the list of peoples to be assimilated or driven out. For about 300 years, Gypsies were subject to a number of laws and policies designed to eliminate them from Spain as an identifiable group: Gypsy settlements were broken up and the residents dispersed; sometimes, Gypsies were even required to marry non-Gypsies; they were denied their language and rituals as well as being excluded from public office and from guild membership. By the time this period had drawn to a close, Gypsies had been driven into a permanently submerged underclass from which they had not escaped in the late 1980s.

Under Francisco Franco, Gypsies were harassed or simply ignored although their children were (sometimes forcibly) scholarized. In the post-Franco era, however, Spanish government policy has been much more sympathetic toward them, especially in the area of social welfare and social services. Since 1983, for example, the government has operated a special program of compensatory education to promote educational rights for the disadvantaged, including those in Gypsy communities. The challenge will be to devise programs that bring the Gypsy population into the mainstream of the country's economic and political life without eroding the group's distinctive cultural and linguistic heritage.

[edit] Groups

Spanish Roma are usually divided into two main groups: gitanos and húngaros (for Hungarians). The former, which are by far the most numerous, are divided into subgroups classified by both social class and cultural differences. In the late 1980s, the gitanos lived predominantly in southern and central Spain. Many of them took up a sedentary form of life, working as street vendors or entertainers. Although poor and largely illiterate, they were usually well integrated into Spanish society.

Gitanos is a Spanish name, in southern France they are known as Gitans or more generally Tsiganes (includes the other French Roma) and in Portugal they are known as Ciganos. Similarly to the English word Gypsy, the name Gitano comes from Egiptiano (Egyptian), because in past centuries it was thought their origins were in the country of Egypt. After losing their original Romani language, they used Caló, a jargon with Spanish grammar and Romani vocabulary. "Caló" means "dark" in Caló and the Caló word for "Gitano" is calé, also "the dark ones". Caló is one of the influences of later Germanía and modern Spanish slang.

The húngaros, however, are Kalderash, one of the divisions of the group from Central Europe (hence the name). They were much poorer than the gitanos and lived an entirely nomadic lifestyle, usually in tents or shacks around the larger cities. They made their living by begging or stealing, and they were much more of a problem for Spanish authorities. Many gitanos denied the hungaros the status of being in their same ethnic group, but outsiders tend to regard them all as basically Gypsies. In any case, whatever common ethnic consciousness they possessed was not sufficient to make them a significant political force.

There is also a current trend of migration of Romanian and Slovak Roma into the country.

[edit] References

• This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.
• The Situation of Roma in Spain. The Open Society Institute, 2002 (PDF).
• Worth, Susannah and Sibley, Lucy R. "Maja Dress and the Andalusian Image of Spain." Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, Summer 1994, Vol. 12, pp.51-60.