It is estimated that there are one million Romani people in the United States. Though the Romani population in the United States has largely assimilated into American society, the largest concentrations are in Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, Southwestern United States, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida and the Northeast as well as in cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, and St. Louis.
The Romani, or Roma, are a nomadic ethnic group, often pejoratively referred to as Gypsies, who have been in the Americas since the first Romani people reportedly arrived on Christopher Columbus' third voyage in 1498. The largest wave of Romani immigrants came from the Balkans, Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia region in the late 19th century following the abolition of slavery in Romania in 1864. Romani immigration to the United States has continued at a steady rate ever since, with an increase of Romani immigration occurring in the late 20th century following the Porajmos in Nazi Germany and its occupied European territories and then the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
While there has been an increased consciousness of the existence of the Roma as an American people after the Cold War, the size of the Romani American population and the absence of a historical and cultural presence, such as the Romani have in Europe, make Americans largely unaware of the existence of the Romani as a people.
Most Romani Americans live in the United States's biggest cities, where the greatest economic opportunities exist. Romani Americans practice many different religions, usually based on the version of Christianity common in their country of origin, but fundamentalist Christian denominations have been growing in popularity among them.
The Roma live in populous cities such as New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, Las Vegas, Miami, and Portland as well as in rural areas in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, etc.
The colonization of the United States by Spain, Britain, and France brought Romani immigration to the Americas. The Spanish conquistadors and colonizers introduced the Romani population to the Americas during the period of Spanish colonial expansion. Despite many Romani individuals arriving in the United States during European colonization and under the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English empires, the history of Romani Americans is seldom discussed by researchers, and Romani Americans are largely underrepresented in American media. Additionally, Romani Americans tend to maintain a distance from non-Roma communities because of mistrust, leading to their isolation from mainstream American society. Their history in the U.S. is often described as “missing,” “lost,” or “forgotten” due to this underrepresentation and limited integration.
History
The Romani population is believed to descend from individuals of low-caste Dalit musicians originating from the Dom caste community in Northern India. These individuals may have migrated to Europe as a means of escaping the hierarchical constraints of the Hindu caste system and the practice of Untouchability. Subsequently, Romani communities established themselves in the United States through the process of European colonial expansion. Achievements Romani Americans have served as experts on official delegations to meetings and conferences in the U.S. held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). At an OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Roma issues in November 2013, Nathan Mick, who is Romani American, delivered the U.S. delegation's intervention and participated in working sessions on improving respect for the rights of Romani people. Another American Roma Dr. Ethel Brooks served as a moderator at this same event; she also spoke at the UN Holocaust Commemoration in New York in 2013 in commemoration of the Romani genocide during World War II. In January 2016, former President Barack Obama named Dr. Ethel Brooks to serve on the Holocaust Memorial Council, making her the only Romani American on the council since President Bill Clinton appointed Ian Hancock in 1997. The State Department's public diplomacy programs have benefited from several Romani American speakers including Hancock who have, over the years, traveled to several European countries with support from US embassies in order to discuss Romani issues and human rights. The State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor leads a regular meeting of a Romani working group, which gathers experts on Romani issues based in the Washington, D.C., including Romani Americans, to exchange information and discuss policy priorities for promoting Romani inclusion in Europe.
Voice of Roma was founded by Sani Rifati in 1996, and incorporated as a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization in 1999, in Sebastopol, California.
Schools for young Roma students have been set up in California, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, and Camden, New Jersey.
Pennsylvania, Indiana, Georgia and New Jersey passed discriminatory laws that targeted Romani people.
Migration to the US
Romani slaves were first shipped to the Americas with Christopher Columbus in 1498.Peter Boyd-Bowman (ed.), Indice geobiográfico de cuarenta mil pobladores españoles de América en el siglo XVI, vol. 1: 1493–1519 (Bogota: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1964), 171. There was Romani presence in Hispaniola, now present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Gitanos from Spain were the first Romani subgroup sent to the Americas. The first Roma to come to the United States arrived in Virginia, Georgia, New Jersey and Louisiana during the 1500s. Spain sent Romani slaves to their Louisiana colony between 1762 and 1800.The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, Volume 1; Volume 7 By Junius P. Rodriguez An Afro-Romani community exists in St. Martin Parish due to intermarriage of freed African American and Romani slaves. The first Roma to arrive in the United States came from the British Isles. Other Roma later came from the Mediterranean, along with the general shift of immigrants from northern to southern Europe. Among these were Roma, who moved out of Romania and Moldova in the nineteenth century. They travelled through Austria-Hungary, Italy and the Balkans, to arrive in New York in 1881. The Romanichal, the first Romani group to arrive in North America in large numbers, moved to America from Britain around 1850. The Rom were the second subgroup of Roma to immigrate to the United States. They came from Germany and other parts of western Europe. The third was the Ludar. They came from southern European ports beginning in 1882.
Iberian Gitanos and Balkan Romani, the ancestors of most of the Romani population in the United States today, began immigrating to the United States on a large scale over the latter half of the 19th century coinciding with the weakening grip of the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman Wars in Europe in the 19th century, which ultimately culminated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), freeing many ethnic Eastern Europeans from Ottoman dominance and producing new waves of Romani immigrants. Other Roma mainly came from Greece and Italy. England and Scotland had shipped Romani slaves to Virginia. The Kalderash first arrived in the United States in the 1880s. Many of them came from Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Serbia, as well as from Italy, Greece, Romania, and Turkey. The arrival of the Kalderash, rudari and the other subgroups of Romani at this time more or less wiped out the Roma who had arrived in United States during the colonial period. Their arrival coincided with the large wave of immigration from Eastern Europe. Early Romani immigrants listed such diverse occupations as farmer, laborer, showman, animal trainer, horse trader, musician, and coppersmith, among others, to census takers. In the 19th century, Romani American men tended to pursue nomadic European occupations, while Romani American women often practiced fortune telling.
In the early periods of English and Scottish governance, authorities transported "vagabonds," "beggars," and "Gypsies" to American colonies such as Virginia, where they were compelled to work as indentured servants in tobacco plantations. Legislation concerning banishment targeted the Irish, Roma, and Africans following the 1590s; an Act under Mary stipulated that any Romani person who lingered in England for over a month could face execution by hanging; subsequently, an Act under Elisabeth broadened the capital offenses to encompass those who, through certain deceptive speech or behavior, presented themselves as Gypsies. In 1628, eight men were executed for violating these statutes, while their female counterparts were sent to Virginia. In 1636, another group of Gypsies was apprehended; the Romani men were hanged, and the Romani women were drowned in Haddington. Additionally, Romani had children with Native Americans, and intermarriage between the Roma and First Nations was relatively common. In 1836, Natchitoches Judge Henry A. Bullard, the inaugural president of the Louisiana Historical Society, noted: "In the Western District [of his jurisdiction], there exist some families of Gipsey descent, who continue to exhibit that distinctive complexion and wildness of eye, characteristic of that unique race." Cotton Mather documented the massacre of the residents of an English settlement in Amesbury and Newberry Falls, Massachusetts, in July 1677, when a shared cause fostered an alliance between Native Americans and Roma.
That wave of Romani immigration comprised Romani-speaking peoples like the Kalderash, Machvaya, Lovari, and Churari, and ethnically Romani groups that had integrated more within the Central and Eastern European societies, such as the Boyash (Ludari) of Romania and the Bashalde of Slovakia.
Many of the Vlach Romani headed for the United States took an indirect means of traveling to America; this involved traveling by ship to countries such as Mexico, or arrive at Canada to retry entry or cross the border. This was due to the fact that, at the time, U.S. legislation prevented entry to "Gypsies", making it problematic for those who were perceived to be easily identifiable as Romani by their appearance.
In 1999, the United States pledged to take up to 20,000 Kosovan refugees; many of them were Roma.
By the 2000s, there has been some acknowledgement of the growing presence of Romani peoples within America as the Census forms of 2000 were disseminated for the first time in Romani language, furthermore, as of 2010, five sessions in Congress have been held to address the growing increase of Romani asylum seekers to the US, due to the anti-Romani sentiment of Europe.
The new wave of Romani people such as the Romungre from Hungary and the Catani from Romania to be concentrated in New York and Chicago.
Many Romani people also came from Cuba, Canada, Mexico, or South America, from where it was easier to immigrate to the United States.
Early Romani immigrants reported a wide range of occupations to census officials, including farmer, laborer, showman, animal trainer, horse trader, musician, and coppersmith, among others. In the 19th century, Roma American men typically engaged in nomadic occupations common in Europe, while women frequently practiced fortune telling. As automobiles began to replace horses, men transitioned to roles in selling and repairing cars, as well as metalworking. Mobility has been a fundamental aspect of Roma culture; while some Roma Americans continue to travel or relocate as urban migrants in search of work, others exhibit a level of sedentism comparable to that of non-Romani Americans.
Between April and September 2023, the Roma National Center assisted 1,238 Romani people, among them 1,129 Ukrainian refugees from Ukraine due to the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Discrimination