The François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University today released a new study that draws attention to the inequities the Roma diaspora faces in the United States. Published in collaboration with the advocacy nonprofit Voice of Roma, the study, titled Romani Realities in the United States: Breaking the Silence, Challenging the Stereotypes, includes insight from 363 questionnaires with Romani Americans, touching on socioeconomic conditions, stigma, discrimination,…
The following is a joint statement from the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. Note: please see below for a list of additional co-signers. “We…
By Drs. Aluízio de Azevedo Silva Júnior and Margareta (Magda) Matache Across the world, a violent and disturbing trend of anti-Romani racist acts by the police, policy makers, media, and others is putting Romani families and communities at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also attacked when we speak out against this injustice. For example, an op-ed addressing anti-Romani racism published by Libertatea, a well-known Romanian newspaper, was swiftly…
By Jacqueline Bhabha and Mary T. Bassett The United States continues to pull ahead in a xenophobic race to the bottom, making fear and trauma central to its border control toolkit. The list is long: Executive orders purporting to ban Muslims, slashing refugee admission quotas, reversing well-established legal precedent protecting the right to asylum of rape and domestic violence survivors, the willful fueling of deportation fear among law-abiding residents, and…
By Dr. Mary T. Bassett A woman arrives at Harlem Hospital in labor having received no prenatal care. The doctors delivering her baby didn’t realize she had heart disease until she went into cardiac arrest in the labor room. The baby survived. The mother, who was Black, did not. Her death was the first that I witnessed while I was completing my medical training. Unfortunately, the number of women dying…
For centuries, racist or casteist ideologies have overlapped in the oppression of African Americans, Dalits, Romani people, and others. The racecraft of inferiority continues to be a powerful ideological weapon that ruling elites and dominant majorities have been using—intentionally and unintentionally, overtly or covertly—against historically oppressed groups. Join us for a panel discussion featuring: Cornel West – Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University Suraj Yengde –…
Note: This post has been updated to includes photos from Neglected Voices: The Global Roma Diaspora April 8th marks International Roma Day, a day we celebrate Romani people across the world. Romani people, who have origins in North India, have made distinct and important contributions to Europe and the Americas in many fields, including literature, arts, crafts, music, science, and sports. International Roma Day is also a time to increase awareness…
Berlin Memorial to the Roma and Sinti Murdered by Nazism /Photo by Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0 By Marian Mandache August 2 marks the Day of Remembrance for Victims of the Roma Holocaust. Between 500,000 and 1.5 million Roma were exterminated during the Holocaust by the Nazi regimes and their allies. The memory of the Romani victims and survivors is yet to be fully recognize and preserved in history books,…
A personal and political story by Victoria Eugenia Ríos-Terheun My mother, originally from the Bay Area and an American, and my father, a Flamenco guitarist and Gitano (Spanish Romani), moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from Morón de la Frontera, Spain to the San Francisco Bay Area shortly before I was born in 1979. They came with my older brother and sister in pursuit of opportunities for my dad’s…
By Margareta Matache This is the second of a three-part blog series, “The White Norm in Gypsy and Romani Studies,” about the racialization and othering of Romani people against a white norm in standard Gypsy and Romani studies. The first segment explored the contribution of Gypsy studies to the perception of the Roma as inferior to their white European counterparts. This second segment shows how the legacy of such thinking…
