Consider the visual grammar of the "Gypsy" photograph. Exoticism, and "otherness" separating these people from their majority context. In the words of Czech Professor Miroslav Vojtĕchovský, these images are a theatre of grotesque characters, irreconcilably different, without redemption. Garish colour can further isolation.
RomaRising offers respectful black and white images of dignity, countering stereotype. Many among these souls are highly educated, and have capacity to function as government ministers and lead within society. Indeed, Mr. Ciprian Necula became State Secretary in the Ministry of European Union Funds, representing the Romanian Government. He is not unique.
Mary Evelyn Porter, educator, researcher, and writer produced oral narratives starting in Bulgaria, some 200 in all. Finally the last piece fell in place: hearing each individual's formational story. These narratives obviate "the tendency to define people of colour, rather than allowing them to speak for themselves." (Alina Şerban, Actor, Romania)
Alas, some of the most prepared Roma we encountered are sequestered to the "Gypsy Bubble" of Romani Affairs. Others, unable to deploy hard-earned degrees, seek locales where they are appreciated, allowing a normal life. Witness the obvious sense of freedom on the visages of those within the Canada folio.
RomaRising became a record of feminine empowerment. Time and again we encounter women of strength and achievement stepping onto the stage, and with impact.
RomaRising also has become an international community: participants from 14 countries met one another at the RomArchive rollout in Berlin, some for the first time.
A RomaRising/EU was possible. Enthusiastic endorsement within the Roma and Sinti community was lost on European underwriting institutions. With notable exception, RomaRising is self-funded, at considerable sacrifice.
Our hope is that majority societies will come to recognise the vast talent in these individuals of RomaRising. They are found treasure within their societies. Regardless of their chosen paths, one discovers them to be superlative embodiments of our common humanity.
A note about the narratives: they are transcribed, as told to us by each participant. They are not journalism. As with the portraits, they occurred at a point in time.
We would like to mention Asen Mitkov, of Bulgaria. When introduced to us by Viktoria Petrova, we knew immediately here was the capable colleague we had always sought: a knowledgeable collaborator, who effortlessly facilitated multiple situations, be it by his spoken Romanes, his equilibrium, his empathy. Asen is at the heart of the project's final decade.
Chad Evans Wyatt and Mary Evelyn Porter
Legal Services
Musician, Performer, Educator, Writer
Educator, Artist in Fabrics
Musician
Musician
Born: 10 December 1978
Place of birth: Hungary
Now living: Toronto, Canada
Education: Berklee Music, 2008
Occupation: Musician, composer, educator, producer
Life and work successes: Montreux International Jazz Fest Solo Piano Context 1st Prize, 2009; Great American Jazz Piano Competition 1st Prize, 2007; National Jazz award, 2005; Juno nomination; Montreal TD Jazz Grand Prize, 20
Do you live as you wished? Yes! More or less
What are your future plans? To continue growing in music, and become a better person/family man
Life motto, credo, wish... Treat people the way you want to be treated
Author's Note: One encounters brilliance seldom in other individuals. Vanishingly fewer times is that person a world-class level Creator. Robi Botos is such a person: a musician fully equipped and ready to take his place alongside all the greats of jazz history. He raises his level continuously, and there simply is no ceiling to his ability. We who have had the good fortune to experience his art mark our lives with the point at which Robi entered.
Born: 13 December 1962
Now living: Toronto
Education: Grade 9
Occupation: President of the Board [of RCC], and musician
Life and work successes: All Canadian, Butch family name to Canada since 1908, from Moscow Russia; singer musician, writer and band leader of The Gypsy Rebels (music group)
Do you live as you wished? Thank you at this time
Author's Note: Micheal Butch is the significant Romani community leader in Toronto. His presence is required for decisions large and small. He leads, adjudicates, arranges. One of the most important figures in Romani life in Canada.
Roma Community Centre, Toronto, Public Advocate
Law Student
Executive Director, the Roma Community Centre, Toronto
Auto Wash
Born: 8 October 1987
Place of birth: Brno, Czech Republic
Now living: Toronto, Canada
Education: Primary Care Paramedic Program at Humber College
Occupation: Primary Care Paramedic with Peel Regional Paramedic Services
Life and work successes: finished college at Humber College; worked as a paramedic in Peel Region; volunteer with Voyager Project to help people in foster care to attend post-secondary education
Do you live as you wished? For the most part, yes
What are your future plans? Long-term goal is to work as Cricial Care Paramedic in Helicopter; start Aikido (martial arts); salsa dance group
Life motto, credo, wish... Do everything 100% or you have to do it over
Paramedic
Accountant, Financial Specialist
Coordinator at Textile Museum of Canada
Narrative by Mary Evelyn Porter
Lynn Hutchinson Lee is a multimedia artist/writer of Romani descent on her father's side. Her mother's family are of Scottish, English and Irish ancestry. Lynn and her partner Eric, an editor, live and work in Toronto, Canada. Lynn's father's family, the Hutchinsons, were Romanichal from England. Before WWII, they were entertainers who traveled through the northern counties of Lancashire putting on circus performances at the local fairs. Her paternal grandmother Lizzie's family were Lees. They carved many of the ponies and other whimsical animals common on 19th Century Merry-Go-Rounds.
Lynn's father's family immigrated to Canada in 1912. They took up employment as tobacco pickers in the fields of Southwestern Ontario and painted signs for local shops. The Hutchinsons who remained in England took over the 'vardo' (caravan). The Canadian family entertained at local agricultural fairs and festival throughout Ontario performing with the traditional hand-carved, near life sized puppets.
"My father, Leonard Hutchinson, wanted to be an artist, to establish a reputation for himself in Canada. To do so he believed it necessary to distance himself from his culture." Hutchinson attended night school at Hamilton Technical Institute where he studied printmaking while working full time as a graphic artist. During the 1930s he documented the effects of the depression on the towns and villages of Southwestern Ontario. He was appointed as the first Governor of the Hamilton Art Gallery in 1936. According to the Hamilton Public Library, Leonard Hutchinson, who received the Centennial Gold Medal in 1967 for his contribution to Canadian art, was the finest print artist in the lino and woodcut mediums that Canada has ever produced. www.hpl.ca/hutchinson-leonard
Leonard met Lynn's mother when she was only sixteen, and he was a student at Hamilton Technical Institute. Lynn was born in 1946. "There was art-making material in our house all the time when I was growing up." Leonard had built a small house for his growing family. "Even though my father was not working as an artist anymore, he continued to make prints. By necessity he had to take a job as a laborer to make ends meet, but he created art of one kind or another throughout his entire life."
Lynn attended the Ontario College of Art from 1966 to 1969. She then began a professional art career, exhibiting and selling her work. Although Lynn was always aware of her Romanichal heritage, she did not link her work to her background until her sister returned to England in the 1970s and met some of her father's family. "I began to conceptualize an installation which would incorporate the Romanichal vardo or caravan." Meeting Ronald Lee in 1989, "moved me forward as an artist." Writer and Canadian Roma rights activist, Ronald Lee, had recently moved from Montreal to start the Toronto Roma Community Centre. "I began to see my art as not simply reflecting my own issues, but in the wider context of the struggle for Romani human and civil rights."
In the early 2000s, Lynn became involved in the efforts to prevent Roma refugee families from being deported back to countries such as Hungary where anti-Roma prejudice is rampant and human rights abuses of Roma are common. For many young Roma, attending school in Canada was their first experience of integrated classrooms. The Chirikli collective, founded by Lynn and Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić, brought Nihad Nino Pušija, a photographer originally from Bosnia and living in Berlin, facilitate a photography project for refugee youth in Toronto.
"What began to take things in a different direction was the Venice Biennale." A call for submissions went out from the organizers of Call the Witness, the Roma Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice 2011, for Roma artists to participate in the Biennale. Lynn and her colleague Hedina put together a proposal to present their spoken word poetry in a sound installation titled Canada Without Shadows.
"Coming from Canada, it was a new experience to hear about Roma Human Rights initiatives in Europe. I saw that I had something in common with the Roma artists in the pavilion. Although our projects were very different, we still had something to talk about with each other. Europe has communities of accomplished Romani citizens that do not exist in Canada at this point. To see the attention the Roma community is paid in Europe and the thriving cultural scene was inspirational for me." Canada Without Shadows was also presented in Utrecht in the Netherlands in 2011, and at Romania's National Museum of Contemporary Art in 2013.
In April 2015, the Chirikli Collective mounted a mixed media installation to open Toronto's festival of Romani Arts and Culture. Musaj te Dzav (I must Go) depicted the forced migration of Roma. Lynn and fellow artists Hedina, Monica Bodirsky and Riel Brown affixed fragments of text, block prints and photographs to paper skirts. The photographer, Chad Evans Wyatt, exhibited RomaRisingCA, black and white portraits of Canadian Roma from all walks of life. The portraits include an image of Lynn herself. "People may be surprised. Our art form is contemporary and socially engaged. It challenges common expectations that Romani art is exclusively about "Gypsy" folklore and a romanticized lifestyle." www.chiriklicollective.com
"I am now focusing on writing. I am getting stories published in various journals. I am just at the beginning of this endeavor." Lynn's Five Songs for Daddy was published in Janes' Stories Anthology Bridges and Borders. In 2015, Drunken Boat International Journal of Literature and the Arts published her work in the anthology Romani Folio. Lynn's creative non-fiction piece Tillsonburg appeared in the 2017 Inanna Publications anthology Romani Women in Canada: Spectrum of the Blue Water. The same year, her short fiction Night Divers was published in Exile Editions' anthology CLI-FI: Canadian Tales of Climate Change.
"I had to be careful as a kid. I grew up in a white rural community, and my dad didn't talk about his ethnicity. From an early age I learned that I needed to build my own community. When I became involved with the Romani Community Centre as an adult, I finally felt that I could speak publicly about my background. My personal goal is to make art, write, and live well. Life is in balance for me now."
Musician, Restaurateur
Article by Dr Cynthia Levine-Rasky
A Canadian-born Roma from Montreal, Dr Ronald Lee is a world-renowned authority on Canadian Roma, and an expert on Romani language, culture, and history. He is a leader for Canadian Roma, and a founding member of the Roma Community Centre (RCC) in Toronto in 1978 where he continues to serve on the Board of Directors.
Intermittently since 1973 and consistently from 1986 to 1998, Dr. Lee served as the Canadian representative to the United Nations for the International Romani Union, a worldwide Romani organization with consultative status in the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. In 2000, he was the appointed Canadian representative of The Roma National Congress and continues to occupy this role today. He has served since 2000 as the appointed member of the Romani Board to oversee the disbursement of Swiss assets to Romani survivors of the Holocaust in Canada.
Dr. Lee's publications include a semi-autobiographical novel, Goddam Gypsy (reprinted in 2009 as The Living Fire) about Romani life in Montreal and Canada in the 1960s; it has been translated into Spanish, German, Czech, and most recently into Japanese. His chapter on Vlach Gypsies appears in Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture edited by Walter Weyrauch in 2001. A book manuscript, The Gypsy Invasion: Romani Refugees in Canada, 1997-2006, is based on his work with Romani refugees, immigration lawyers, and the Immigration and Refugee Board where Dr. Lee was first hired as an official interpreter in 2008. There are few individuals in the world with Dr. Lee's expertise in the Romani language. His two-volume dictionary of Romani (Kalderash)-English was published in 2011 by Magoria Books in Toronto, and his 18-lesson course, Learn Romani, was published in 2005 by Hertfordshire University Press in the UK.
Dr. Lee is also an educator, having taught a course for six years at the University of Toronto on the Romani Diaspora in Canada (NEW 343 H1S). He has been an invited guest lecturer and panelist on Romani Studies in numerous Canadian and American educational institutions. He has served as consultant for the production of films (A People Uncounted; Suspino: A Cry for Roma; Opre Roma [NFB]; The Gypsies of Svinia [NFB]), stage productions (The Fool's Whistle), magazines (Outlook; Homemaker's), and museums (Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Orillia Museum of Art and History).
As a performing and recording musician, Dr. Lee contributes to the expression and preservation of Romani musical traditions. He has organized Romani and multicultural festivals around the country where he performs on the guitar, bouzouki, and oud. In his current status as community elder for Canadian Roma, Dr. Lee remains active as translator for Romani refugees at the Immigration and Refugee Board and for lawyers.
In addition to his contributions as activist, advocate, educator and writer, Mr. Lee is remarkable for his tireless advocacy of Roma rights, in particular for his participation in the successful campaign to obtain official status for the Roma in the United Nations, and in the 1971 first World Romani Congress out of which arose the symbols of an authentic Romani culture in the form of an international NGO, a flag, and an anthem.
His honorary LLB is in recognition of Dr. Lee's life-long work as someone with sufficient courage to counter stereotypes and to contribute to indigenous and ethnic narratives while intervening on behalf of those most marginalized.
Musician, Public Health Specialist
Musician, Teacher
Civil Rights Advocate
Professor
Caterer, Business Owner
Journalist, Documentary Film Maker
Narrative by Mary Evelyn Porter
Dafina Savić was born and raised in Montreal. She is currently Human Rights Coordinator at the Montreal Holocaust Museum, (museeholocauste.ca). The Savić family arrived in Canada in the mid 1990s from Serbia fleeing the ravages of war which encompassed the former Yugoslavia after the death of Marshall Tito in 1980, and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. "As Yugoslavia collapsed, majority ethnicities pushed for independence. These nationalist governments ignored their minorities or actively persecuted them." (Robert Wilde. Thought. co). By the early 1990s, reports of ethnic cleansing chiefly by Serbian backed militias were widespread. The Roma minority in all states of former Yugoslavia were under attack. Lela Savič, Dafina's elder sister, was born in Serbia and lived there as a small child, but by 1993 threats of violence forced the family into exile. Originally, the family intended the move to Canada to be temporary, but continued warfare up to the early 2000s made a permanent return to their native land impossible. Now that the Western Balkans have stabilized, the Savić family visits Serbia as often as possible.
"My first language is Romanes. I didn't learn French and English until I began school. Our teachers would ask us 'where are you from?' Montreal is a multicultural, multi-ethnic city; everyone is from somewhere else. No one knew the term Roma. When I said I am a Roma from Serbia, there would be blank looks." When Dafina instead used the term 'Gypsy', she was greeted with a range of stereotyped reactions. As a student at CEGEP, the Province of Quebec's public undergraduate university system, Dafina had an opportunity to study for a semester in Italy. "There I encountered blatant racism. Comments such as all Roma should be deported, or Romanes is not a real language. I wasn't surprised because my parents had prepared me for European attitudes toward Roma, but it saddened me. Roma in Canada are isolated by their invisibility. We are Kalderashi and my parents taught us to take pride in our identity, but many Canadian Roma do not disclose their ethnicity out of fear of persecution."
In 2012, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper passed Bill C-31 "Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act," which amended the process of review for refugee claims. Most countries in the European Union were deemed 'safe' and the immigration minister at that time, Jason Kenney, was given authority to determine the 'safe' status of a country without consulting human rights experts. The stated intention of the bill was to weed out false claims for refugee status. In fact, decisions were made to exclude and deport minorities, in particular, Hungarian Roma whose lives were threatened in Hungary by right wing extremists.
Attending Phiren Amenca's 2012 Study Session in Budapest, "The European Boogie Man Complex: Challenging Antigypsyism through Non-formal Education" provided Dafina with additional ideas and intervention strategies. (YouTube Phiren Amenca "The European Boogie Man Complex")
In 2013, Dafina founded the Nonprofit, Romanipe (Roma Identity) with the goal of stopping deportations of Roma families back to Europe. Dafina's BA in Political Science from McGill and additional graduate studies in human rights focusing on ethnic conflicts gave her the language to pursue the course of social justice for these refugee claimants. "There is a strong connection between Canada and Europe because Roma come to Canada fleeing persecution in Europe. I am privileged as a Canadian citizen to be in position to offer assistance."
Romanipe works through the school board to promote culturally appropriate New Canadian Welcome classes for Roma and other immigrant children. Welcome classes offer newcomers the chance to learn English or French before accessing standard curriculum. Romanipe worked with families and children to ensure needs were met and family wishes respected. Romanipe also works with medical services to provide translation and ensure culturally sensitive treatment options.
For families facing deportation, Romanipe offered consultation and translation. "The translators hired by the lawyers were themselves prejudiced against Roma." Romanipe also criticized the conduct of lawyers, charging negligence and fraud. In November, 2017 the Toronto Star reported that, "Three Toronto lawyers who were found guilty of professional misconduct in handling Roma refugees' asylum claims, are facing separate class-action lawsuits from their former clients." Most claims had been rejected, and families sent back to Hungary where they continue to face discrimination and violence.
On August 2, 1944 the National Socialists exterminated the entire Roma and Sinti camp at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. On August 2, 2014, Dafina Savić traveled to Auschwitz for the yearly commemoration ceremony where she had a chance to interact with Roma and Sinti activists and scholars from all over Europe. In 2016, The Montreal Holocaust Museum's executive director, Alice Herscovitch, joined Romanipe in calling on Canada to join many European nations in recognizing August 2nd as Roma Holocaust Memorial Day. (www.romanipe.wordpress.com) To this point, January 2018, there has been no official response by the Canadian government.
Romanipe remains largely unfunded. Because it is a Canadian non-profit, it cannot access EU funds. Romanipe is not a charitable organization so it cannot solicit donations. "We would like to train young Roma to speak to the media, but we need funding. Roma identity has a richness and diversity which cannot be simplified into one voice. Yet prejudice against the Roma is one of the most normalized worldwide."
Romanipe was founded to address the issues faced by Canadian Roma refugee seekers. The mission of the organization was built around these issues. Romanipe has also reached out to some indigenous and Muslim communities to address common concerns. "The challenges facing the Roma are not Roma issues; they are human rights issues and must be resolved at a societal level."
Master House Painter
