The journey back to
airport in New Orleans was very interesting. I met Vitaliae. He told me that he
was from Maldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe. He has been in NOLA
(New Orleans, Louisiana) for about 3 years now. He had ‘only’ 3 boys (11, 8 and
3 years old) and his wife took care of them along with working part-time. ‘I
couldn’t give her a girl,’ he chuckled to himself. He believed that his wife
was to take care of his boys but had studied science enough to know that she wasn’t
responsible for bearing boys. A clear mix of patriarchy and break-down of masculinity
right there!
Vitaliae is from Roma community
and his family settled in Maldova after World War II. Being from Roma
community, Vitaliae was severely discriminated in school. ‘I was made to sit at
the far end of the classroom. No other kid would sit with me or talk to me
except while teasing me; calling me a gypsy.’ His wife is from Maldova. ‘Now,
my children do not look like ‘gypsy’ and hopefully they will not be teased at
school’. Or so he thought. He came to U.S. in search of a better world. ‘We
were only second in Maldova. Always the ‘other’, he struggled to tell me. Roma
identity is not claimed, often by the educated ones since it still holds a lot
of stigma. ‘I had bought a home in Maldova but still it didn’t feel like home.
So we moved’, he tells me.
Roma community or Romani
people faces a lot of discrimination in many spheres including education. Although
they are about 12 million members in Europe, about 90 percent of them live in
poverty. A 12-country program called Decade of Roma Inclusion was found to be successful in access to
education but it’s not just access which keeps children in schools. Only
20 percent of children complete primary school. The numbers for girls is even
lower. The ones who make it to schools due to awakened or conscious parents,
are alienated from their peers due to their ethnic identity and racism in
classes. They are over surveyed in school due to negative stereotypes against
them. The formal education system does not include their history or language in
their curriculum. No wonder the Roma community feels the education is ‘not for
them’. The opportunity to jobs is also very scarce as is housing for them.
In U.S., Vitaliae drives
taxi during the day and works as a bartender at night to sustain his family. Escaping
from one discrimination into another. Discrimination exists in U.S. society as
well for him but it is not the discrimination being associated as a ‘gypsy’. He
has escaped that as he moved from ‘his’ country. Being part of a diaspora here,
has liberated him in that sense. Although, he has landed into discrimination of
class, race and immigration status in U.S. ‘I do not want to remember that time
from my life. It was too sad, ‘Vitaliae tells me as he smiles. ‘This is better’,
and prints a receipt for my travel. 