An Open Letter to the Roma

If you are a Rom who has surfed to our page, you are probably at least slightly insulted by what you have seen, and you probably consider us ignorant Gaje playing at being Roma. You probably think we ignorantly reinforce all the old clichés and stereotypes that have haunted your people throughout your history. We understand why you might feel this way.

But we would like to reassure you that this is not true of us. While only one of our members is of Romani heritage, we have an immense amount of respect for the Roma. And though we are performers whose chief role is to entertain, we do our best to portray characters that are as accurate and believable as possible. We have done years of research, not only from books but also by talking to Romani friends and relatives, in order to portray our characters accurately as well as entertainingly, and so as not to add to anti-Romani prejudice.

We mean no disrespect at all to the Roma in what we do, and we do not reinforce negative stereotypes -- in fact we do everything we can to correct such misconceptions in the minds of those we work with and perform for. We are able to share with the patrons that visit our faire a little of what Romani culture is really like, as opposed to all the lies and prejudices that have been spread for far, far too long. And we do not use the name "Gypsy" in any disparaging way -- we only use it at all because it's what most people know the Roma as.
Thanks for your time.

Kumpania Wispersteppe.

Click on the book of Gypsy lore to email us