"Cigano" is the word for gypsy in Portuguese.
When my first child was born, 11 years ago, on the same day, a gypsy child was born, too. My boy was big, 3.6 kg, 51 cm. The gypsy baby was a premature weighing 1 kg, the nurses told me. Nobody knew whether he would survive, and the whole family was obviously very nervous.
The next day I was in hospital, my boy was crying too much, and I was by myself at that moment. So, in spite of having undergone a c-section the day before, I decided to take the baby for a walk in the corridor. Next to my room was the gypsy family´s room.
When I passed by, with my little boy in my arms, for some reason they all came to the door. Now, everybody is suspicious of gypsyes, it seems. There is a whole folklore around them. I decided that was stupid and I was going to talk to them.
I stoped and asked how the baby was doing. There was an old woman in the back of the group and she smiled to me and said they were all praying. I told her I don´t pray, but I would certainly, with a mother´s heart, wish for the baby to make it and be healthy. She thanked me and looked at my son and wished him the best. We did some small talk and when I was going back to my room (the nurses were staring already) she held my arm and said some good fortune things like you´ll be very happy etc. Then she said thank you for talking to us, and I knew she really meant it, although I thought she had nothing to thank me for. We were two human beings, being what we´re supposed to be: human.
I don´t know whether the baby survived, and I haven´t seen that gypsy family after that, but I keep asking myself what stupid, horrible society is that we have built, that makes a human being feel so despised and isolated as to thank another for talking to her.
I´m still sad to learn that, of all countries in the world, the land of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité", in the person of its president, has expelled human beings from the French territory for the single fact of them being gypsies.
Sad. Not surprised.
12 comments:
That's indeed sad. And I totally understand why she thanked you. Even in pain we're isolated in groups, hu? As if pain wasn't enough to grant us all "egalité". Let alone fraternité.
Lu,
Cigano sounds close to Chicano. Probably the root of those words is the same. Those words were probably created and spoken by other than themselves at first, I think.
how true. In every country there are groups excluded, it seems - often, both those who were displaced when the newer population arrived, and those who come after. It's shame that we act this way.
You made me think of my own people who still do not talk to some poor tribal folks for no reason.How heartbreaking it is for,them being so isolated?
Absolutely, Malu! Many people hide their pain for fear of isolation. It´s as if pain and suffering were only present in certain social segments.And then we hear those horrible sentences: "ah, those people are used to suffering; it´s part of their miserable lives"
Keiko, I don´t think those words are related. Cigano is a very old word ( the equivalent in Spanish is gitano) and it comes from "egpitano or egpiciano" (egiptian), because of their similarity in appearance with arab people (or so ancient people saw it).
Chicano comes from an alternative pronunciation of Mexican, where the /X/ sounds like /sh/.
Hi Hayden! Glad you stopped by my blog! Welcome!
It is a shame, and it´s worse when it is clearly used for political purposes, as is the case in France. I´m sure Mr. Sarkozy´s popularity is going up again among some segments in his own country. Disgusting.
By the way, I have visited your 'Lyryc Flight' blog and loved it!
Dr J., you´re right, it is heartbreaking, especially when there are children involved. I think isolation is one of the worst forms of non-physycal violence.
That was a moving anecdote. Such prejudice goes back hundreds of years and I come to the conclusion that legislation against discrimination, as in my country, does improve things a lot. Here in England there have always been gypsies, both the Romanies (related to the European Roma) and other "travellers" - some used to be Irish, some were called tinkers.
People with property to defend always fear and hate lawless wanderers, who they think of as insanitary, wild and criminal. Over here, no landowner, public or private, leaves any land open for wheeled vehicles to come and start an encampment, because once the gypsies have come they cannot easily be evicted.
Hi Vincent, definitely some legislation against discrimination does improve things. We have laws against discrimination in Brazil,too, because we, as a society, decided to admit that it exists. It doesn´t prevent discrimination from happening, in many veiled ways, but it allows people who are victims of discrimination to fight for their rights as citizens.
The gypsies here do not invade land. They don´t cause any trouble, actually,and many families are not poor. The discrimination against gypsies is caused more by people´s suspicion and ignorance about everyone who´s not mainstream, than by what the gypsies do.
Lu,
Because of your comment, I researched on Cigaro and Chicano just now. According to Wikipedia,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicano#Etymology) the origin of "Chicano" seems inconclusive. But I thought the following statements interesting.
**
The Mexican archeologist and anthropologist Manuel Gamio reported in 1930 that the term chicamo (with an "m") was used as a derogatory term used by Hispanic Texans for recently arrived Mexican immigrants displaced during the Mexican revolution in the beginning of the early 20th century.[18] At this time, the term Chicano began to reference those who resisted total assimilation, while the term Pochos referred (often pejoratively) to those who strongly advocated assimilation.[19]
Supposedly, in some non-indigenous social circles in Mexico which by American standards would be considered classist or racist, the term is associated with a Mexican-American person of low importance class and poor morals.[20][21][22] The term Chicano is not widely known or used in Mexico since indigenous groups which originated the term are a very small minority of the country's largely mestizo population.[
**
I also read the following site and thought it very interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Romani_people#Etymology
There was explanation on Sanscrit word "domo," and someone add "mo" to a word and so on. All these info is just fascinating. I see connections, and how we tend to behave. Thank you for this discussion!
By the way, I don't get notification messages from your site anymore. ZECL reported to me the same thing recently. Since then, I went to "Setting" on my dashboard and updated the value of "Post Feed Redirect URL" to http://keiko-amano.blogspot.com/. Would you please check?
Wow, Keiko, thanks for all this!I´ll check out my settings, thanks for letting me know! :-)
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