ABSTRACT
The only thing the other Gypsies know about is the rotten old world of the past. If the Communists’ assimilation program had had any chance of working, it was the Gypsies who attempted to leave their communities that the authorities had to win over. In assessing Coro’s and Luludji’s decision, one should not forget that there has always been movement away from the Gypsy communities, that there have always been individuals and groups that have left the Gypsy way behind, just as there has at times been an opposite movement. In the celebrations of the men, in their talk after markets, the Romany-speaking Gypsies of Harangos defined themselves as people who did not produce but who made their living through their wit, their speech, their ability to hustle, their Gypsy work. Another ethnographer of the Gypsies has said that “a massive extension of waged labor could herald the death of the Rom as a separate people from the gazos.”.
