ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the history and complexity of the Gypsy world, explores its core cultural values, and discusses the way in which children in the community are raised and educated. Gypsies who remain in the East, like Jews, are once more becoming strangers in their own lands, targets of diffuse hostility, and scapegoats for the frustrations of societies in the convulsions of rapid change. Gypsies are a cohesive cultural group who may have difficult relations with the American medical community. There are several hundred thousand Gypsies in this country; they maintain a private society with an internal moral code and legal system. Roma/Gypsies, nomads newly arrived in Europe in the 1400s, endured expulsions, forcible removal of children, servitude in galleys or mines, death sentences for being Gypsy, and absolute slavery in the Balkans from the 16th century onward. At the heart of Roma culture is the concept of ritual purity, or wuzho.
