Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey
*** By Isabel Fonseca. Thanks to Isaac for this book, which was a Christmas gift from him.
If you’re like me, what you “know” of Gypsies has been limited to what comes through American mainstream culture: books and movies featuring or alluding to Gypsy performers, fortune tellers, princesses, thieves, and kidnappers.
If you’d prefer to be educated purely by such sources as Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Shel Silverstein, fine — stay ignorant. If not, read this book.
In Bury Me Standing, Fonseca chronicles events, policies, and attitudes — historic and contemporary — that have shaped the Romany (Gypsy, not Romanian) way of life, stripping away misconceptions and reexamining stereotypes as she does so. What emerges is the tragic story of a much ignored and maligned people, whose present is in many ways no less troubling than its past.
Questions addressed that I found most fascinated included these: Where did the Gypsies come from? Are Gypsies nomadic by “nature” or by external force? Why do they have such a bad reputation, and why have they been so mistreated?
Fonseca does not spare the reader from graphic accounts — many of them first hand, though she is not a Gypsy herself — of the poverty, hate crimes, discrimination, and violence suffered by the Romany people, including the Holocaust. However, she balances the darker subject matter with illuminating accounts of Romany culture — values, rituals, craft and tradesmanship, and family structure.
On the whole, however, this book paints a grim picture. It’s educational, but not uplifting. Be prepared for a reality check.
Posted by Lisa on June 9, 2002 11:09 AM