"Gypsies not welcome here"
This example of a patrin (slightly modified according to Clebert, 1963:200) signifies "Gypsies not welcome here." Negative stereotyping of minority GR&T Peoples by majority populations of non-Gypsies -- leading in some cases to genocide -- is well documented in Carlson Library books and materials. GR&T Peoples have been and continue to be portrayed by many outsiders as criminal and/or racial minorities. Both deservedly and not, some GR&T Peoples while conducting their everyday cultural practices in diverse locations around the world (some of which -- like unlicensed contracting, fortune-telling and fraud -- may indeed be illegal in particular times and places) frequently experience and sometimes suffer from external forces of unfair competition, prejudice, discrimination, and aggressiveness. Such hostile forces challenge the collective destinies of GR&T Peoples wherever they may reside or continue to travel. Arguably, secrecy and mobility have been and continue to be key survival strategies and stratagems that explain the success of GR&T Peoples to achieve their collective destinies through the ages and up to the present.
The specific arguments of casual and sworn enemies of GR&T Peoples vary. Where these arguments prevail, the outcome is usually that GR&T Peoples "are not welcome" because their groups have been criminalized. In this case anti-GR&T public sentiment comes to reside in the force of law. GR&T minority cultural practices, including secrecy and mobility, become majority culture public health and safety issues as well as "security" issues: federal, state and local. The DX collection in Carlson Library recommends the following books and websites to anyone interested in critically thinking about strengths and weaknesses of arguments that "criminal practices" are all or part of GR&T everyday cultural practices.
McLaughlin, John B. 1980. Gypsy Lifestyles. Lexington , Mass. : Lexington Books. (DX201 M33)
Morris, Jack. 1994. The Master Criminals Among the Gypsies. Loomis, CA.: Palmer Press. (DX201 M67)
Fraudtech: Gypsy Criminal Groups. http://www.fraudtech.bizland.com/gypsy_index.htm
Seminole County Sheriff's Office. Transient Offenders. http://www.seminolesheriff.org/en-us/advisories/transient_offenders/index.php?sf_jst=r [site no longer available]
