He has worked directly with Roma from Spain and Romania. He speaks in all honesty, sometimes brutal, about a world he knows well. With a degree in pedagogy, street educator and now coordinator of a center for abandoned children, Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel presents a reality that is not always convenient.
Divers.ro: What do the Spanish think about the Roma? Does their opinion differ from the opinion of Romanians?
Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel: First of all, the Spanish have a much worse impression about the Roma, compared to the opinion of Romanians. In Spain, we have several stereotypes related to the Gipsy, and the ones who came from Romania have the worst reputation. From my experience, the Spanish Gipsy are considered stereotypes, as lazy people, thieves, non-sociable in the sense of not observing the norms, not having birth certificates and other ID documents that any regular person has, that they strictly stick to their traditions that violate the women’s rights. They are despised by the others because they do not collaborate, because they do not take responsibilities. They are very close and bond only between them. This is why there is a constant conflict with the authorities. And the Romanian Gipsy have the worst reputation: they are thieves, laziest, meaner that the Spanish. Just like the ones in Italy.
Divers.ro: The Roma from Spain and the Roma from Romania have the same life style?
Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel: They are very similar in many ways. They live in ghettos in the outskirts of the cities and they earn their income the same: they work in environments that are not 100% legal, where they can do business with each other. They trade flowers, scrap iron, used cars and many other objects taken from landfills. It is clear that neither the Romanian Roma nor the Spanish Roma would accept a well established working schedule, to work a certain number of hours per day.
Family is the most important thing to them, the meaning of the word family is very clear, and their homes are not so important. What matters is that they are spacious enough to have all the family inside (the expanded family). I noticed that the Romanian Roma do not have such strong family cohesion as the Spanish. Compared to Romania, the abandoned Roma children from foster home-care are fewer in Spain. Almost inexistent. On the other hand, the Spanish Roma are not so good in the “school” chapter, a fact proven by the low number of Roma attending the education programs. Usually, they have few needs and try to avoid the medical doctor, because they have no ID papers, but when it happens that they need medical care, the Spanish young Roma are equally demanding, just like the Romanians. They want to be catered for immediately. It does not matter that there are other people waiting in line for social care. They must be the first ones.
But the women, on both cases, come last, after the children. She receives no respect at all. They are sacrificed for the family’s welfare.
The gipsy world is a very closed one, split into different clans – bear leaders, coppersmiths etc – that do not communicate with each other. They are very possessive. In order to show off their strength, the Roma from Spain mark their territory with warnings like: “Atención! Esta obra la vigila un gitano!” (Attention! The security guard is a gipsy!). This is like a precaution. They are together with the whole family, with the other members of the group to defend each other. If they have a conflict, it is solved by them according to the Gipsy law. In order to understand Gipsy, you must be like one of them.
Divers.ro: Can you give me examples of places in Spain with large groups of Roma?
Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel: The Gipsy gather in places called “tierra de nadie” (no man’s land). There are areas where no one else could live. An example would be Cańada Real, 14 kilometers from the center of Madrid. It is a place close to the city’s landfill. The houses are poor and dirty, and most Roma who live there have a Romanian origin. There are many such places, but this is the largest.
Divers.ro: Do you think that the Roma encounter major difficulties in their effort to integrate in the society?
Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel: The Roma suffer from social maladjustment and I think they don’t have the will to integrate either. They always give the impression they don’t need anyone else but their own family. In Romania we talk about Roma and Romani, while in Spain we talk about Gitanos (Gipsy) and payos (a term with a pejorative meaning that the Spanish Roma use to identify the ones that are not like them). I think they will never fully integrate, but it is not solely their fault. The society is equally responsible.
The world accepts the gipsy culture, but not the persons that created it. A school cannot help a Roma child unless it changes the way it relates to them. I know the story of a little boy that the teacher made him move next to another colleague one day, and the respective child refused to receive him saying that he doesn’t want to stay next to a gipsy.
Divers.ro: What is the situation of the Roma children in Spain? Are they allowed to go to school?
Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel: In Spain it is clear: most often, the Roma family doesn’t send their children to school for two reasons: the education they receive in an education institution is not fit for them, the school being the place where they learn things unrelated to the gipsy tradition and culture; usually, the Roma set their camps in the outskirts of towns, far from such centers, from the modern world. And then, an education unit must accept the Roma as they are: a Roma. Such a child, when going to school, goes to a place that’s against him.
In Romania, the Roma families were given money to send their children to school, but I don’t think this is the solution. If some still send them, the others isolate them because when people speak about the Gipsy, they speak about something bad, dangerous. We must accept the Roma as people, and not as a group of individuals.
“The Roma may abuse their children, but they will not traffic them”
Divers.ro: The Roma children are more prone to abuse and trafficking of persons?
Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel: Yes. They learn that they need to help their family from an early age. The family is something sacred that you don’t talk about with just anyone. They keep nothing from the money they earn from begging, washing windshields or other activities, it all goes to the head of the family. In Spain I met cases where children aged below 15 were used for drug trafficking.
Until 2002, the neighborhood La Celsa – also called El hipermercado de las drogas (the drug hypermarket) – was a place where a lot of narcotics were sold. When the public order units managed to circle La Celsa, these minors were the ones to take the drugs outside. The police could not arrest them for two reasons: they were all below 16 and there was no department specialized in misdemeanor of minors.
Divers.ro: Are there associations that support the Roma population in Spain?
Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel: Spain’s largest association that enjoys wide recognition is Fundación Secretariado Gitano. They develop many programs with and for the Roma, and they are now present in Romania as well, due to the large number of Roma people living here.
Those who work in education for the Gipsy must work with them for a long time. In the first year, they assess you from a distance. They will not allow you to get too close to them. When they see you really care and do something good with them, they start open up. Then you become one of the most important persons in their lives. (Mihaela Dumitrascu – DIVERS – www.divers.ro)
Originally from Santa Cruz de la Salceda (Spain), with a pedagogy degree, Juan Carlos Sanz Miguel, has been the executive president of the Association Ciudad Joven from Madrid for eight years, where he worked as a street educator as well. He was especially interested in training and rehabilitating the Roma from the neighborhood Pozo del Tio Raimundo, who would come to the association’s day-care center. He arrived in Romania five years ago and is now vice-president of the Association of Marist Brothers from the Schools in Romania (AFMSR) and coordinator in one of the houses of the Marcelin Champagnat Center from Bucharest, hosting abandoned children, most of them being ethnic Roma.