The recent events on the page here, about identity and
ethnicity, brings up an important question, which Petra Gelbart points to a close equivalent and a potential path to understanding. She brings up the difference between enrolled
Indians and the many folks with various amounts to no Indian heritage who claim
status and play at being native and the same in the Romani community.
Excuse the drop for a moment in American Indian law and history, I do so to explain a project begun by Steve Kaslov, the Boro of the vitsa Pupesti and his friend President Franklin Roosevelt. I inherited this project for a number of years in 1993, working with the late Little Joe Kaslov, his grandnephew, rest his soul.
There are numerous statuses for Natives in the USA, the most important in my estimation, is the acceptance by a Native Nation as a member. This raises a number of issues for the government of the nation which took freedoms from those nations. The first two big groupings are Federally recognized tribes or more properly for us, Nations. They are some three hundred nations that have “Federalized” their treaties and have all the rights recognized by the conquering government under a myth that both sides agreed that this is legal and fair. Next are the State recognized Nations, which are still operating under treaties with the colonies and the Federal government has not gotten around to transferring the “protections” of their treaties from the ex-colony State to the Federal government, then the tribes who were never conquered or never made treaties.
This group of some three hundred Nations has
some of the rights recognized by the Federal Government. Then there are the
folks with some degree of Indian heritage who may or may not experience
prejudice directed at them for looking Indian in places in the USA where this
is a common prejudice. This gets complicated by the fact that Indian nations
have the right to identify members along lines traditional to their legal
traditions. So, a friend of mine is a full blood native, but his mother’s
tribal nation accepts only members whose fathers are members, and his father’s
nation, only members whose mothers are native… talk about being up the creek
without… never mind.
In all this, every American who has been here longer than
five years claims to be Cherokee, and half of them a Cherokee Princess at that.
What does all this have to do with us? Well, in law, what makes
for Indian rights? You have to be a self-governing nation before 1792 when the
USA Constitution becomes law. So, most people think, “they got put on
reservations because we took their land away.” No. International law for
centuries recognized that if a nation grows over another nation, that other
nation has some rights to exist and govern itself as an “encapsulated nation.”
Franklin Roosevelt felt that this body of law could be used to empower the
American Romani as encapsulated nations. If that had been carried out, under
what Roosevelt called, “The Gypsy New Deal” which was very close to his,
“American Indian New Deal” some Romani groups would have accessed huge
opportunities and rights. I’m the first to say, I am not one of them. It would
not be for those who have some Romani blood and experiences but are not
members of communities like some Vlax, Romanichal, and even Irish Travellers who
practice self-governance in their communities.
There are a host of advantages of protecting cultural
heritage which would flow from such recognition, for example legal protections
against people who are not Romani producing things labeled “Gypsy.” Matters of
child custody and adoption would be internal matters and the Criss would be
recognized by Federal and State’s courts as having jurisdiction over internal
matters. There would be the ability to establish Romani schools funded by
compact between the Romani communities and the various states.
The “Gypsy New Deal” died with World War Two, when Steve
Kaslov was sent to prison for helping to keep members of his community from
being drafted. His grandnephew picked up the project when he heard I was
elected by an Indian nation to a tribal judgeship, and wondered if there was
any hope.
We spent years going to meetings of Romani communities, and
Irish Traveller communities in the USA and talking about issues and history and
the value of being “recognized” as being encapsulated nations. We didn’t get
the final result we wanted, but we made connections, planted seeds and helped with
a number of issues we found along the way.
Do I think we can ever get such a status recognized? I’d have
to say it would surprise me, but the process of working towards it made a lot
of connections and helped a lot of people think of issues of identity. Meetings
of Romanichals and Vlax around the Madeline Toogood case, were real inroads, at
least for a small group of people for a number of years. You may remember she
was a Romanichal woman who was the subject of a national manhunt after she was
accused of slapping her child during a racial profiling incident. The New York
Post compared her to Saddam Hussein and I found myself debating Bill O’Reilly
on his show, after he called for the removal of all “Gypsy” children from their
parents.
But, part of the process of discussing this status, creates
understand that our identity is both a national membership for many, an ethnic
identity for some, and an influence to others. The questions and discussions
create education and understanding.
I’m not saying we should revive the struggle; I don’t know
that I’d take part if it happened, but understanding the history of this
struggle might be helpful and important. It certainly was the start of some
rich friendships for me.