Roma is an ethnic name for the Romani people (or at least a large subgroup of them, I’m not 100% on the specifics). As far as I know “Romani” just means “people” or something similar in (some dialects/variations of) the Romani language.
And Roma didn’t come from Romania, to the best of our knowledge, they likely came from somewhere around India.
Gypsy comes from the mistaken belief that they came from Egypt.
In the spring, some television newscasts will air consumer warning stories about Irish Traveler contractors, though they almost never refer to them by name. Shoddy paving jobs, half-completed work, etc.
As a child, one of my friends was of Roma descent. His family lived in a normal house in my urban neighborhood, and didn’t travel. They stood out not because of any odd behavior, but because there just weren’t many Roma around; it would have been the same for an Asian or Subcontinental family at the time, too.
Also, if you’re ever on Reddit, occasionally a vurilently anti-Roma article will appear, with hundreds of normally “tolerant”, “peace loving” Europeans piling on with horror stories and shockingly hostile comments. The response from Americans is usually along the lines of “WTF?” While European Redditors often condemn Americans for being fat, ignorant racists, they jump through hoops to justify their antiziganism: “it’s different”, “you don’t have to live with them”, “they won’t integrate into our society”, etc.
The term tinker is an old-fashioned word for an Irish Traveller stemming from the archetypal industry Travellers were involved in at one time, ie fixing tin pots and the like. Irish Travellers are also known as Pavees and the term Gypsy is sometimes attached to them still, although it is slightly archaic. There are plenty of derogatory terms used for them too in Ireland and Britain. Knacker and pikey being the two most common. Knacker, I imagine, also stems from an industry Travellers were once integral too. I believe Pikey is a diminutive derived from turnpike but I’m not 100% on that.
Ireland has plenty of Roma folk nowadays too (often referred to as Romanians or Romanian Gypsies regardless of country of origin). The negative stereotypes attached to them here is that they’re either beggars or thieves. A common, although less common now, industry for Roma to be involved in in the last 10 or 20 years was selling flowers and novelties outside pubs and nightclubs. FWIW my neighbours are Roma and the worst thing they’ve ever done to my knowledge is offer to help me do the gardening. 
I hope you counted your turnips!
Would have made that remark if An Gadai’s neighbors had been black? Seriously think about what you just said. I doubt An Gadai’s neighbors planned on stealing any of her vegetables, but they may have been thinking, “I bet if we help the neighbor woman in her garden she’ll share some of those fresh vegetables or fresh flowers (since it’s not clear what is growing in the garden) with us.” And that wouldn’t be a Gypsy or Roma way of thinking, that would just be a human way of thinking.
What’s being aired on tv is about as realistic of Roma as the Jersey Shore is of Italian-Americans or Here comes Honey Boo Boo is of working class Southern whites.
On the one hand, I took that as an over-the-top mockery of anti-Gypsy racism.
On the other hand, I’m pretty dismayed by some of the casual racism being thrown around in this thread by some of the posters, who don’t seem to be joking.
So it’s all true?
I do think Siam Sam was attempting to lampoon anti-Roma attitudes rather than express one. Plus I’m a man, I think.
My apologies Siam Sam, after thinking it over I realized that hopefully you were just lampooning the racisim not succumbing to it.
Also, An Gadai, I did not know you were a man and should not have immediately stereotyped gardening in your yard as just something only a woman would be doing. My apologizes for gender stereotyping you. But I do stand by my comment that your neighbors were probably looking to score some free veggies or flowers depending on what you are growing. Fresh and in season growing things are common in Roma folk cures.
No worries. Just cross my palm with silver, and we’re even. 
(And for the record, yes, I was lampooning.)
Weeds mainly. Honestly. I have whatever the opposite to green fingers is.
My Mom used to tell me, when the Gypsies were camping nearby (this is Tampa, Fla., in the 1930s-40s), that her mother told her they would steal her if she wasn’t careful.
I think anyone dancing around playing guitars and tambourines in a university library is going to make people cross.
Of course I’m kidding. My gf is half Roma. I suppose she does not ‘live the life’; she is not a gypsy AFAICT. A normal person who I wouldn’t have noticed to be ‘Roma’ if she hadn’t told me. I would have guessed “Eastern European”. Anyway, I don’t think people realize she is Roma. She hasn’t ever told a story of being discriminated against for it. I’ve never heard of it happening to anyone else either, outside of Europe.
FWIW, I am 1/4 gypsy, my father being 1/2 gypsy (he was born in Seville). This is something I didn’t find out until recently.
Maybe thst’s why I have such a wanderlust, having spent my life in many different places ranging from Spain to Japan, and having moved house not less than 14 times
FWIW, a Roma fortune teller once saved my dad’s life.
ZPG Zealot - talk about prejudice! So the neighbors would not have been helping merely out of the goodness of their hearts but in the hopes that they would get something out of it?
Sure you can slough it off and say “it’s just a human way of thinking.”, but for those of us who commonly act altruistically, it is not a human way of thinking to only help a neighbor (or even a stranger) if there is a chance for gain.
This ties in with your earlier statements that people are prejudiced against you just by seeing you - you ascribe unkind thoughts, feelings and motivations to others with no basis other than your own distorted view of humanity.
Good people aren’t like that.
How so?
[quote=“carnivorousplant, post:79, topic:650782”]
How so?[/QUOTE
Since An Gadai’s Irish–the Roma was buying! 