Commentary: The Roma and the Vietnamese, or the "evil" and the "good" aliens
Opinions on the so-called "Roma question" are encoded in the generally popular comparisons of Romani and Vietnamese people that we hear being made in the Czech Republic. In these figures of speech, where Vietnamese people play a purely rhetorical role, the "Roma question" is actually the main topic of discussion; such tropes are essentially just a more sophisticated form of "cursing the Gypsies" here.
The stable of the Kinský Palace on the Old Town Square in Prague is currently occupied by gilded figures of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas in various quaint positions. These Vietnamese faces, with their hooded eyes and all-knowing smiles, gaze at the Czech visitors to the gallery there.
Yes – these are Vietnamese images. Until the end of May there is now an exhibition, "Vietnamese Art in Bohemia" at the National Gallery, and Buddhist symbols are its central theme.
What is even more interesting than this rather small collection (which is primarily from the National Gallery’s own holdings, with a few pieces on loan from the Náprstkovo Museum) is the involvement of local Vietnamese people in the preparation of the show. The Vietnamese Union of the Czech Republic is an official partner of the exhibition, and many Vietnamese are involved in its accompanying events, which include special field trips to the heart of the Vietnamese minority in this country, the Sapa market in the Libuše quarter of Prague.
This is historically the first successful permeation of "high culture" (i.e., the objects collected at the National Gallery) by the actual Vietnamese people living in this country, and it is an important step toward the Vietnamese population being better understood by the Czech majority society. It is also yet another opportunity for us to reflect on why our understanding of Romani people is not improving at the same rate.
Even though Romani people also have "their" museum in Brno, there are no long lines there on Cejl Street for docent tours of its exhibits. Quite the opposite.
Manifestations of hatred against Romani people are continuing to grow here. This has led me to reflect on the long-popular comparisons drawn between the Romani and Vietnamese minorities.
Let’s use this comment, posted by "Honza" to an online discussion, as an example: "The Vietnamese came here recently, but the Roma have been here a couple of centuries. It’s interesting that most Vietnamese have jobs and most Roma do not! How many Roma and how many Vietnamese graduate from college every year? Lots of Vietnamese and almost no Roma! Both nations have the same conditions – isn’t the flaw in the Roma mentality? I think so."
In addition to anonymous speakers, influential persons have also expressed themselves on this same topic. In a survey recently conducted by the tabloid news server ParlamentníListy.cz, the popular Czech Senator Jaroslav Doubrava responded that "The Vietnamese are definitely not saints, but any crime in their communities is an anomaly, a fringe phenomenon. They work, they send their children to school properly, they take care of one another and they don’t cause problems, unlike the Roma. In the Vietnamese community crime is an exception, but for the Gypsies it’s the rule."
Here the majority population is taking on the role of a teacher, who sits aloof in the faculty room and grades the achievements of these pupils attending the school of integration into Czech society. The Vietnamese get an A-, the Roma get an F.
The teacher here remains impartial, of course. Both pupils are in the same class and must be undergoing the same tests.
At first glance, comparisons of Romani people to Vietnamese people seem harmless and completely logical. Both groups belong to the category of large minorities whose (estimated) numbers significantly exceed those of all other ethnic minorities in the Czech Republic.
There is also no doubt that members of both groups, apparently as a result of their physiognomy, are perceived as foreign elements here. In our Eastern European concept, they are perceived as separate "nations", irrespective of what these individuals might write in the "nationality" column during the census.
However, unlike the other immigrants here from all over the world, the Roma and the Vietnamese are evidently perceived as definable groups that are known to us – we expect them to exist here. This last point has been enhanced by the acceptance of a Vietnamese representative onto the Czech Government Council for National Minorities last summer, i.e., by the de facto recognition of the Vietnamese as a national minority in the Czech Republic, one which is literally sitting at the same table alongside representatives of the Roma.
Both minorities have now made it to the same level not just in the eyes of the public, but also from an official point of view. However, that part of Czech society that is significantly extremist and xenophobic will consider such comparisons to be of little interest.
Xenophobes see both groups as scapegoats for their frustrations and targets for their hatreds. The Vietnamese are easily slandered with the aid of various media reports about Vietnamese producers of drugs or rotten food in their restaurants (the motif of counterfeit or smuggled goods is no longer in fashion).
However, most people emphasize the differences between the "Vietnamese star pupils" in the Czech elementary schools and
their toiling parents on the one hand, and the "truant litters of gypsies" with their unemployed parents on the other. Most people also have a clear conscience when they do this.
After all, this is not a chauvinistic comparison of "us" (the good) and "them" (the bad), but of two groups who are allegedly at the same starting line. These comparisons also provide a comfortable explanation for why Romani integration is failing – simply, they themselves are to blame!
It would be interesting to follow whether Vietnamese people in the Czech Republic would enjoy just as positive of a reputation if they were to live here at the sociologically average level of the population of the Vietnamese Socialist Republic. In their home country, many Vietnamese people live not just in poverty, but in outright squalor.
However, the poorest of the poor Vietnamese do not usually emigrate, because they cannot afford it. Scholars studying migration long ago determined that when the poorest of the poor do migrate, most of the time it is merely to flee to the closest neighboring country to escape conflicts or deteriorating natural conditions or disasters.
The popular myth that the less people have, the more they are inspired to go abroad "for a better life" simply does not apply in reality. Moreover, in today’s world, any eventual migration by the poorest of the poor is suppressed by the big supranational corporations, which easily and quickly move to find them where they are so they can exploit their desperation.
Such work "opportunities" can be found, for example, in the Mekong Delta. Otherwise, while the migrants sailing the Mediterranean Sea on their shaky, overcrowded boats for Italy or Spain may seem completely, obviously impoverished, they frequently have had to invest what is relatively a great deal of money into such a journey.
Money is especially needed to undertake ordinary migrant labor, as are certain organizational and other skills. The "sending" population of these countries, therefore, undergoes a sort of natural selection.
Any future emigrants to this country from Vietnam must have already been capable of somehow "establishing" themselves in the harsh conditions there. They often bring some sort of start-up capital with them, which makes it easier for them start life in their destination country – and they usually also know what to expect.
The most recent wave of approximately 20 000 Vietnamese migrants to the Czech Republic took place just before the financial crisis erupted, and while it did include some very poor people, even they must have had to put together (with money from their extended relatives and by pawning all of their property) what would have been enormous sums of money in their home countries – usually around USD 10 000 – for all of the bribes and everything needed to facilitate legal residency in the Czech Republic. These people make up for starting in worse conditions through their extreme motivation to succeed in their new environment.
Vietnamese migrants want to succeed here at any cost, including that of lending themselves to the drug mafia. Reportedly the more desperate cases, fearing for the fates of their indebted relatives, either end up committing suicide or selling their internal organs on the black market.
The Romani people in this country, however, are not migrant laborers, even though most families came here from Slovakia
during the postwar period. To a great extent, that was a state-run (and forced) move within the framework of what was then the Czechoslovak Republic.
Romani people – like Czechs – are therefore represented here in the full spectrum of their population, both the competent and the incompetent. On the other hand, it can be presumed that the ranks of the Romani elite here, to a significant degree, have been thinned out by the most recent waves of their migration to the West.
While the Vietnamese here consciously decided, upon arriving, to change their situations and have been prepared to do so within the realm of possibility, the Romani people here are "homegrown", caught up like the rest of us in the process of our socioeconomic transformations. This happened with the arrival of communism, which destroyed what was once at least
a partial economic symbiosis and mutual tolerance between non-Roma and Roma in rural Slovakia, and continued with the
arrival of capitalism, which put an end to social security and to what was a high rate of employment, albeit a frequently artificial one.
These significant differences are based on historical experience, and there is a certain paradox here. In the online discussion from which I quoted earlier, the contributor "Mirko" asks the following: "Why, for example, have the Vietnamese, who have been here only several decades, integrated so completely successfully into society while the Roma, who have been in Europe for several centuries already, still haven’t?"
One possible answer is precisely because they have been here so long. When Romani people arrived in Southeastern and later Central and Western Europe (during the 15th century), they were almost immediately assigned the role of the "Other", shoring up the identity of those Europeans who defined themselves in opposition to the new arrivals.
In those days it was "our" one true Christian faith versus "their" pagan customs and magic. "Our" relationship to our hearth and our land versus "their" eternal wandering.
There was "our" alabaster complexion, lauded by the troubadours, and "their" unusually dark skin. At the same time, another "Other" was also used for the projection of a different set of negative characteristics – the Jews.
We should notice that in our folklore (and not only there), a devil or similarly negative figure usually has either typically Jewish or Romani features. As the British anthropologist Michael Stewart has shown using the example of Roma in Hungary, this projection of all the evil around us and within us – including the embodiment of our desires for "forbidden fruit" – still applies to this day to our notions of the Romani lifestyle.
The Vietnamese arrived here during a different situation, when there was not as much of a demand in what was then the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic for a new counterpart to our own identity. Be that as it may, Vietnamese people did undergo several physical assaults here, and at the start of the 1980s there was a period of xenophobic hysteria charging them with spreading exotic diseases, including sexually transmitted ones, or of planning a terrorist attack on the Kotva department store in Prague.
However, despite all that, the Vietnamese were never assigned to the firmly-defined category to which Romani people have traditionally been assigned and kept separate from the majority population here. The obvious proof of this categorization are the rather typical efforts made by some Romani people not to be considered as one of "those Gypsies".
This is so even in cases where people are of a typically Romani appearance and often may even be closely related to those they reject. This may be a desperate reaction, an effort to evade the ethnic stereotyping that mercilessly accompanies them everywhere they go irrespective of their actual behavior.
Laments are also often heard from "white" parents who have adopted Romani children here, raised them as "white", and then, usually when puberty starts, some mysterious unconscious force allegedly "awakens" their children’s Roma-ness, they find a "gang", and the problems begin… Instead of the various creative racial theories about this that we currently hear, it would be worth listening to what adopted Romani children have heard others say about them throughout their entire childhoods in the classroom, on the street, in the shops and at the swimming pool.
Historical experience is also related to how each of these minority groups perceives itself. The Vietnamese have undergone a period of creating a shared national identity, even though the scenario for it was somewhat different than what we are familiar with from the "National Awakening" of 19th-century Europe.
The Vietnamese have taken up their ancient history, the proof of which (especially architecturally) they can see with their own eyes, and they have learned about it in school. As many as 40 % of Vietnamese share the surname Nguyen with these celebrated aristocratic dynasties and their many famous figures.
Vietnamese resistance to Japanese occupation, their war against French colonial administration, and later, their protracted resistance to American intervention have been essential to enhancing Vietnamese national consciousness. Most Vietnamese consider the winning of these wars against the world powers of the time to have significantly enhanced their national self-confidence and to have brought them closer to one another in mutual solidarity.
Understandably, that solidarity has been further enhanced by the Vietnamese presence in the radically different environment of the Czech Republic, as well as through their common experience as migrants. None of that can be said of the Roma, whose history here is one of forced assimilation, persecution, slavery (which was not abolished in the principalities of what is today Romania until 1864) and public executions.
The Vietnamese, therefore, enjoy an advantage that cannot be ignored in this "integration competition". Their community enjoys strong solidarity, a significantly higher level of self-confidence, and the backing of their mother state, whom the Czech Republic counts on as a political partner internationally.
I am of the opinion that the comparisons made between the Roma and the Vietnamese can be seen to more or less obviously embody three types of opinions about the "Romani problem" and its solution. The first and evidently the most frequent of these is simple racism.
Typical statements such as "they just have a different mentality" (as the municipal police chief in the town of Most, Bronislav Schwarz, famously said) are evidence of this. Racism, understandably, due to the nature of its theory, will not admit the possibility of change, and sees the only option as being the removal of groups that are inadequate – through their physical destruction, or by moving them to India or to an unspecified "state of their own" (as Czech Senator Okamura said).
The second kind of opinion can be called the "civic" or "colorblind" opinion, and we see this in the claims that the Vietnamese "are willing to work very hard", while the Roma are not. As the online commentator "Málek" put it: "Czechs are not racist. The Vietnamese do not bother them at all and have integrated here without any problems. However, the gypsies do bother them, because they are parasites on this society."
This opinion results in the sort of "iron hand" solutions we were able to observe the beginnings of during the Nečas administration. Since Romani people are simply "not trying", there is a need to condition welfare for them on their children’s school attendance, to introduce mandatory community service work for them, and overall to develop a harsher regime for this particular category of unemployed systems (the DONEZ system) including mandatory pre-school education (as proposed by former Czech Education Minister Dobeš), etc.
Neither of these types of opinion mentions culture. We can, however, deduce the views of the cultural differences between the Roma and the Vietnamese from other statements made about them.
The flaws of the Romani mentality, after all, do not necessarily have to be transmitted by blood. For example, Czech MP Jaroslava Wenigerová (Civic Democrats – ODS) discusses Romani people’s allegedly "completely different mentality" as "based on living from one day to the next", claiming simultaneously that "when children are born they are blank pages. They too want to live happily. They come to school, and if you speak with their teachers, you will learn that these children also do their best, naturally – but then they go home to an environment that does not motivate them."
In this view, a mentality can be a result of a pathological culture. This is a certain kind of extenuating circumstance.
After all, Romani people are just human beings, like us or the Vietnamese, but in short they are inheriting and then reproducing bad models of behavior in a vicious circle. Of course, the solution that flows from this model is not much different from the approach taken by the racists – with the exception of that portion of the population who share this opinion but who are ready to humbly (or even gladly) tolerate these culturally different Roma living next door to them in the spirit of multiculturalism.
There is no doubt that differences do exist between the cultural models embodied by most Roma and most Vietnamese. We can certainly find aspects of these models that influence their members’ chance of success in majority society.
The Confucian tradition, with its emphasis on obeying authority, especially that of one’s own forbears, and of respect or education, is said to be typical of Southeast Asia. On the other hand, the Romani culture is said to be oriented toward the present, which detracts from long-term aims and efforts.
Some scholars romantically see this supposed Romani trait as a hangover from a time when they lived as nomads, when strategic planning for the future, due to their frequent relocation into the unknown, was not important. The problem with this notion, however, is that the behavior we observe, which seems to be a manifestation of some predestined cultural legacy, may actually stem from much more contemporary, prosaic reasons.
Relationships inside of Vietnamese families may be strengthened because family members find themselves in a strange, unpredictable environment and therefore become much more dependent upon one another. The pressure to educate their children may have primarily been enhanced by a vision of their children’s future success in the Czech environment, sparing them the initial difficulties of their parents’ generation and ensuring a secure old age, for both them and their parents, in this foreign environment.
Similarly, the Romani orientation toward the present may be driven by their social marginalization, specifically, by their uninspiring lack of opportunities for education and employment. Labeling this orientation a specific aspect of Romani culture can also deflect attention away from the actual causation that facilitates or even directly motivates the behavior that we observe.
Here the result (orientation only toward the present) is confused with its possible cause (segregation in the housing and jobs market and in school). Paradoxically, our notion of culture can be just as much a tool for obscuring our understanding of these problems and for addressing them as racism is.
The Czech sociologist Jakub Grygar has written that the general idea of culture has always served to legitimize the current state of affairs, which is based on differences between groups, and we therefore find rather often that we cannot explain something by resorting to culture – rather, culture itself needs to be explained. For example, we need to explain who uses the concept of culture to understand "the Romani problem", and why.
However, just as those who would draw comparisons find themselves at a dead end after taking this too-easy path of explaining "the Romani problem", it would also be too easy to reject their approach out of hand. To snobbishly look down one’s nose at those who make arguments on the basis of their actual or perceived experience is merely to take another seat in the faculty lounge of the know-it-alls.
Instead of this salon-type intellectualism, it definitely takes more effort to seek dialogue and understanding that can ultimately lead to a change in attitudes. How, then, might we respond to the brandishing of the alleged cultural difference of Romani people?
Culture cannot be considered a static monolith, but is a set of elements of varying weight. Some of these we identify with in early childhood, where they become deeply rooted in our consciousness in the form of fundamental attitudes and values that are strongly interrelated.
On the other hand, some of these elements are rather easily exchanged for others, such as, for example, using Vietnamese chopsticks instead of silverware. Every individual is the bearer of many such elements from various cultural "circles", which usually reach far beyond the borders of any nation.
This flexible approach to culture makes it possible to handle its various elements flexibly as well. This means those elements can, for example, serve as a way to enhance self-confidence – and here Romani people, compared to the Vietnamese, have a significant deficit.
An appropriate element for improving self-confidence, in the Romani case, could be the Romanes language, in which their rich history is reflected. Increasing the status of this language not just among the majority population but also among the Roma themselves, for example, by gently including awareness of the language in school instruction, could rather significantly enhance Roma identity and self-respect.
Many Romani people themselves have unfortunately accepted the conviction that the language of their forebears is just worthless slang. Nothing of the sort would ever even occur to the Vietnamese about their language.
Another topic is the effort to suppress some cultural elements in order to integrate into society more smoothly. It is an open question how much Romani people’s strong loyalty to their families, which is stronger than either their civic or national identities, is keeping them from integrating.
Evidently the most problematic aspect, however, is the frequently-upheld principle of ritual impurity, which makes it impossible for many Romani families to communicate with anyone who is not part of their family. Understandably, this too does not contribute to the creation of a civic identity.
It is difficult to find any "positive recommendations" coming from the racists’ approaches. However, both the Roma and the Vietnamese need something of what the "civic" approach expresses.
This approach is valuable because it rejects the "smokescreen" of culture or genetics as predetermining factors to which we must reconcile ourselves. At the same time, it reduces the risk of unwanted outcomes by working with various cultural elements in good faith.
An undesired consequence of emphasizing particular cultural elements in the effort to awaken the Roma is exoticism, when, because other cultural elements are lacking, the Roma are depicted as romantic wanderers in multicolored dresses and colorful wagons. This image of the minority is very distant from what is considered normal in majority society.
For that reason, it is always necessary, when enhancing Romani self-awareness, to promote as role models those who have succeeded in the regular environment of the majority society. It is also appropriate, especially among elementary school cohorts, to focus on aspects that have nothing to do with any particular "national" culture, but that reflect the things that all children have in common.
The adherents of the "civic" approach, however, have a problem, and that is that they are unable to reflect on themselves, on their own role in the situation of the minorities they are judging. Our historical bias against Romani people is still bearing bitter fruit today.
This is not just about discrimination by majority-society individuals, which is difficult to measure and even harder to change. Problems are also caused by institutional discrimination in the elementary schools, or by certain general asocial practices (in the licensing of gambling establishments, in the management of housing…) that the state has not yet eliminated and that are primarily impacting marginalized groups like the Roma.
Thanks to the public’s lack of interest – specifically, thanks to the politicians the public elects – many Vietnamese people today are also ending up in drastic living situations. Those from the most recent wave of migration are having an especially hard time.
Both minorities are impacted by the consequences of insufficient prosecution of hate crimes, as well as by the frequent dissemination of hate speech in the media. However, the policy of the "iron fist" based on the "civic" or "colorblind" approach to these issues will never produce the desired results unless it is preceded by an "open door" policy.
This means there has to be a chance for the genuine acceptance of Roma and Vietnamese people by this society. Otherwise we Czechs will continue to "suffer" the abuse of our "charity and hospitality" by these "ungrateful" minorities.
An inability to reflect on our own selves not only leads to our ignoring important, tangible obstacles to integration, but also to our upholding the existing power imbalance. This imbalance means the goalposts will always be reset for any minority, of any definition, that manages to jump over all of the barriers to integration.
From the safety of our position of power, we are following in comfort the race between the groups we are comparing, and commenting on their integration into Czech society. However, in opposition to this entrenched scheme, it is possible that the position of both of these minorities in society will one day genuinely be enhanced.
In the case of the Roma, a certain hope is currently offered by the growing number of Romani college students here. These people may someday begin to serve not just as role models, but as people wielding genuine power in their work as entrepreneurs, lawyers, or politicians.
Politics in particular could become the scene of further real enhancement of the status of Roma in the Czech Republic. Especially in places with strong Romani representation, we could soon see Romani mayors and town councilors, as is happening more and more often in Slovakia.
An important moment in the enhancement of the position of the Vietnamese in the Czech Republic could happen later this year when an amendment to the Law on Foreigners takes effect which many Vietnamese hope will make it easier for them to get Czech citizenship. That is the basic condition for participation in politics, which brings power.
For the time being, many self-righteous Czech citizens are watching – from a safe distance, and with the facial expression of mentors – as the Roma and the Vietnamese toil away. Maybe, to their surprise, a member of the minorities they are now judging will end up beside them one day.
The author is an ethnologist. He has worked as the head of the secretariat of the Czech Government Council on National Minorities and as the secretary of the Czech Government Inter-ministerial Commission on Roma Community Affairs.
