An exhibition shines a light on six centuries of Basque-Roma culture, history and language
This year marks six centuries since the arrival of the first Roma to the Iberian peninsula. The 600-year anniversary of their arrival in the Basque Country will be celebrated in 2032, seven years from now. Yet despite this long history, Roma people remain on the margins in the Basque Country, subject to discrimination, struggling for visibility and recognition.
In an article for 7k Magazine Miren Saenz highlights how a recent exhibition at the Casa de Cultura de Aiete forms part of a wave of efforts to preserve the legacy of Roma history and culture, hoping to empower the Roma community, and bring about a long overdue reckoning for social justice.
“Don’t let them recognize you as a Roma.” This was the advice given to Rafa Giménez by his father as a child when he sent him out on errands. Racism against Roma communities was embedded in the fabric of society. “When I was little, being a Roma seemed like the greatest thing in the world; but at the age of 8, at school, you’re told that being a Roma is shit, and not just by your classmates, but even the teachers get involved, and then you find yourself in a conflict of identities”, Giménez says: “Some opt for invisibility; others adapt, so as to not let themselves be recognised as a Roma.”
Giménez is the President of AGIFUGI, which can be translated as The Roma Association for the Future of Gipuzkoa, based in the San Sebastián neighborhood of Intxaurrondo. The organisation is unique even amongst other Roma associations because it is “purely Roma”, from the board directors down to its members. Giménez describes those involved as having a wide range of backgrounds, but united by their core mission: to raise awareness about Roma history and culture and, in so doing, to empower them. They are “very activist”, Giménez says: culture and heritage as a way to demand recognition of their human rights, while fighting against racism and fascism.
It’s as part of this mission that the group collaborated on the exhibition ‘Pindro Dantzariz. The Roma People in Gipuzkoa’. The title ‘Pindro Dantzariz’ – meaning “dancing feet” in Erromintxela, the language spoken by the Basque Roma – is taken from a poem by Jon Mirande. These “dancing feet” represent the mythological origins of Roma nomadic culture; and it is these same dancing feet which have taken them all across the different parts of Euskal Herria. Giménez estimates between 15,000 and 20,000 Roma live in the Basque Country, 2,500 of them in Gipuzkoa. Several experts were brought in to lead the curation of the exhibition, including photographer Juantxo Egaña and historian David Martín whose texts chronicling the history of the Basque Roma can be read in the exhibition. (David Martin’s 2017 book on the subject is available here).
The focus on Gipuzkoa in the exhibition title conceals the true scope of its ambitions. The exhibition portrays the Roma people all over the Basque Country, covering the long journey of migration from the fifteenth century though to the present day. The earliest images date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and span various locations across the region, from the ‘Jito Alai’ – the Roma pelota court that still stands in the town of Iruñea (known in Spanish as Pamplona) – to photographs taken in Bilbao by the first Basque photographer, Eulalia Abaitua. (Some of these photographs are reproduced in the article).
Gathering material for the exhibition proved challenging due to material realities of Roma existence as persecuted and nomadic peoples, and also certain Roma traditions, such as the custom of burning the possessions and photographs of loved ones after they have passed away. Egaña initially asked 40 different photographers if they had any archive photography of Roma communities, to which they all initially responded negatively. However, after searching through their archives just over half came back with at least some material to contribute.
For Giménez, “this exhibition is a way of making the Roma people visible—I’d say normal—seeking a rapprochement, a way of being part of society, which is how it should be. Generally, institutions tend to approach us as exotic, folkloric, a stereotyping that places us outside the boundaries of natural, normal coexistence.” Challenging this status-quo, his ambition is to create a cultural reset: “In the association, we talk about Roma culture, but also about erasure through assimilation. Until 1978, we didn’t have our own legal identity; simply being Roma had consequences. We are resilient people; we have had to adapt to survive through different eras.”
The long history of Roma persecution in the Basque Country and in Spain – itself part of a much wider European phenomenon described in a recent book here – is embedded in the Spanish name historically used to describe them: ‘Gitano’, a pejorative term which shares the negative connotations of the English ‘Gypsy’. David Martín explains that the first records mentioning the ‘Gitano’ people in the Basque country date back to the 15th century: a court document in which Queen Blanche of Navarre granted refuge to Thomas, Count of Lesser Egypt and his companions (a reproduction of which is available the exhibition.) More recent Roma history is marked by dark tragedy, including the Samudaripen, “the great massacre” of Roma in the Second World War. Many Basque and Spanish Roma who had taken refuge in France during the Spanish Civil War later passed through the Gurs internment camp in Béarn on their way to extermination at the hands of the Nazis.
But anti-Roma sentiment is not simply a historical matter, the article points out. It pervades mainstream Spanish and Basque culture today. Festivals such as the Caldereros de San Sebastián and Maskarada de Zuberoa include traditions that offensively caricature Roma people. As Martín explains: “The image of the gypsy during these festivities is a mixture of joy, color, and freedom, but also of poverty and marginalization, reflecting contradictory stereotypes and prejudices in Basque society”. Another section of the exhibition describes how the heroin epidemic of the 1980s ravaged not only the Basque region, but the Roma community specifically.
Despite all this, the exhibition purposefully ends on a note of optimism. These are the words of Palmira Dual, a champion of Roma women’s rights from the Kera association, displayed at its end: “We Roma youth want to represent the Roma people wherever we go. Education is the key. Studies are not only a way to achieve professional success, but are a tool to win social, economic and political power. Through education, we can take ourselves to great places, always carrying our community as our flag.”
The resilience of Roma communities is a source of great pride. The exhibition offers an opportunity to honour the richness and diversity of Basque Roma lives, both in the past and now.
TMH
The original article by Miren Saenz was published in Basque on February 2, 2025
It is available here: Visita al universo del pueblo vasco-gitano, el gran descocido
7k Magazine is an imprint of the Basque news site Naiz.
