Dedicating a space

I am not great at dutifully, well, writing. Which is kind of a ridiculous claim because now I teach writing, and take classes for which I write giant papers, and I'm a writer. But blogging is not natural to me. But it is good! Blogging is good. I'm going to try harder. Harder!

I live in Florida now, and I have some ideas. I started writing a lot about Romani writes issues on here, and I think it's fair to say that I have more than a passing interest in them. But I dropped it-- mostly because other life-stuff became quite pressing. But I would really like to dedicate this space to some kind of intelligent discourse about Romani people-- rights, stereotypes, customs... I'm really interested in how my people can be at once romanticized and demonized through the ages. I have a liminal position as a member of my community. I have been at once within and outside my own culture-- I stand on the threshold. My Romani grandmother fled from Germany after the war and had to keep her ethnicity a secret. I was raised with some customs and not with others. I've lived in Europe and America and seen extreme reactions to my ethnicity and my fellows'. I see problems, misrepresentations, and human rights infringements. I see mythology spinning out of control. For a long time I have wanted to say something but did not know what to say. So I will say this: I have one voice that comes from many places. Just like everyone else.