What timing, Genie has just arrived with dinner, so I will respond a bit now and a bit latter.
The first Roma arrived here in 1620, deported from Scandinavia to Maryland. The biggest migration came during the 1850s - 1906 or so. There are about one million here, and they live a completely separate existence, having their own language and courts, and are more of a cultural isolate than in most other places. There is potentialy 90 per cent illiteracy among them, though it is imposible to come up with an accurate number as they do not answer surveys. My work was to provide a road in to main stream society without forced assimilation under the legal device, that they had been denyed citizenship by both de jure and de facto law until recently (several counties in the varrious states still outlaw the presence of even US born Roma, though this is clearly unconstitutional)- that they are an encapsulated nation, like Natives and we should recognise their very complex formal government and then help provide them with what they need to come out of the margins...
Genie is getting impatient!
The quote is about thugs, is from Father Des Wilson
Och... time to eat... Ill be back later... and dig out the Doherty brief for the cites...
all the best
Larry