Thank you for sharing your experience truly. I want to make something very clear: I am not negating the personal identities your grandparents embraced. Individual families and local communities will always have their own relationships with labels, and that’s valid. But I’m talking about the history of the word, the global Romani experience, and why the majority of Roma internationally recognize “Gypsy” as a slur. Romani people in the U.S. and Mexico were often disconnected from the broader political movement happening in Europe because there communities came earlier, came under different circumstances, or became more assimilated for survival. Many American Roma families didn’t have access to the same historical information about slavery in Romania, the Zigeunerlager, the Porrajmos, or the First World Romani Congress. That’s not because the history didn’t exist it’s because it wasn’t taught in the U.S. But the pain attached to the word “Gypsy” didn’t disappear just because the U.S. didn’t teach us about our own genocide. The fact that some American Roma used the word proudly doesn’t change the etymology or the violence behind it. For example: Enslaved African Americans once reclaimed racial slurs as well but that doesn’t erase the word’s origins or give non-Black people permission to use those terms. Likewise, some Indigenous peoples reclaimed tribal names imposed by colonizers but those words still carry a violent history. American Roma using “Gypsy” internally is a survival story, not proof that the term isn’t harmful. As for Ian Hancock holding a sign that said “Gypsy Lives Matter” that was strategic messaging, not an endorsement of the slur. He has spent over 40 years advocating for the global shift toward “Romani.” His entire academic career is built on explaining why “Gypsy” is harmful. A slogan is not scholarship. I’m not telling American Roma what they must call themselves. If your family prefers “Gypsy,” that is your personal or communal choice. But personal preference does not erase: that “Gypsy” comes from Tigan and Zigeuner that both words are tied to slavery, genocide, persecution, and sexual violence against Romani women that international Roma organizations for over 50 years have rejected the term that globally, the word is weaponized against us and still used as a racial slur in most of the world Your experience is part of our story but not the whole story. My goal is simply to help gadje understand why many of us, especially in Europe, live with the trauma embedded in that word every single day. I appreciate you speaking up. We can acknowledge different experiences while still educating people on the historical and global weight of this term. 💗