Hallo there. I am italian and live in Italy. The facts that was happened here are not good of course. But you have to know that we have a lot of problem with immigration, there is a a lot of illegal immigrants in Italy of all species, expecially delinquents. We do not have the control of that anymore 'cause it's too easy come in Italy. We are not a rachist country, t all. But you have to know that this people often do not work, are here without permission , ask for charity and most of the time they rob. Rob a lot. They do not want to let their children go to school because they prefer them to rob or ask charity. I hate this thing. i hate the fact they use they children for them. is terrile to my eyes!
Why they have to stay here not paying tasks, not working, only robbing. five days ago in Naples try to kidnap a baby under his mother's eyes, and all the city went against them. ..they often kidnap babies. A lot of my friends were rip off by them, and a lot of old people that I know, mystifing by them. I am sure there are also good people between Rrom, but a lot of them, too much ,are here in a irregular way and for robbing our house. Sad but true.

I think is absoilutelly uncorrect what you have written: in Naples happend a bad things, but not because one they the city wke uop and think: okay, let's expel Rrom from our city. They kidnapped a baby! for the zillion time!! Do you know what means? Do you know what means have a camp of 30.000 people that live absolutelly without rules? That the only rules they believe is in protect their family, and do not caring at ll to the rest of the world?? I think that if you wanna leave in a state, in a city you have to repect the city and all the people that live there. Not try to kidnap babies! I have spokenone time with a girl who her son was idnapped by them. i can not think at this moment without crying. i do no think that we ave to reply violence with violence, absolutely never , and who does it is to blame. But I can understand the rage of a town that try to defend their sons. I do not judge them for being Rrom. No one judge them for hat. Their culture is very fascination. But the ones that commit things like these must to pay. not because they are Rrom. How cares who they are! They have to pay and go to jail cause they are delinquents. Like happens for me and you if we do things like these.
Sorry for my poor english.

It wouldn't be the first time Italian authorities have cracked down on immigrant groups. Last year, the conflict between Milanese authorities (and townsfolk) and the burgeoning Chinese population in that city came to a head. See http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/04/29/cultures_eco...

I think these clashes of cultures happen a lot more frequently in Europe, where peoples, culture and history are a lot more homogeneous, but also where, with increasing political-economic integration, migration is becoming a lot more fluid and common. The Roma, gypsies, Chinese (in Milan), Algerians and other North Africans (especially in France), Turkish (in Germany), and even eastern European migrant workers, are the proverbial "other" in these established western European states. And when you bring economics into the mix, passions are understandably inflamed.

Natalie, I'm on your side and I totally agree with you. A have been to Italy (got left by the tour bus in Florence and wandered around alone, had a GREAT time, too and found my way back to the hotel we were staying in). Does your Country have Social Services Dept. were a person reports child abuse? Here in the USofA it's considered Child Neglect to keep a child from attending school unless the parent can verify they are home schooling. Even then, the children must take State tests to pass their grade in school.

Since the Romas don't want their children to assimilate and do not allow them to attend school, could the children be taken from them and placed into foster care and be sent to schools? This would cause the Romas to move to another Country so that their children wouldn't have to attend school. It doesn't help the children, but it would help Italy.

It's just a thought.

The Romas I met when I worked in Alabama USofA could not prove relationship between mother and child, so I could not assist them with a welfare check. We had to have a birth certificate and the Romas had none. I befriended one young girl and she told me that the baby she was raising belonged to another Roma who lived elsewhere and the baby she had given birth to was being raised by another Roma family. She said it was hard to really love the child she was given, so it was easy to teach the child to lie and steal. And the "parents" she lived with were not her real parents. It was soooooo sad and this young girl (17 yrs old) was so lonely and wanted to meet her real parents. I don't know if that is a practice in Italy.

I do understand and I do sympathize. Hold tight to your purse!

PS when I went to Italy, a friend told me to dress in all black or all brown including shoes (running shoes are a sure sign of a tourist). I wore all black and blended in quite well. I hope to go back to Rome in three or four years. I loved The Vatican City and want to see more.

That's "I" have been to Italy, not A . . . thanks.

Hi Natalie! Wow, thank you for sharing your perspective! You're right, anytime children are involved it makes the issue so much more complicated and being in the middle of the situation--it sounds like there are a ton of frustrating aspects. Thank you so much for sharing your passionate experience with the story.

Sorry serial, but it's uncorrect. In France and in German too they do not have absolutelly the problems we have. Their immigration is controlled. Our is totally out of control. Do you know ho many chinese people there are in Milan? I do not think you know. There was only one bad fact in Milan last year , generally they are very well integrated. In all part of Italy.
For Auntie Coose.
Generally here if you do not want your children go to school you have a lot of problems and autority could take children away from you. But you have to think that here the case is complex cause they are not italian citizen, they are not citizen at all!
About wearing black or all brown: this made me laught a lot! It's very funny how some things could be perceived: it's normal that if u could be recognize like a tourist could be snacht more easily, but i think this happen in all countries. i think it's time to stop seeing Italy like a dangerous place. We have a lot of snatched tourists cause we have A LOT of tourist! Our it's the most visited country in the world, it's normal that statistics are highter..it's a matter of logic.

Here's another look at the story, in the NYT this morning.

About the problem of "Via Sarpi" in Milan, all started cause a chinese woman ( a stupid one of course..) said something like "F*uck u b*tch " to a police woman that wanted to fine her for a illegal things she did. Teh police woman replay that she was on arrest( it's not allowed to ngure against a policeman or woamn here..9 and some chinese that was around start to fight..Some italians try to defence the police woman..it become adisaster! The fight become bigger, and as you know, things could be narate in wrong prospective when they goes between eople hear by hear so chanise community understandthat the police wanted to attach chinese community so all the chinese of "via Sarpi"( a rue in Milan that is very full of chinese houses) went to the street .. It was an absurd and singular fact. I think must pay a lot of attenction with journal and journalist, cause often they write things to let became things more "sensational". This is why I read 4 different journal in italian ( you know..are journalist assets now a day is like crap!9 and also foreing journal. Do not you imagine how easy is manipulate news..

Natalie I love your country! I studied there for a semester, and am going back to visit next month. My Italian is poor, but I manage to survive. I met some guys from Naples in Germany last year and I am proud I was able to talk to them.

I think you are right. Nowhere in Europe but Italy were there so many gypsies. I feel sorry for them, that they have no place to go, but you are right if they commit a crime, they should go to jail just like any of us. I did not know that the gypsies were called Roma. I had no idea where they were from. Thank you for enlightening us!

Our professors told us that Italians wore lots of black, and that white running shoes would definitely make us look like a tourist. So I have heard that too. I think that it is the German tourists who look goofy! They go everywhere in shorts with their socks pulled up, and a funny hat!

Sorry for all my mistakes..I suffer for hight keyboard dyslexia!!
And also english is not my mothertongue.
Thanks to all of you that had red my comment with patience..they are terrible!

Natalie, what Italian papers do you read? Are they online? The only one I know is La Republica. I want to practice my Italian.

hehe! I live in a little town ( 26.000 people) on the Garda Lake. German people love our lake and I can recognize a Deutch tourist from miles! they are so funny sometimes in their tourist clothes!

Ah, we will be close to you Natalie! We are going to Lugano, and will visit Lake Como and Cinque Terre. I have been to Cinque Terre before and I can't wait to go back and lay on the beach in Monterosso.

http://www.corriere.it/ ----> "Corriere della Sera". ( translated: " The evening courier" . Founded in Milan
The most popuar and read newspaper of my Country. This is why is one of the older and more neutral of "all".

http://www.lastampa.it/redazione/default.asp ----> "La Stampa" ( translated: "The Press" ) founde in Turin.
A very famous and good one. It's my favorite, cause i found it very accurate, intelligent and qmoe neutral that the first one. I like the way they coud separate news from opinion. It could seems an assumed things..but it's not so! My political ideas are very clean, but i wnt facts, not a sort of..

http://www.ilmessaggero.it/ ----> "Il Messaggero" ( translated: "The Messenger" ) Founded in Rome.

Another good one. The third or fourth as number of copies in Italy i think..

http://www.repubblica.it/ ----> "La Reubblica" ( traslated: "The Republic" ) Founded in Rome.
This is a good Journal. His director is a very good intellectual, but for me is not always neutral. It's from left. I am from left,but as I said, I want facts..

Of course you will notice that sometime in this online paper you will find also not very "serious" notice ( some gossip hither and thither ) , things tha enerally you do not find into them when they are in "real paper" form. But it's internet..you know..
Good reading!

Maybe Nya will read this and realize Americans are not the only ones who are having issues with illegal immigrants. Where are you Nya?

Just a thing: in NYT there is a little confusion between Rrom and Romanian: thei are not the same things. Often in Italy they confuse them , infact a lot of time Romanians are discriminated cause people adsimilate them with Rrom. This is a big problem. I know some Romanian people, and they are very irritate by that, cause they are discriminated for that.

hey! i have pota comment with all the internet link for italian newspaper for Krissugar but is not there! Where is? where is? :'(

posted a comment sorry..not pota

Natalie, don't worry, the links will post, they were just flagged. Citizen will check them out and then post your comment. Just takes a little while.

Thanks Natalie! I love Italy so much. It is my favorite place to be, besides home. I love the language and I want to get better at it. I hate it when people say "Oh, you speak Spanish. You will do fine in Italy." That is so RUDE! Italian and Spanish are not the same. I speak Spanish too, but not in Italy!

Sometimes if you post a link it won't appear right away. or you can post it but leave some spaces in the address so it won't get flagged.

ok..but why flag it? There is something that do not work?

they flag links to make sure they are not linking to something harmful, or offensive. they like to check it first and make sure it is safe.

ohh..now I understand.. Sometimes I'm a litte bit too ingenuos

But Kris you know, spanish and italian are very similar. They are both latin language. I can read a book or a newspaper in spanish without having studid it at all. i think that in 2 week in Spain I could speak a very good Spanish! But I do not think that is a thinks that also foreing that know italian can do so easily. My fiancee is icelandic, he specks a perfect italian, ( he is here since he was 13 ) better than some italian too, but he finds a lot of difficulties reading spanish and french..a lot!

i know they are similar, but I hate it when people say, oh you can just speak Spanish in Italy. I think that's rude! A friend of mine just said that the other day, but I kept my mouth shut.

I learned Spanish first, but Italian has pretty much taken its place. I can't speak Spanish anymore. If I try, it comes out half Italian. I live in Texas so there are a lot of Spanish speakers who look at me funny when I try to talk to them.

The hardest for me was going from Spanish to French. So many words are similar but pronounced differently, and I could not get the Spanish pronunciation out of my head. I finally just gave up French.

hehe funny!

oh, if you speack spanish in italy thinking that it's normal people will look at you like a fool. But maybe almost all will uderstandwhat you want to say. Kris, you know how people could be ignorant..ask them next time something sarcastic..maybe they will learn..

cine_lover, I had also to say that French people are special to let you feel an idiot if you do not speak a perfect french. And also they are very convinced that all the world have to know french..all the people in he world that come n italy speach in english to us and the best one try also to speackin italian when they know. When french comes here , they pretend to speack in french! But italian do not preend french to understand us when we went to france..this is a little fault they have.

uff! a lot of keyboard mistakes again! soooo sooory!

Yeah I have heard that about the French, although I have not experienced it. I try to learn a little bit of whatever the native language is of the country I am visiting. I just feel it is respectful to attempt to speak the language, even though I butcher all languages, even English,

that's right, Cine! I try to learn a little wherever I am going. Just expecting them to speak English is really rude in my opinion, even in a tourist place. If you try just one sentence and mess up, they will be a whole lot nicer to you as well!

I learned how to say "I would like a ..." in all the places I've gone. I would like a ticket/sandwich/water/hotel room, etc. Then they usually laugh at me and start speaking English. ha!

Hey guys! I spent time studying in Florence and think about the experience and wonderful Italy pretty much every single day!

Thank you all for sharing our perspectives on the situation!

hehe. You're right!
But no one will never rude with you if you speack english here..the worst thing could happen to yu is that they will no understand you..hihi!

Also, I wanted to use the story to focus in on the Roma population. Thanks for pointing out that the authorities targeted other immigrants and issues with the raid!

OH, I'd love to see Florence once again..but Rome is my favorite one. the most beautiful city i have ever seen ..till now!

BUt i have also to say that the bigest part of the accident was sdone not by police but b normal citizen..saddly.

there was a show on italian mtv about a guy who went to spain and spoke italian... italospagnolo, i think it was called.

though the languages are different, they are definitely mutually intelligable to a point! it's pretty cool, like one and a half languages for the price of one.

natalie, i miss italy everyday, i studied in pisa and rome for 3 months each and had a wonderful time learning about italian culture and language. i also have to say that i was terribly disgusted by a lot of the gypsy activity - blatantly trying to pick pocket, getting in your face while asking for money, using children to either distract you or try to tug at your heart strings. every time i saw a tourist give them money i felt like running up and yelling.

Natalie, thank you so much for the news links! they finally appeared. i will be busy reading for days!

Well..!

Natalie- Your perspective is much appreciated! I am absolutely inlove with your country (and was planning another trip this summer, but bc of the exchange rate -eek!- cannot afford it as of now)...anyway my parents were victims of a gypsy attack once on vacation there so I know how scary it can be. Luckily, no one was injured and they disappeared as quickly as they appeared.

That said, although I know that the gypsy community is a dangerous group of people (due to the crimes they commit), I do wonder if this mentality stems from the abuses they have incurred such as "enslavement, forced sterilization, genocide, discrimination, and overall marginalization"?

In India (where my parents are from) we also have large groups of people (very similiar to the gypsies) who also use children to beg and rob. In some extreme cases the children and adults maim themselves in order to get even more sympathy. It's a truly horrific situation. You're right about one thing and that's many refuse to be educated. Instead of giving them money my parents often offer the children who beg, to send them to school and pay for their books and school tuition etc. They become shy and look down and shake their heads. It's truly heartbreaking. I wish more could be done to help these people. I feel as though they are caught in a cycle that they just cannot break out from. I don't condone their illegal actions at all, but wonder if more can be done by the community and especially the government (*yeah right*) to help these groups?

Perhaps I'm a little more idealist than I should be...I just wish everyone could be given opportunities to break out of poverty and these types of dire situations...

The sad part i think that i u grown up in a kind of mentality, you can not asily see that your culture is "wrom". Is like kids in sierra leone or in afganista for example where they grown with a gun in their hands..they are so accustomed to war that they will be grown with anger inside then..or like fanatic muslim( or fanatic catholic..) that are ducated to fanatic ideas since they are 3 years old..how could these poor babies change all alone their destiny?
It's hard..
But i believe in the progress of love and educationand help..not in forcing people to our culture or our form of democracy.

"wrong"..not wrom...hihihi!

I agree with you Natalie. It would be hard for them to learn any other way of thinking. It would also be hard for them to leave their culture and assimilate, because they would leave their families behind. Since their families don't have a real home, they might never see them again.

Very true Natalie- I most definitely agree with you.

It's hard sitting back watching this happen especially when it affects you directly (i.e. through terrorist attacks, robberies, kidnappings etc).

There ARE examples of people breaking out of this though and I think these people should be seen as role models for the community..the message sent to the children should be, you CAN break out, you CAN be successful you just need to TRY. There are people who are willing to sponser these kids. It's sad because there are just soo many of them and so many that are already too brain washed

Kris- what you say about leaving one's family is really true. Have you ever seen the movie "Born into Brothels"? It's about the brothels in India (particularly in the infamous distric known as the Red Light district) where there are girls as young as 10/11 who are forced into prostitution. They grow up in that environment bc their mothers are already in it and they are raised to be prostitutes. The woman making the documentary attempts to take the children out of this situation (only after gaining their trust and convincing the parents) and put them in schools. Many of the children end up going back (mostly bc they miss their Mothers, can't deal with school which is a differnet lifestyle altogether, or bc their mothers guilt trip them into coming back). Some are so hungry for an education, are able to stay in school (but who knows for how long?).

It's just depressing and frustrating.

I do mnot think that home is a problem. i think that rob it is! If tehey do not want to be citizen, it's nota problem. I just want them to respect other as they want to be respected.

i have not seen that movie NYF, but it sounds interesting.

KrisSugar-

I think it's rude of you to say that it would be rude to speak Spanish in Italy.

In Europe if I spoke Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian or Romanian that is perfectly respectable.

I feel you're coming from that American perspective that ppl must speak English when in the US (y'all like to cite the whole "when in rome, do as the romans")

Well, my friends all speak most of the languages that I mentioned (except the last) and we wouldn't think anything of speaking them in each others countries. Of course, the prominent language of choice will be the country's language because we are practicing it or whatever. BUt mostly we think of each other as linguistic brothers and sisters...not like English at all.

It's only you that would have that mentality.