ARTICLES: Growing Up Roma

When I was nine years old I realized I was different and did not know why. I had always been a happy child. I had many friends in school. But this all changed in the fifth grade.

In Bulgaria, like many parts of Eastern Europe, Roma children often don’t have access to quality education. Roma children in segregated schools graduate without knowing how to read or write. In my hometown, we have a segregated primary school up until the fourth grade. That school was only 100 meters from my house but my mother would not let me go there. She knew I would not receive a good education and so she enrolled me at the public school for Bulgarian students.

Her decision was not easy. The trip to and from school was difficult. Even my father and my grandparents did not agree with her decision. They did not understand why I should go to a school so far away from my home and be separated from my cousins. But my mother knew why. She knew that education was key. My mother tried to protect me from being mocked by the children at school. My parents agreed only to speak to me in Bulgarian so that I would not develop an accent. But they could only protect me so much.

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