Parkdale Roma: The neighbours may relate to their plight, but tensions prevail
ZOSIA BIELSKI
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Oct. 08, 2010 6:33PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Oct. 08, 2010 8:16PM EDT
13 comments
On a sweltering afternoon this summer, couples played tennis on the windswept Lakeshore courts in Parkdale. Next to them on the easterly court, about 25 men had assembled to kick a soccer ball back and forth over the mesh net. A bit warily, the tennis players went about their business. Unfazed, the men whooped it up in their flashy distressed jeans and Adidas sneakers.
The culturally contrasting scene is one of many that have played out across Parkdale since nearly 4,000 Roma (according to an estimate by local MPP Cheri DiNovo) have settled in the neighbourhood in the past two years.
Fleeing racially motivated fire-bombings and gun violence in Hungary, the Roma are taking advantage of legislation passed in 2008 that lifted Canada’s visa restrictions for Hungarians, and they have flooded into Parkdale, one of the last cheap rental pockets in downtown Toronto.
Many have settled along Jameson Avenue, dubbed “the landing strip” by locals. The area, anchored by rows of rundown apartment buildings, houses a sizable Tibetan cohort – some 1,700, arriving since the late 1990s – along with smaller influxes of West Indians, Hispanics, Filipinos, Sikhs and Tamils since the 1980s.
Parkdale has long been the city’s first stop for newcomers, but the Roma pose some unique challenges to the neighbourhood’s normally inclusive spirit.
“I’ve had people say things to me like, ‘You know you can’t hang your laundry out around them because they’ll steal it.’ Or, ‘You know that there’s a king of the gypsies and they all give money to him and he lives in splendour,” says Ms. DiNovo. “Literally, everyone I mention [the Roma influx] to, I’ll hear a story. And if it’s not their story, it’s a friend-of-a-friend’s story. This is how racism works.”
Calling the reaction “unsettling” and wanting to head off tensions, Ms. DiNovo decided to throw a welcoming party for the Roma last month. Staged in the parking lot of the Parkdale library at Queen and Cowan streets, it was a portrait of inclusion: As Baro Dununba, an African music ensemble, filled the lot with drumbeats, a dance troupe of Roma girls bopped along with hot dogs in hand, some teetering in oversized high heels. Early into the festivities, a disheveled man tore into the lot pushing a shopping cart. He pulled out a cane and danced next to the girls.
“We know that Roma have experienced racism and persecution,” Ms. DiNovo said, addressing the small, colourful crowd. “That’s not the case here.”
More than introducing Parkdale to the Roma, the event served to demystify the new arrivals – among other things, a leaflet titled “Myths and Facts about Roma” was made available to the crowd.
“With this community, I’m very aware that it’s necessary – more aware than I have been in the past about other communities,” Ms. DiNovo said.
Tamas Banya arrived to Parkdale from Budapest with his wife Tamasne Banya, 32, and their two children in 2008. Like many other Roma in the neighbourhood, the Banyas’ refugee claim is pending.
Back in Hungary, Mr. Banya, 31, was the sole Roma employee in a diaper factory – he’s pale-skinned and kept his roots quiet. “I’m a little bit lucky because I’m white,” he said. But there would be a downside to Mr. Banya’s employment, as he witnessed his colleagues air out their hatred for his people.
“They say, ‘Hitler did a very good job but made only fault: He is dead and did not finish, because we have many Roma.’”
At school in Budapest, his daughter Klaudia, now 13, was punched and told to “Go home.”
Mr. Banya said the worsening atmosphere compelled the family to immigrate to Canada, where his parents and brothers were already settled, having arrived before Canada slapped a visa restriction on Hungarians in 2001.
Today, the four live off a $2,500 monthly cheque from the Ontario Disability Support Program – Mr. Banya has been disgnosed with Myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that causes muscle weakness and fatigue. The rent for their Tyndall Avenue apartment is $1,000; Mr. Banya and his wife are learning English, and he sings and plays guitar with Ungro Rom, a gypsy folk group.
Klaudia and her brother Aron, 4, attend Alexander Muir/Gladstone Avenue Public School, where Klaudia is the only Roma student in her Grade 8 class. Her father chose the school because other schools in Parkdale have been inundated with Roma students. Mr. Banya thinks that could hinder his children’s ability to learn English.
For Queen Victoria PS, it was culture shock. A population of 13 Hungarian-speaking students ballooned to 150 between June 2009 and last May. The elementary school’s largest ethnic group – 132 Tibetans students – was outnumbered, seemingly overnight.
Principal David Finkelstein said teachers were “caught off guard because nobody foresaw that this population was going to come in.” He acknowledged the growing pains: “Because [the Roma] came all together, they created very homogeneous groups. … The teachers were having difficulty cracking into the cliques the students created because they’re all speaking Hungarian.”
A handful of Roma parents grew politically suspicious of the few Hungarian translators provided by the school. Lines were also drawn in the playground: There were now “Hungarian kids” and “English kids.” (Paradoxically the English group consisted also entirely of new immigrants, too.) The school’s solution was to mix the children’s teams up at recess so they didn’t play against one another. Mr. Finkelstein says integration remains “a work in progress” since the language barrier effectively cut off the Roma from other students last year.
(His other concern is that “they may not be able to stay for long because a lot of them are here under refugee claims.”)
Many of the children have sizable gaps in their education, in part because of the segregation they faced in Hungary. Human rights groups say gypsies there are routinely assigned to schools for the mentally challenged. No surprise, then, that some Roma parents are wary of school administrators here: now, when their children complain about school, some parents simply let them stay home.
“These kids are so out of it. They don’t understand what the school system or the teachers want from them,” says Paul St. Clair, executive director of the Roma Community Centre, which co-ordinates with Culture Link, a service that connects newcomers with Canadians who speak their language to help them find doctors, schools, work and government programs.
Mr. St. Clair says it typically takes a year for Roma parents to realize that education is the only way their children will advance in the city. Culture Link is currently organizing an event to get Tibetan, Caribbean and Roma students to mingle after “community animosity” developed between the three groups, with some kids “bullying the newcomer.”
Mr. St. Clair is also helping calm tensions beyond school halls. The Roma, he said, “are a little more flamboyant, they make a little more noise in their apartments because they like to party. …I had calls from neighbours who had been upset because these people played music late at night and she didn’t know how to tell them not to, so we tried to facilitate some understanding.”
Despite the cultural slippages, the Roma are palpably thankful to be here.
“Here we have freedom. In Hungary, we always have a little bit of stress on the street, on the job,” said Mr. Banya.
He recalled a scene outside a Tim Horton’s, the day a police cruiser pulled up. His brother-in-law began fumbling for his ID, a habit leftover from Hungary, where Roma are routinely subjected to random checks.
Mr. Banya marveled, “The police officers got out of the car and said, ‘Hi.’”
His family faces deportation, but he’s hopeful: “We have many new Canadian friends, and we want it that way.”
13 comments
9 Responses to “About 4000 Gypsy refugees culturally “enrich” Parkdale”
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I think is scary that Canada let that many of them into the country over a short period of time. I see everyday on the streets dressed head to toe with expensive clothes which only makes you question how did they get them? what social support are they exploiting? I’m all for refugees/immigrants that are fleeing a country because of violence etc but if you can’t contribute to the growth of Canada why are you here?
I agree with Mike. There are SO many in Parkdale right now and I’ve heard there are supposed to be 3,000 more before the end of the year.
Their expensive clothes make me curious, too.
As someone who’s had the misfortune of having some Roma just move in above me, I can say their loud partying is getting old quickly.
I am scared to leave my house. They are everywhere in large groups and I am in fear of being attacked. This is the worst time for Parkdale ever since the closure of the mental institute long ago. It is absolutely terrible. There is now frequent drug use behind buildings as well. My neighbour was robbed at night time because they climbed into his second floor balcony.
As a resident of Parkdale, I would like to think that we live in a very diverse neighbourhood where we should all be able to get along. We’re have a huge influx of Tibetans over the past 10 years, many of whom go to school with my children and are close friends.
I certainly sympathize with the plight of the Roma and believe that the persecution and hardship they’ve experienced in their home countries was due to racial discrimination, not just because they appear to make such crappy neighbours.
On a personal level, I’m having a serious issue with the Roma that have moved into the apartment complex beside my house. They’ve turned the parking lot adjoining my backyard into a scrap metal salvage operation, where they noisily dismantle fridges, microwaves, stoves, dishwashers, etc… at all hours of the day and night. Truckloads of garbage are brought onsite so they can salvage any valuable material, but the organic waste that comes with it has attracted all matter of vermin, which then invade my backyard. The city has been forced to come several times to clear out the mountains of debris from the front yard and parking lot of their apartment building over the past several months.
Their music, singing, and partying goes on every night, at volumes loud enough that I can’t sit comfortably in my well insulated, fully detached house next door without my teeth rattling.
The police have been called to their building so many times to deal with the situation, but nothing ever changes. The language barrier makes it impossible for them to effect any permanent change. Not sure what to do at this point but I’m rapidly approaching my wits end.
Frankly, I wax nostalgic about the days when that apartment building was filled with prostitutes, drug dealers and pimps…at least they kept to themselves, and were friendly and respectful neighbours.
These gypsies are awful, bring forth no skills to Canada. They broke into their apartment that they had been evicted from. The floors were renovated for the next tenant so at night they broke in through a window, only to start a fire in the apartment and set off the fire alarm at 3 in the morning. These people are useless scum and i can see now why the visa restriction was on in 2001, Canada should of kept it. Oh and another note, Cheri Dinovo sucks, what does she know about culture? She needs to read something more that wikipedia to know the truth about these people. Get a grip Cheri, slag.
I first became aware of gypsy’s when I lived in London, England in 1985. They lived in a caravan(trailer) at the end of our estate. Their children would spend all day outside pubs begging for money. They would go to the welfare office claiming their children and others children as dependents to get a larger cheque. And here I read in this article Mr. Banya is receiving Disability!!!??? After being here what since 2008? And on a refugee status? WTF I’m Canadian born and bred and it took me five years and 3 attempts to get disability for Multiple Sclerosis! I’ve been on a wait list for subsidized housing for 7 years. And the gypsy’s have moved into the building next door to me (Ontario housing building)and come over regularly to sift through our garbage bins dragging out bed bug infested furniture to furnish their flats. Or dump their bed bug riddled mattress’s in our trash. They have taken over an entire building on Jameson and all other ethnic tenants have moved out. I’ve seen one gentleman playing electric guitar outside the No Frills pan handling. I’ve been told that one of the clothes bins on Jameson that collects for charity is raided and they sell the clothes on the lawns.
They were turned away from Canada in 2001 because Hungary is part of the European Union and they could move anywhere in Europe they choose without having to apply. So what does that say, Europe does not want them? Why has Canada changed their mind? I don’t want to discriminate against any culture but they make it hard and wonder from the other stories posted here if they have brought it on themselves.
You are right, lucy noso.
They take advantage of the system, they steal, they destroy, they don’t care.
I read the comments people are writing on different news about gipsies. Those who don’t know them and are brainwashed by the political correctness, are saying … poor guys, they are discriminated, they are racially abused… aaawwww, poor guys. BUT those who lived amongst them in their original country, like myself, know what’s the truth.
In all stories there are 2 sides, and to make a fair opinion on the story, you HAVE TO look at both sides and learn why is this happening. There are few Romas who are integrated, I know Romas who are tv producers, in financials.. but that’s because they wanted to succeed.
If you really want to learn why are these problems in Eastern Europe, you just have to google and youtube it. You will find that always the last carriage on the train is for gipsies and they don’t pay the ticket, the conductor is afraid to go in. You will find that in villages, crops, vegetables, hose animals, fruits are stolen every day by them, and nobody can do anything about it because they go by hundreds to steal. You will find that in villages, kids are terrorized by gipsy schoolmates who ask for money every day, and if they are not given kids are beaten. Teachers have no voice, principals have no power. You will also find that when a gipsy is hospitalized, the whole family is taking over the hallways and sleep, eat there and police and hospital staff can’t do anything. How about if you learn about the palaces they are building on begging and stealing money, on which they do not have construction authorization, nor they pay taxes.
It’s easy to learn nowadays. The Internet is huge, you can always check both sides of the coin.
Okay, Canadians, just accept as many as you can. We will send you these oh poor souls to you. Cca. 1 million “angels”. From evil, evil Hungary from u with love. Oh, its already time to wake up idealist westerners…(sigh)
I am a resident of Parkdale/High Park. Though I see that ‘Canadians’ might misunderstand the new Roma immigrants because of their joie de vivre, I have noticed that the Roma children are always at the parks playing and laughing…which is something that Canadian kids seem to have stopped doing. Let’s all just get along – they are people too, and who really knows anyone’s situation. I am sure the Roma have a lot to offer, and are probably more willing to contribute than the majority of Canadians, who generally have a poor attitude to work and productivity.