A couple months ago, my one (Romanian) colleague and I were talking, and he said that Romanians are "the Mexicans of Europe," since the immigration politics is the same; Romanians go to wealthier countries and do the jobs that no-one wants, and then a certain kind of politician just goes off and beats up on them and scapegoats them for whatever country's problems.
He was also telling me about how growing up, his area was pretty diverse in terms of ethnicities, with Hungarians being the largest minority, but there were Gypsies, too, and some Serbs as well, since they were so close to the border.
"The Communists weren't all bad," he was like. "At least they believed in education."
And, he said that as a matter of state policy when he was younger, his elementary school teachers would have to go around and fetch all of the Gypsy children and bring them to school.
He also said that his parents took pity on the Gypsies, and would try to hire them to do chores like cleaning out the drain pipes and roof gutters.
Only, they would take a few hours and do a little bit, but not really much at all, and then they'd say that they'd need some raki* to continue, and if they got that, maybe they'd do a little bit more, and then they'd say it was getting late and they'd come back the next day to finish up, and sometimes they would, but sometimes, also, they wouldn't, it was just like that with them.
. . .
* ( = fruit brandy)
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