VOA标准英语2012--New York Roma Enrich City's Culture
时间：2019-01-14 作者：英语课 分类：VOA标准英语2012年(十月)
New York Roma Enrich City's Culture
Romany style music and celebration are going full force at the Drom nightclub, the epicenter of a three-week New York Gypsy Festival.
It highlights the musical cultures of a people who migrated north from India about one thousand years ago and settled mainly in southern and eastern Europe, the Balkans and present-day Russia.
Producer Mehmet Dede said the festival is geared to those, like him, who are “Gypsy at heart.”
“And I would like to think that in New York City we’re all a little bit of Gypsy,” said Dede.
Just as the Roma have been influenced by the lands where they have lived, New York has been shaped by the immigrant groups that settled here, including the Roma.
Ismail Lumanovsky leads The New York Gypsy All Stars. He sees himself as a cultural ambassador.
“By playing Romany music, I want to offer the New York audience a very free way of looking to music, of expressing their feelings in the moment," said Lumanovsky.
The Gypsy spirit seems to work for New York’s downtown music scene.
“I think they have something like an energy you don’t find in any other music. So that’s why I like it,” said one girl.
“It’s kind of like the European blues,” said a man at the festival.
“They can feel music. You feel that they love playing,” said another man.
Petra Gelbart conducts workshops where she introduces Romany language, dances and music to non-Roma, or “gadje.”
She also likes to correct what she calls misconceptions.
“We’re not nomadic 1 for the most part. We’re people who have been settled for hundreds of years or are certainly trying to settle and get jobs…" said Gelbart.
Roma have considered themselves outsiders and they have often been persecuted 2. They are frequently stereotyped 3 as unkempt and dishonest.
An estimated half-million Roma were murdered by the Nazis 4 during World War II. Today, anti-Roma violence is on the rise in western and southern Europe. Even in the U.S., some immigrant Roma fear prejudice. Gelbart’s mother worked at a bank.
"And she just wasn’t going to tell people she was Gypsy because, as she put, it ‘the minute something goes missing, who do you think they’re going to blame?’" said Gelbart.
Still, many native New York Roma, like dancer Pirozhka Racz, are proud to maintain some traditions for which Roma are known, including fortune telling.
Racz said that in spite of globalization, there will always be Roma.
"We haven’t let all of the sadness throughout the centuries change us. We’ve remained basically just the same, keeping the important things alive - generosity 5, sharing with family, music and the other arts that we do," said Racz.
And to judge by the increasing popularity of Gypsy-style music, dance, and even fashion, Roma will be part of the Big Apple’s flavor for years to come.
- This tribe still live a nomadic life.这个民族仍然过着游牧生活。
- The plowing culture and the nomadic culture are two traditional principal cultures in China.农耕文化与游牧文化是我国传统的两大主体文化。
- Throughout history, people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. 人们因宗教信仰而受迫害的情况贯穿了整个历史。
- Members of these sects are ruthlessly persecuted and suppressed. 这些教派的成员遭到了残酷的迫害和镇压。
- There is a sameness about all these tales. They're so stereotyped -- all about talented scholars and lovely ladies. 这些书就是一套子，左不过是些才子佳人，最没趣儿。
- He is the stereotyped monster of the horror films and the adventure books, and an obvious (though not perhaps strictly scientific) link with our ancestral past. 它们是恐怖电影和惊险小说中的老一套的怪物，并且与我们的祖先有着明显的（虽然可能没有科学的）联系。
- The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- The Nazis were responsible for the mass murder of Jews during World War Ⅱ. 纳粹必须为第二次世界大战中对犹太人的大屠杀负责。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
- We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。