In The News: GU Partners with United Nations on Romani Memory Map of the Americas

On International Roma Day 2024, Gonzaga University announced its role in a coalition of partners launching the Romani Memory Map for the Americas, a crowd-sourced initiative mapping Romani community memory points. The project builds on the United Nations Human Rights Office’s work on Roma rights and countering antigypsyism — the specific form of racism facing Roma people.

Gonzaga’s Center for Global Engagement will host the English-language version of the Romani Memory Map for the Americas on its website; there is also a Spanish-language version hosted by the Institute of Anthropological Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, and a Portuguese-language version hosted by the Associação International Mayle Sara Kali.

The Spokesman-Review newspaper did a story on the GU-UN partnership, chatting with history professor Ann Ostendorf, an expert member of the project's organizing committee. 

“The goal of doing this is that Romani American history is virtually non-existent in academia, but also in popular consciousness where a lack of visibility of the real history allows for more stereotypes and misinformation,” said Ostendorf in the Spokesman story. The goal of the map,, she noted, is to “raise awareness that American history is Romani history.”

Click here to see the United Nations’ complete background on the project, and visit the Spokesman-Review website to read the full story.