Romani women Magda Santos and Viviane de Jardim Aimore in Itaim Paulista. Photo by Léu Britto/Agência Mural, used with permission.

This article, written by Artur Ferreira and Amanda Oliveira, was originally published on May 30, 2025, on the Agência Mural website. An edited version is published on Global Voices as part of a partnership agreement.

In the collective imagination, the Romani people are associated with colourful clothing, parties, accessories, and an aura of mystery, embodying a wandering spirit. But beyond the stereotypes, there is a rich history of resistance and belonging that spans centuries, including in Brazil, in the outskirts of São Paulo.

In universities, public offices, doctors’ offices, or their traditional campsites, they are fighting for their rights, against prejudice, and for recognition in a country where there are still shortcomings in caring for the diversity of these communities.

In Itaim Paulista, a neighbourhood at the eastern end of the city, 250 people live in one of the main and oldest Romani campsites in the region.

“Some Romanies palm read, dance, get dressed up in traditional clothing, but some are even evangelical, like myself, and they don’t all even live in camps. We are a people like any other,” the 32-year-old housewife Magda Santos says. She has been living in the camps for eight years with her husband and two children. “I am not Romani by blood, but I became one when I got married to one.”

Kitchen at a camp in Itaim Paulista. Photo: Léu Britto/Agência Mural, used with permission

The Romani, also known as the Roma peoples, are an ethnic group that doesn’t have a single origin. One of the more widely accepted theories is that they are of Indian origin but have travelled the world since the 11th century in a great diaspora, dispersing throughout the Balkans, Western Europe, and later to other continents.

While she was hanging clothes on the clothesline, 29-year-old seamstress Viviane Alves Pereira made sure to find an answer when asked about the main problems her people face. The statement came without hesitation: prejudice, invisibility and the lack of access to basic rights, a common scenario in marginalized neighbourhoods.

Who are the Roma people from the outskirts?

The majority of Romani who live on the outskirts of Greater São Paulo are of the Calon ethnicity, like Magda and Viviane. They are also those who suffer the most prejudice relating to maintaining their traditions and being most recognized as “gypsies” (a term now considered derogatory), because of their clothing and their nomadic lifestyle, according to sources from this report.

In Brazil, there are two other Romani ethnic groups: the Roma and the Sinti peoples. They don’t wear traditional clothing, so they mostly go unnoticed in the cities.

“Many Brazilians were already cared for by doctors, nurses and Romani lawyers, and maybe they don’t even know,” states activist Nicolas Ramanush, 64, who is the president of the NGO, Romani Embassy of Brazil (Embaixada Cigana do Brasil), in Santo André in the Greater São Paulo area.

“In the region, Romani people were concentrated in the neighborhood of Itaim Paulista and in the cities of Itaquaquecetuba and Itapevi, with camps near the train stations,” he says.

Land occupied by Romani people in the east of São Paulo. Photo by Léu Britto/Agência Mural, used with permission.

Each ethnicity is divided into subgroups, and each one develops its own customs, habits, religions and rituals. “In my ethnic group, for example, we always wear decorated shoes with a lot of details. Some Calon women are famous for their flowery dresses and for using handkerchiefs,” says Ramanush, who belongs to the Sinti ethnicity.

This group has the fewest number of people in the country. “Today, if there are 100 families in Brazil, it is a lot,” says Ramanush. “This is because of the period of Nazism. The Sintis were almost exterminated. Among the Romani killed during the Holocaust, the majority were Sinti and Roma,” he adds.

Ramanush notes that many aspects of Romani culture are integrated into the Brazilian lifestyle without most people realizing it. They were among those responsible for helping Carnival to grow, especially in the northeast, creating Carnival street blocks. Certain costumes, such as “La Ursa” (The Bear) in Recife, have a Romani origin.

“Instruments like the seven or six-string guitar were brought to Brazil by the Roma people. Some samba dancers spoke about how living with the Romanies inspired them musically,” Ramanush says.

Under the canvas tents

Nomadic and outskirt-dwelling Romani have a routine defined by difficulties surrounding education for their children and lack of healthcare, caused by the lack of a stable address. They also face São Paulo’s structural problems, such as floods, and living under canvas tents, without safety.

One of the most impactful natural disasters was the flooding in February 2025 in the far east of São Paulo, in the region known as Jardim Pantanal. The streets and houses remained underwater for several days. The Romani in these camps had to face that situation under the tents.

“We spent days underwater, and it was the neighbors from the region who helped us,” Santos remembers with outrage.

A clothesline in an impoverished camp on the outskirts of São Paulo. Photo: Léu Britto/Agência Mural, used with permission.

The camp’s inhabitants had to deal with a lack of drinking water; tents were affected, and according to local accounts, they had to make a joint effort to avoid major losses of furniture and appliances while the flooding advanced.

Just like Santos, Ramanush believes that the first step to improving the Romani community’s life in the outskirts of Brazil is for them not to be invisible.

Prejudice and invisibility

Even with initiatives such as the National Day of Roma Peoples, commemorated every May 24 since 2006, some rights are still neglected. For example, Romani people are not recognized in the national census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Santos remembers the difficulty she faced in registering her children’s ethnic group in their identity documents. Since there is no official recognition of “Romani” ethnicity, she ended up registering them by their skin color.

“There are policies catered to Indigenous peoples, Black and Brown people, but not for Romani people. We have our own culture, but we do not show up, which is why I say being Romani is being invisible,” she claims.

Ramanush experienced a similar situation when a census taker visited him during the most recent census in Brazil in 2022. “She asked me what my race was, and I answered that it was not on the list. My complexion is white, but I’m a Romani.”

IBGE estimates that Brazil has between 800,000 and a million Romani, but the Roma groups believe the numbers are higher.

The Romani have been fighting for years to be recognised and to have better living conditions in Itaim Paulista. Photo by Léu Britto/ Agência Mural, used with permission

“I've already travelled all over Brazil meeting Romani people from all ethnic groups. Without official data, there are no efficient public policies,” Ramanush explains. “Even to count how many Romani there are in each city or town, local governments make the process difficult.”

Besides the lack of recognition, Romani people living in peripheral areas also face a prejudice that runs through generations. They have been accused of theft, robbery, and deception for centuries. It wasn’t rare to have them associated with kidnapping children.

Trying to change this reality and fight prejudice, Romani groups have been mobilized for the approval of a bill making teaching Romani culture and history in schools mandatory — modeling what already happens with Black and Indigenous people in Brazil. The proposal presented by federal deputy Helder Salomão (PT, Workers’ Party), at the Chamber of Deputies as Bill 3547 of 2015, has made little progress.

In their justification, the text reinforces the idea that for centuries Romani groups have been experiencing prejudice, marginalization, exclusion and persecution. So, the bill aims to “change the image of Romani populations, trying to reduce prejudice and discrimination that these groups are subjected to.”

The bill also asserts that providing visibility for Romani groups “will provide a more fertile ground to build public policies focusing on the promotion of human rights.”