From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Gypsies/rom/Matt T. Salo
Among the Rom, employment has to meet certain prerequisites before it is considered as a proper activity in which to engage. First and foremost, it must not contravene the community’s rules regarding cultural purity, which forbid contact with unclean persons, things, or places. Secondly, the work should be such that the individual is not placed in a subservient position vis-à-vis non-Gypsies. A third consideration is that it allow for flexibility of time and place in its execution. The values of family cohesion dictate that obligations to one’s relatives take precedence over other activities, including work.
Most Rom are masters of several trades, allowing them to juggle their schedules for the maximum freedom of choice. The strategies that the Rom utilize to achieve this degree of flexibility involve trades that can be carried on in the course of a peripatetic life. Formerly, for the men these were chiefly coppersmithing, horse-trading, and the resale of various goods on which a profit could be made. In addition to providing a living, horse-trading also had symbolic value as the true employment of the Rom. An old man recollected that when he was about seven or eight years old, his father sold the horses, and his mother wept. When his father bought a Ford car, she exclaimed, “You sold the horses for that!”
During the early years in Canada some Rom performed farm work or were employed at carnivals. When times were tough, as, for example, during the Depression and World War II, they even resorted to working in factories or put their metalworking skills to use in such activities as stove or furnace repairs, auto body work, electroplating, or metal burnishing. Coppersmithing and fortune-telling became more important occupations after they abandoned horse-trading. Smithing, including riveting, tinning, and cleaning, was sought at dairies, breweries, hospitals, restaurants, and wherever large copper vats were used that required maintenance. Most Gypsy men developed sufficient skills to work at five or six occupations; that way, if they were unable to find employment in one, they could turn to another line of work, even in hard times. Today in Canada, their occupations span a wide range of activities, including used-car and trailer sales, paving, roofing, and seal coating, repairing pneumatic jacks and shopping carts, and the purchase and resale of just about anything for which there is a market.
The women have traditionally been fortune-tellers; theirs is a practice that seems to maintain its appeal for non-Gypsy customers. As well, they would supplement the family income by selling various items door-to-door or by begging. One family recalled that at times everybody had to be engaged in making money. The husband sold cheap watches at gas stations. His brother travelled through northern Ontario repairing stoves. Even the five-year-old daughter worked by begging from people who put coins in parking meters. During their early years in Canada the Rom bought or traded food from farmers, often in exchange for telling the farm wife’s fortune; sometimes it was obtained in a horse trade. Today, fortune-telling continues to provide a significant part of the income, and the requirement for a sufficient pool of customers frequently determines where the family will set up a new household.
