Translation of interview with Roma Access Program student, Laszlo Jakab
Magazine: Nők Lapja
Issue: 9 October 2013
By Lilla Rist
LIFE STORY
”You can achieve anything, Laci!”
He comes from the Roma shanty town of Kistelek. He never wanted to go into higher education; neither in primary school, nor in secondary school did it occur to him that he should pursue his studies. Yet, things took another turn. Now a CEU student, he speaks fluent English. He is only 24, but he has come a long way already.
Black jeans, black boots, blue eyes. We eye each other for a long time before I approach him, as I am not sure whether it is actually him I am supposed to meet. But it is him. We meet up with Laszo Jakab in front of the Basilica because it is close to CEU. The day has just ended, and he talks lengthily about his weird subjects. We make a big leap, both in space and spirit, when I start asking him about the Roma shanty town of Kistelek. “Kistelek is a small town near Szeged,” he says. “There were about two hundred Wallachian Roma families living in the shanty town; that is the community I come from. It is a very village-like environment, the kind that would really draw you in. Those who stay there will go to work for a public works scheme or become unemployed. But that is not how I envision my future any more.”
“My father was ten when his parents died; he had to start working at the age of twelve, so he loaded wagons. My mother’s father was the first person in the shanty town who had a proper profession. He learned the tricks of the bricklayer trade. I was very young when he passed away. I do not know how he achieved what he did, but I do know that he always worked in a precise and conscientious way because he believed that he would be well paid and that bread would be on the table if he did a good job. It was in this spirit that my mother was brought up. She worked as a shop assistant until 1989 when I was born. Then came the change of regime, and afterwards she could not find a job any more; she could earn some money only through day labor or the public works scheme. My father, too, supported the family primarily from occasional jobs. Yet, they were both hardworking because their idea was that I would go on to study and not get stuck in the same situation as them. Neither of them are educated; they were taught by life that those who do not study do not get anywhere. My father is a thinker; it feels good to be with him, and he has ideas about the world. He taught me about the importance of respect and tolerance for others and that it is worth listening to everyone, from the homeless to the mayor. He let me be free at a very early age; he had so much trust in me that I could go anywhere I pleased when I was only sixteen. That was when it was clear that I would not get involved in murky affairs. If I had done so, chances are high that I would not be sitting here today because the road could have taken me to many other places. Many feel sorry for me when I tell them about where I grew up, but actually, I had a fabulous childhood. It is often said about Roma kids that they are not exposed to enough stimuli, but I was affected by so many things. We would go to my uncles, and cousins, where we would play and celebrate together. Whether it was a school leaving ceremony, or a birthday or Christmas, the family always got together to celebrate. We were happy to get anything, small things as well, and we would play around with a stick all day long. If there was nothing to eat at home, we ran over to one of my uncles, and they fed us there. What I saw in all this was not difficulty, but freedom! Because I was free as a child. Today it is sometimes difficult to find this feeling, even though that is very important. My parents went through a lot of bad things, but I could not sense any of that. My mother always tried to protect us, keep us near her, and we got a lot of good things and love from her. She is the kind of woman who manages family affairs in the background, leaving the big words to my father and putting food on the table in the meantime.
THE POWER OF FREE WILL
Both of my parents did their best not to justify the prejudices towards the Roma, but it is only me putting it that way, for them it came from somewhere deep inside. Thus, our house was always extremely clean because they did not want anyone to say that we were stinky Gypsies. Still, we were sometimes called names at school and in other places. In the meantime, I was a good student, but I never thought of applying to a secondary school. At the age of 14-15, you do not know who you are, and I did not even know to what extent I was Hungarian and to what extent I was Roma, whether I belonged to a community at all, and if yes, to which one. But then my parents also insisted that I should try. So I sent my application, and I was admitted. I continued to study well in secondary school, and I especially liked history and Hungarian literature and grammar. When we discussed the Holocaust, I was puzzled why we would not talk about the Roma Holocaust. Since then I have vowed not to touch a weapon ever. To me it seems inconceivable that there is something with which you can kill people. But we were never asked about these things in school, you just had to memorize the lesson. And then somebody came who was indeed interested in us: Father Kovesdi, who created a Christian community for the youth in Kistelek. I did not want to go there, but my peers told me to check it out once because it was really cool. So I went, and stayed there, for Father Kovesdi never spoke about what was forbidden. He always talked about free will and that we could make choices in our lives. There was a healthy competitive spirit in me that compelled me to perform better, and my friends would also often talk about the need to go away from that place and where they would continue their education.
My teacher, Mrs. Zadorisaid that ”you have to break out of there, Laci,” and today I know why she said it, but back then I was hurt by that sentence. Maybe because it showed that she did not understand our way of life that I was actually happy in the Roma shanty town of Kistelek, and because it did not recognize my family and the community to which I belonged. But I should not blame her for that because I also owe a lot to her – many other things that I was not very happy to hear at the time. For which teenager likes being told in which direction to go or to hear: “get your hair cut, Laci”? But she was also the one who said that “wait and see, Laci, you will go places,” and she also told me to apply to college because again, it just did not occur to me.
It was the same thing as at the end of the primary school: somehow there was no model before me, a person who would have gone through what I was about to enter. But my teacher kept encouraging me. In the end, I had enough points, and was admitted.
THE WORLD OPENED UP
I started to attend the social worker educational program in Szeged. I had a Roma classmate, who became my best friend. We talked a lot with each other, and as a result, we were both reinforced in our Roma identity. For it is difficult to live with the knowledge that you belong to a community to which no positive value is attached. In fact, the moment of true “conversion” came for me when I joined the Romaversitas program that promotes the further education of Roma youth. And suddenly I found myself among fifty young Romas who were all like me! It was an unbelievable experience! On top of that, they all knew magical things: one was a mathematician, the other was an engineer, so many smart guys! We all shared the same spark; I do not know what it was exactly, but there was certainly something in us. It was through Romaversitas that I became familiar with an international Roma youth network, TERNYPE and Juli Orsos to whom I am greatly indebted. She was the one who kept telling me “nothing is impossible, you can achieve anything, Laci, all you need to do is really want it.” With TERNYPE the world opened up for me. We went to conferences and meetings abroad, organized actions and campaigns, and brainstormed together about the Roma issues. Juli took me with her everywhere; she encouraged me that it was ok if I could not speak English yet, I would learn it. And in the end, I did learn the language among them, and of course, I passed the language exam as well because they somehow motivated me to do it. I felt bad not being able to understand what they were talking about. Then there was “Choli bacsi,” my professor Jozsef Daroczi, who is an extremely wise and old Roma man. He taught Roma literature, but we got something more from him because he was interested in us. He always wanted to know what kind of resources we, the youth had. He used to say that we were the ones keeping him alive.
I graduated in January 2013, and I started to work in Szeged as the project coordinator of a nonprofit organization. By March, I felt that I should not stop there, so I applied to the CEU’s Roma Access Program. Now I was not compelled by anyone – it took that long for me to start planning and dreaming about something on my own.”
“What has made the difference? Is this sheer luck or a matter of talent?”
“I have always run into the right people. There was always someone beside me who cheered me on. For that is what matters most to a child: to be praised and encouraged so that he knows his strengths and weaknesses. I managed to go into higher education, and my acquaintances often tell me that I am different from the other Roma. But I am not. I go home to Kistelek, and I talk Roma with my parents. I am just like them.”
Nők Lapja (Women’s Magazine) is the biggest selling Hungarian weekly, with a circulation of 217.000.