Romanians (a major ethnic group, about 89% of Romania's population) are Caucasians (white race) of ancient European ancestry, descending from Ancient Roman Empire and Ancient Dacia Kingdom and are the major ethnic group in modern Romania. Radiocarbon dated human fossils indicate that humans lived in Romanian territories since about 37800 years ago, making Romania one of the oldest human cradles in Europe. Romanians are a very distinct ethnic group in culture, origins and physical aspect from Romani/Roma/Gypsies.
It is important that people should not be discriminated against because of race or ethnicity. We reference here the "race" term just as an indicator for explaining more easily the cultural differences between groups and their different geographical origins.
Romani/Roma/Gypsies (minor ethnic group, about 3% of Romania's population, often called "Gypsies" though this term is considered a slur) are Malayan (brown race) of South-West-Asian ancestry (India), a traditionally nomadic Indo-Aryan ethnic group that started the migration from India more than 1000 years ago. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Romani/Roma/Gypsies people originated in the Indian subcontinent. Are spread around the world and don’t have a definite country. In Europe most of them live in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Czechia and Spain. The majority of Romani/Roma/Gypsies people don’t live in Romania.
Romanian people
Romanians (a major ethnic group, about 89% of Romania's population) are a Latin ethnic group, the majority inhabitant of today's Romanian territories and successors of the Ancient Geto-Dacians and Ancient Romans. Romanian language is a Latin language very similar to Italian and related to French, Spanish and Portuguese languages.
A few random examples of Romanian people:
Romani/Roma/Gypsie people
Romani/Roma/Gypsies (a minor ethnic group, about 3% of Romania's population) people arrived in Romanian territories about 800 years ago (about year 1200AD) during Mongol invasions from Asia. At that time all Romani/Roma/Gypsies people were slaves, first to Mongols then to Romanians. Romani/Roma/Gypsies people became free men only after 1850AD. Because Romani/Roma/Gypsies people were slaves to Romanians for hundreds of years in Romanian territories, many Romanians considered Romani/Roma/Gypsies people second-class citizens. Romani/Roma/Gypsies people's fate was similar to those of black-African people in America before 1865AD. However, the Romani/Roma/Gypsies were slaves for about 700 years continually in Romanian territories, while the black-African people were slaves for a lot less than that, in America.
Traditionally, average Romanians usually associated the sight of Romani/Roma/Gypsies people with crime or servitude. Nowadays, modern Romanians are a lot more tolerant and respect the dignity of all ethnicities.
A few random examples of Romani/Roma/Gypsies people:
In World War II, Romania had a far-right government and was initially ailed and associated with Nazi Germany. The Romani/Roma/Gypsies people were declared "enemies of the race-based state" under Hitler and placed in the same category as the Jews, victims of the Holocaust. Many Romani/Roma/Gypsies were deported and killed in concentration camps by the Romanian government during World War II.
In the communist era (after World War II until 1989AD) there were certain attempts to integrate Romani/Roma/Gypsies people into Romanian society.
In modern times (after the year 1989AD), Romania returned to democracy and joined the European Union. There are many programs and initiatives to integrate Romani/Roma/Gypsies people into society and ensure equal rights, access to education, etc. In present-day Romania, many Romani/Roma/Gypsies are already integrated into society and are supported by the state to further integrate, like having reserved places in schools and universities, especially for Romani/Roma/Gypsies ethnics, they even have their own political party nowadays. Many beggars and criminal clan families left Romania because of the increased security and new harsh laws against crime and against begging in Romania. This is to search for countries with less harsh laws and less security, many of which are the so-called "Romanians" who caused issues in Europe.
There is no reason for anyone to beg for money on streets in Romania. Many programs exist in Romania to integrate people into society, to educate and specialize them for certain jobs and to find them a job and a place to live on their own. In Romania all homeless or poor people are taken by the authorities and put into special helping centers where they get free food, a clean and free place to sleep and shower and clean as much as they want. They are offered free clothes and free cloth cleaning and drying service. They also have free medical and psychological assistance. They are introduced to various education and specializations and are supported and helped and directed until they find a job and a place to live on their own. All for free, just to have them integrated into society as normal people, unless the people refuse by their own will the help of the state by signing a paper that they don't want the state to take care of them.
In Romania, if caught begging on the streets by the police, adult beggars are confiscated all money they have on them and additionally fined a large amount of money. So begging on streets in Romania has become very unprofitable for beggars. Additionally, if adults use children to risen compassion sentiments for the benefit of begging, those adults are automatically sentenced to a few years in prison. As a result of the new harsh laws in Romania, in latest years many criminals and beggars left Romania permanently to search for societies with less harsh laws.