The Roma people's historical origins are from Rajasthan India; these were made up of many diverse peoples who traveled across Asia 1000 years ago towards European frontiers, pushed by an expanding Ottoman empire, arriving at Constantinople in the 14th Century. The Gypsy peoples enjoyed an initial warm acceptance inside Europe; their presence was perceived as enriching, almost spiritual as a lost tribe of Christians with extraordinary skills in music and dance, however this was turned around very quickly as the Gypsies became prized for their craftsmanship with metal, and they were very soon enslaved by feudal lords and monasteries, living under slavery for 500 years in Europe. They were victims of forced deportation as slaves to the Americas, even leaving as early as Christopher Colombus' first voyage, and later, with the abolition of slavery in 1856 an eventual Diaspora across Europe into Russia and to the Americas

Their more recent history include such horrors as genocide during the Holocaust; mass exodus from Kosovo and across the Balkan states during the 1990s Balkan wars; and during the twentieth and early twenty first century, a flux of Roma seeking opportunities abroad; many leaving eastern Europe for the west after the fall of communism, and fuelled by institutionalised racism and the economic crisis, in an environment where anti-gypsyism becomes an evermore growing concern, with hate attacks, arson and killings; Roma continually face a lack of opportunities, where exclusion from education, rejection and fierce border controls, destruction of camps, forced evictions and deportation continue unabated.