“Some of the best photographs
documenting the Roma community I have ever seen.”
— JAMIE JOHNSON, AUTHOR OF GROWING UP TRAVELLING
Taking us behind the scenes of an ethnic minority largely unknown and yet routinely reduced to stereotypes by mainstream America, photojournalist Cristina Salvador Klenz captures the celebrations, social structures, and struggles of a culture that has survived centuries of discrimination and persecution: the American Roma.
Hidden: Life with California’s Roma Families is the first photography book ever to feature Romani Americans, The introduction, which provides critical context for the book’s 120 black-and-white photographs, follows a foreword written by Ian Hancock, former United Nations representative to the Roma people.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Fifty-five years after famed photographer Josef Koudelka published his seminal work, Gypsies, documenting European Roma families, California photojournalist Cristina Salvador Klenz brings us a similar collection of images—this time featuring the Roma families living up and down the West Coast of California.
HARDCOVER ONLY: $49.99
Since their exodus from India more than a thousand years ago, the Roma (widely known by the exonym "Gypsies," increasingly considered an offensive pejorative) have migrated all over the globe. Klenz’s work — the first of its kind — features various "nations" of Roma in America, including the Kalderash and Machvaya, whose ancestors were kept as slaves in Eastern Europe for 500 years; the Xoraxay, whose people arrived in California after extended stays in Chile; the Mihais, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia; and the Ludar, who were forbidden from speaking their native tongue during slavery and therefore had lost the Romani language entirely by the time they encountered Klenz.
Beginning in 1990, Klenz spent several years following a number of families belonging to various “nations” of Roma and documenting their lives on black-and-white, 35mm film, and developing the film in her bathroom at home. With a foreword by Ian Hancock, widely considered the world’s preeminent Romani scholar, Hidden provides historical as well as social context for the book’s 120 photographs, all lavishly printed in Italy.
Given their widely divergent paths to the United States, many Romani-American nations today have little social contact with each other, but the groups have been brought together in this set of photographs so that readers may gain a greater understanding of and appreciation for the history, celebrations, and struggles that bind them together.
About the Author
Photojournalist Cristina Salvador Klenz has worked for newspapers in New York and California. She was part of a team of photographers named as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 1995. Born in Porto, Portugal, Klenz immigrated to the United States as a young child. Her documentary photography work on the Roma culture has been published worldwide. Her images are part of the collection of the Romani Archives & Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She and her husband live in Long Beach, Calif., with their two sons.
Author website: americanroma.com
On Instagram: @CristinaSalvadorKlenz
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
“Some of the best photographs documenting the Roma community I have ever seen. Each photo brings you into their lives and intimate moments and tells a complete story of its own. Incredible work rarely seen in contemporary photography these days. I look forward to holding this gorgeous book in my hands.”
— Jamie Johnson, photographer and author of Growing Up Travelling
“How little we know about one another, until we dare to take a closer look. Every photograph in this powerful collection offers an intimate and emotional window into the hidden culture of the American Romani people. Klenz’s lens shields us from nothing, stripping away the secrecy to expose the beauty and wonder that has been concealed for too long.”
— Julie Cantrell, author of Into the Free.
"Cristina Salvador Klenz's book is a striking example of visual storytelling. It captured my heart from the very first image, lending me entry into an intimate world of the universal human experience, filled with love, sadness, and hope."
— Oksana Marafioti, author of American Gypsy: A Memoir
“Klenz’s sensitivity and skills as a professional photojournalist resulted in intimate photographs documenting the community’s daily life; milestones including birth, death, marriage; child-rearing; and extreme poverty set in the suburbs. Her subjects did not flinch from allowing her to see and photograph their most private moments. … Klenz’s work is unique and will become a photojournalism classic.”
— Ken Kobre, author of Photojournalism: The Professionals’ Approach