Ian Hancock is not a gypsy. He is a Romani. The difference in nomenclature is so important that Hancock, a professor of English, linguistics and Asian studies at The University of Texas at Austin since 1972, has devoted most of his adult life to dispelling ignorance about the ethnic group into which he was born.

Romanticized, fictional representations of “gypsies” leave the general public with little accurate information about Romanies.

“Most people don’t know that appending the name ‘gypsy’ to my people is both wrong and pejorative,” says Hancock, the official ambassador to the United Nations and UNICEF for the world’s 15 million Romanies and the only Romani to have been appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. “‘Gypsy’ is simply a shortened form of Egyptian—that’s what many outsiders thought Romanies were. Using a little ‘g’ in ‘gypsy’ also compounds the problem because that indicates that as a common noun it’s a lifestyle choice and not that we’re an actual ethnic group.

“Most people don’t even have a minimal education about Romanies. They don’t know that seventy percent of the Romani population of Nazi-occupied Europe were murdered during the Holocaust. Or that we’re the largest ethnic minority in Europe but have no political strength, military strength, economic strength or a territory. Or, for that matter, that there are over one million Romani Americans.”

Educating the public about Romani history and culture has been a colossal task for Hancock because most individuals do, unfortunately, have a graphic mental image of the “typical gypsy,” but they have formed their ideas from all the wrong information.

According to Hancock, most people are only familiar with the surfeit of romantic fairytale myths that surround the diverse collection of individuals erroneously termed “gypsies.”

Novels, poems, plays, films and songs over the past several centuries have portrayed ‘gypsies’ as free-spirited, promiscuous, indigent criminals who dance around campfires and are fortunetellers, thieves and liars. ‘Gypsies’ are carefree and enjoy an almost childlike innocence and release from duty. ‘Gypsies’ practice witchcraft, steal babies in the dead of night and are filthy and unkempt, so the stories say.

“This ridiculous fictional image has taken on a life of its own,” says Hancock. “The cliché description of Romanies is so deeply rooted that it may never totally be eradicated. There are countless representations in films and books of Italians as Mafia members, but no one actually believes that all Italians are Mafia members. That is not true for my people.”