Roughly 1 million gypsies live in the US. Although present since colonial days, immigration is difficult to follow because many arrived under other national quotas; gypsies only became an “officially” recognized minority in the 1960s. Many concentrate in urban centers of the Northeast, Midwest and West, but have expanded into urban areas in search of interstitial economic positions in commerce, repairs and entertainment.

Gypsies generally maintain strong social and cultural boundaries with outsiders, making them an object of mystery and suspicion, depicted in media as foreign rather than ethnic.