She rose above everyone and showed them who she was! The fight was hard and painful but it was worth it. But how she fought for her place in society and overcame all prejudices against Roma, said Alexandra Alexandrovic, 28, of Novi Sad.
- Yes, I was discriminated against because of my skin color and because I am Roma. There are different ways of discriminating.
When I was in the third grade of elementary school, the teacher separated the children, the whites from the dark ones. White children were placed in the first benches in front, and dark-skinned children were placed in the last benches, with an empty space between those benches.
Whenever I raised my hand to answer her questions, she ignored me. As if we, the darker children from the last club, didn't exist - Alexandra recalls her childhood.
- I came home crying and told my father what was happening. The next day my father went to school, talked to the teacher and the situation was no longer like that.
But after a few days, the teacher, while checking our homework, asked me, Alexandra, are you a Roma woman? And I replied, "Yes, I am a Roma woman." At that moment there was silence and silence, the children were watching me, as if I had said something terrible and terrible.
- We are all aware that while you are a child, you experience all this intensely, that then many things are traced and the foundations for the further life are laid.
- Otherwise, discrimination and racism still exist. but what I can do is not let it affect my psyche, and not let it fall.
- In parallel with the foundation, I attended a lower music school in "Isidor Bajic" in Novi Sad and my main instrument was the accordion. Then I enrolled in music high school, keyboard instrument, but I also kept the accordion and played in the orchestra.
Then I enrolled at the Academy of Arts. Studio program Ethnomusicology, with the main instrument tambourine and piano. After graduating, I enrolled in a Master's degree in Theater, a drama department at the Novi Sad Academy of Arts. I spent the winter semester in Novi Sad, and the summer in Norway in the city of Bergen through the Erasmus exchange program for many students. I successfully defended my master's thesis and thesis entitled: "Interculturalism in the teaching units of music and mathematics" and I obtained a master's degree in dramatic pedagogy, said Alexandra.
