American Gypsy

• Main Author: Marafioti, Oksana
• Format: Audio
• Language: English
• Published: Digital Scholarship@UNLV 2012
• Subjects: American literature; Autobiography; Criticism; Romanies; Siberia (Russia); United States; Arts and Humanities; Creative Writing; Literature in English; North America; Nonfiction; Other Languages; Societies; and Cultures; Tundra; Siberia
• Online Access: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/blackmountain_lectures_events/126; https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/context/blackmountain_lectures_events/article/1125/type/native/viewcontent

Oksana Marafioti was 15 when her family moved to Hollywood. She’d grown up in Russia, touring with the family’s band of gypsies across the Siberian tundra. Then suddenly she found herself in Hollywood, struggling to survive socially in a sea of American teenagers who didn’t understand her stepmother’s palm reading, or the exorcisms her father performed on the side. So what’s an MTV-loving teen to do? Oksana Marafioti talks about her memoir, American Gypsy, and what it took to dig deep into her family’s history: the good, the bad, and what ultimately makes her what she is.