Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T22:01:52.726Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Inventing Polonia: Notions of Polish American Identity, 1870–1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Get access

Extract

In the last quarter of the 19th century, the American Polish-language press began using the term Polonia to describe the imagined community of all Polish-speaking immigrants in the United States. Local Polish American settlements already bore neighborhood names. Where the Roman Catholic hierarchy permitted an ethnic Polish parish to form, Poles often designated the surrounding area — not only the parish buildings, but the whole network of neighborhood institutions and businesses — by the parish name followed by the suffix owo. By 1895, Poles in Chicago, for example, could read about news in different parts of the city nicknamed for local Polish-language parishes located there: Stanislawowo, Wojciechowo, Jadwigowo, Jackowo, and Michalowo. When speaking of all the Poles living in a single American city, Polonia could be used with a qualifier such as Chicago Polonia, Buffalo Polonia, or Milwaukee Polonia. But Polonia by itself referred to all Polish immigrants who were bound — or should have been, the writers insisted — by a shared notion of Polishness.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. Higham, John, ed., Ethnic Leadership in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

2. Conzen, Kathleen Neils, Gerber, David A., Morawska, Ewa, Pozzetta, George E., and Vecoli, Rudolph J., “The Invention of Ethnicity: A perspective from the USA,” Altreitalie 04 1990: 3762.Google Scholar

3. For background in English, see Wandycz, Piotr, The Lands of Partitioned Poland: 1795–1918 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Gieysztor, Aleksander et al. , History of Poland (Warsaw: PWN-Polish Scientific, 1979)Google Scholar; Leslie, R. F., Reform and Insurrection in Russian Poland, 1856–1865 (London: Athlone, 1963)Google Scholar; and Kridl, Manfred, A Survey of Polish Literature and Culture (The Hague: Mouton, 1956)Google Scholar. My understanding of this period has been strongly influenced by the essays of Stanislaw Pigoń, especially Na Drogach Kultury Ludowej: Rozprawy i Studia (Warsaw: Ludowa Spóldzielnia Wydawnicza, 1974)Google Scholar. On American labor movement rhetoric in the Gilded Age, see Fink, Leon, Workingmen's Democracy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), esp. 315.Google Scholar

4. Some of the protection societies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries included the Austrian Society of St. Raphael for the Protection of Emigrants, the Society for the Protection of Seasonal Emigrants, and the Protection of Young Women Section of the Polish Union of Catholic Women. Though at times the episcopacy turned its attention to mitigating labor exploitation, especially of seasonal emigrants, more often the emphasis seemed to be on protecting emigrants from temptations and encouraging them to “perform honest work.” As Bishop Pelczar of Przemysl put it, “The loss of faith, debauchery, and drunkenness cause foreigners to have contempt for our people” (Rev. Kumor, Boleslaw, “The Catholic Church in the Austrian Partition and Emigration,” in Pastor of the Poles, ed. Blejwas, Stanislaus A. and Biskupski, Mieczyslaw B. [New Britain, Conn.: Polish Studies Program Monographs, 1982], 93104).Google Scholar

5. Iwicki, John, C.R., The First One Hundred Years: A Study of the Apostolate of the Congregation of the Resurrection in the United States, 1866–1966 (Rome: Resurrectionist Studies, 1966)Google Scholar. Some of the claims of the Resurrectionists for control over Polish parish life that went beyond what basic Tridentine theology demanded were denied by a papal nuncio in an embarrassing setback before the turn of the century (Parot, Joseph, Polish Catholics in Chicago, 1850–1920 [Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1981], 8692).Google Scholar

6. Letter by Barzynski, Wincenty, 03 21, 1872Google Scholar, quoted in Iwicki, , First One Hundred Years, 197.Google Scholar

7. Osada, Stanislaw, Historya Związku Narodowego Polskiego (Chicago: Polish National Alliance, 1905), 5963Google Scholar. Reverend Felix Zwiardowski was born in 1840 and would have been thirty-three years old at the time of this incident (Janas, Edward T., C.R., Dictionary of American Resurrectionists, 1865–1965 [Rome: Resurrectionist Studies, 1967], 7779).Google Scholar

8. The first historian to describe the conflict as secular versus clerical was Kruszka, Wactaw, in Historya Polska w Ameryce (Milwaukee: Kuryer, 1905)Google Scholar. For an overview of how historians have interpreted this split, see Broïek, Andrzej, Polish Americans: 1854–1939 (Warsaw: Interpress, 1985)Google Scholar; and Parot, , Polish Catholics.Google Scholar

9. Osada, , Historya Związku Narodowego Polskiego, 64.Google Scholar

10. The word gmina, related to the German word gemein, was favored by the romantic populists the 19th century. For more on the Gmina Polska, see Pienkos, Donald, P.N.A.: A Centennial History of the Polish National Alliance of the United States of North America (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984)Google Scholar. For more on these publishers, see Kuzniewski, Anthony, “The Polish-American Press,” in The Ethnic Press in the United States, ed. Miller, Sally M. (New York: Greenwood, 1987), 275–90Google Scholar; Miąso, Józef, The History of the Education of Polish Immigrants in the United States (New York: Kosciuszko Foundation, 1977)Google Scholar; Kuzniewski, Anthony, Faith and Fatherland (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980)Google Scholar; and Paryski, Antoni A.: Zycie, Prace I Czyny (Toledo, Ohio: Ameryka-Echo, 1945)Google Scholar. Ameryka absorbed the Buffalo Echo in 1903 to become Ameryka-Echo.

11. For example, efforts to form proclerical papers in Wisconsin failed to diminish the influence of the Kuryer in Wisconsin (Kuzniewski, , Faith and Fatherland, 279).Google Scholar

12. For a detailed and enlightening account of the complex politics of the clerical publisher and the various editors of this Buffalo paper, see Falkowski, William G., Accommodation and Conflict: Patterns of Polish Immigrant Adaptation to Industrial Capitalism and American Political Pluralism in Buffalo, New York, 1873–1901 (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Buffalo: State University of New York, 1990), 197212.Google Scholar

13. Kruszka, , Historya Polska, 4: 3740Google Scholar; and Osada, , Historya Związku Narodowego Polskiego, 262Google Scholar. In 1887, Kraków conservatives also tried to impede a nationalist funeral procession for Kraszewski (Janina Bieniarzówna and Matecki, Jan M., Dzieje Krakowa [Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie Kraków, 1985], 3: 266–68).Google Scholar

14. Osada, , Historya Związku Narodowego Polskiego, 6364.Google Scholar

15. A translation of Estreicher's article was published by Strumskias, Matthew J.The Beginnings of the Polish American Theatre,” Polish American Studies 4 (1947): 3136Google Scholar. The translation, especially the titles of plays cited in the article, should be used with caution.

16. Miąso, , History of the Education, 4243.Google Scholar

17. Kuzniewski, , “Polish-American Press,” 277–78Google Scholar; Wepsiec, Jan, Polish American Serial Publications, 1842–1966: An Annotated Bibliography (Chicago: author, 1968)Google Scholar; N. W. Ayers and Son, comp., Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals, annual (Philadelphia: N. W. Ayers and Son)Google Scholar; and Osada, , Historya Związku Narodowego Polskiego, 618.Google Scholar

18. Biographical sketches of other prominent Polish Catholics in Chicago appear in Album Pamiątkowe z Okazji Zlotego Jubileusza Parafii Sw. Stanisiawa Kostki (Chicago: St. Stanislaw Kostka Parish, 1917)Google Scholar. Also helpful are Wachtl, Karol, Polonia w Ameryce (Philadelphia: author, 1944)Google Scholar; Cienciala, Anna M., “Foundations of Polish-American Scholarship: Karol Wachtl,” Polish American Studies 50 (Spring 1993): 5173Google Scholar; and SrMusial, Mary Agnella, “American Literary Productions of Szczęsny Zahajkiewicz” (M.A. thesis, DePaul University, 1944).Google Scholar

19. Zgoda, 05 3, 1891Google Scholar; and Osada, , Historya Związku Narodowego Polskiego, 310–27Google Scholar. According to Osada, the secular groups had approached Rev. V. Barzynski with a proposal for a joint commemoration of the 1791 constitution and that Barzynski had stipulated conditions for a joint ceremony, among them a demand that all Polish organizations admit only Catholics. The secular organizers refused because “the fundamental principle of the Third of May Constitutions was tolerance” (314). Dziennik Chicagoski, 05 2, 3, 4, and 5, 1891.Google Scholar

20. Though plans for the school began in earnest in late spring 1891, the argument for it was outlined in a long article appearing in Dziennik Chicagoski, 01 28, 1891Google Scholar. Zgoda, 06 1891.Google Scholar

21. Dziennik Chicagoski, 09 12, 13, and 14, 1892Google Scholar. Lechites is an ancient term for Western Slavs. On Zahajkiewicz, also see Musial, “American Literary Productions.”

22. Dziennik Chicagoski, 01 3 and 7, 1891.Google Scholar

23. A 17th-century French Jesuit version became the basis for later German chapbooks that popularized the story in the 19th century (Catholic Encyclopedia [New York: Encyclopedia, 1913], 9: 122–23).Google Scholar

24. Chociszewski, Józef, Genowefa, 2nd ed. (Gniezno: J. Chociszewski, 1909)Google Scholar, in the Zawistowski Collection at the Immigration History Research Center, St. Paul. Chociszewski added a postscript to this edition defending his version against the charge that it was too racy and complaining that amateur groups frequently failed to pay royalties for performing it. Szczęsny Zahajkiewicz, Genowefa (Chicago); and Jax, Antoni, GenowefaGoogle Scholar (Chicago); both of the Chicago versions are in the archives of the Polish Museum of America, Chicago.

25. Zdzieblowski, Antoni, Bohaterka Powstania 1863 (Chicago: Dyniewicz, 1893)Google Scholar. For a list of plays by Zdzieblowski, see Waldo, Artur, Zarys Historii Literatury Polskiej w Ameryce (Chicago: Dziennik Zjednoczenie, 1938), 1316.Google Scholar

26. The People of Chicago: Census Data on Foreign Born, Foreign Stock and Race, 1837–1970 (Chicago: City of Chicago Department of Development and Planning, 1976).Google Scholar

27. Greene, Victor, A Passion for Polka: Old-Time Ethnic Music in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar. Many of the Sajewski publications are listed in Wolanin, Alphonse S., Polonica Americana: Annotated Catalog of the Archives and Museum of the Polish Roman Catholic Union (Chicago: Polish Roman Catholic Union, 1950).Google Scholar

28. Wepsiec, , Polish American Serial PublicationsGoogle Scholar; see entries for respective cities.

29. On World War I politics, see Wandycz, , Lands of Partitioned PolandGoogle Scholar; and Leslie, R. F., ed., The History of Poland Since 1863 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Though Józef Pilsudski had been a member of the Polish Socialist Party in his youth, he disappointed many of his supporters when he gained power after World War I by suppressing the socialists and granting favors to the landed gentry.

30. In 1918, for example, Dziennik Chicagoski had a circulation of 34,000, Dziennik Związkowy (the Daily Alliance) reported 43,000, and the socialist Dziennik Ludowy (People's Daily) listed 18,000. The Ameryka-Echo, now a daily published from Toledo, had a circulation of 40,000, but its Sunday edition hit 100,000. The Polish National Alliance published the daily Dziennik Związkowy separately from its weekly organ, Zgoda, which had a circulation of 124,000. Also, in the 1910s, forty-three weeklies served twenty-seven cities and the Worzalla Press in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, published two weeklies and supplied books to a rural market. See N. W. Ayer entries for specific years, Wepsiec entries for specific papers (Polish American Serial Publications), and Chrzanowska, Helena, “Polish Book Publishing in Chicago,” Polish American Studies 4 (Spring 1947): 3739.Google Scholar

31. For an overview showing the extent of the Polish-language theater in America in these years, see the impressive pioneering study by Orzechowski, Emil, Teatr Polonijny w Stanach Zjednoczonych, Biblioteka Polonijna, vol. 21 (Wroclaw: Zaktad Narodowy im. Ossolinski, PAN, 1989)Google Scholar. For an overview in English see, Waldo, Artur, “Polish-American Theatre,” in Ethnic Theatre in the United States, ed. Sellers, Maxine Schwartz (Westport: Greenwood, 1983), 387417Google Scholar. However, this article, part history and part memoir, includes errors and must be used with caution.

32. The theaters in Chicago's Polish downtown area included the Chopin, Crown, Iola, Kosciuszko, Polonia, and Premier. Most of these theaters seated about three hundred. The broad profile offered in this section is based on the theater collections at the Polish Museum of America in Chicago, the Polish American collection at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (especially the Kosciuk, Saskowski, and Pankiewicz papers), the Baranska and Zawistowski papers at the Immigration History Research Center, the Artur Waldo papers at the archives of the Orchard Lake Schools outside Detroit, and the Lidia Pucinska papers (still in the possession of the Pucinski family), which include the scrapbooks, scripts, and correspondence of many other Chicago area actors.

33. Comments on lifestyle and attitudes are based on tape-recorded interviews by the author with actors and their children, in particular, interviews with Stanley Warzata, May 1976, Chicago, 111.; Artur Waldo, June 1983, Phoenix, Ariz.; Janina Majewska-Dwankowski, June 1983, Long Beach, Calif.; Mieczyslaw Friedel, June 1983, Escondido, Calif.; Izydor Brudzinski, June 1983, Rancho Mirage, Calif.; Lidia Pucinska, May 1984, Chicago, 111.; Halina (Pucinska) Pawl, May 1984, Chicago, Ill.; Bronislaw Mróz, January 1985, Chicago, Ill.; Josephine Seidel, December 1983, Buffalo, N.Y.; and Estelle (Wachtel) Torres, January 1987, Holland, Mich. A group of professional actors formed Lodge 2768, Tow. Scena Polska, of the Polish National Alliance (see Pamiętnik Dwudziestopięciolecia Teatru Polskiego w Chicago [Chicago: Tow. Scena Polska, 1936]).Google Scholar

34. Artur Waldo's vast collection of theater memorabilia, now at the archives of the Orchard Lake schools in Michigan, contains the programs for some of these “benefis” performances. The seven hundred roles are listed in Waldo, Artur, Stefania Eminowicz (Chicago: author, 1937), 95107Google Scholar. On speedups, weekend pressure, and the strike, see Kantor, Tadeusz, “W Ameryce Na Wozie i Pod Wozem,” in Pamiętniki Emigrantów, 1878–1958 (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1960), 614–17Google Scholar; and Dziennik Ludowy, 03 10, 1914.Google Scholar

35. Similar “low brow” theaters operated in Lódź, Lwów, and Poznań (Wosiek, Maria, Historia Teatrów Ludowych, Polskie Zespoly Zawodowe, 18981914 [Wroclaw: PAN, 1975], 83110, 135–36Google Scholar; and Kozlowski, Józef, òycie Teatralne Proletariate Polskiego, 1878–1914 [Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1982], 1819).Google Scholar

36. Turski, Stefan, “Gdy Melpomena Rzemiennym Dyszlem Objezdzala Polskę,” in Wspomnienie Aktorów (Warsaw: PTW, 1963), 2: 240–41.Google Scholar

37. Nowak, Stanley, “Moje Wspomnienia: Teatr Polonijny,” Glos Ludowy, 04 27, 1974.Google Scholar

38. Wachtl, Karol, Polonia w Ameryce, 262–64, 269.Google Scholar

39. The comments on the repertoire are based on a survey of plays (many with directors' comments penciled in) in the theatrical collections in the aforementioned archives. On the kuplety, see Szydlowska-Ceglowa, Barbara and Chojnacki, Wojciech, Polski Wujek Sam, Kuplety Polskie w Ameryce (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Polonia, 1989).Google Scholar

40. For background on Poland in the interwar period, see Leslie, , Poland Since 1863Google Scholar. For background on the rural generation coming of age in the interwar era, see Chalasinski, Józef, Mlode Pokolenie Wsi Polski Ludowej, Pamiętniki i Studia (Warsaw: Ludowa Spóldzielnia Wydawnicza, 1964)Google Scholar; and Burszta, Józef, “Osobowość Chlopa Polskiego u Progu Niepodleglości Jako Wynik Przemian Agrarnych i Spoleczno-Ekonomicznych,” in Dzieje Szkolnictwa i Oświaty Na Wsi Polskiej (Warsaw: Ludowa Spóldzielnia Wydawnicza, 1982).Google Scholar

41. A handful of clubs were established just prior to World War I, but the vast majority appeared after the war. Details on 145 clubs established from 1912 to 1957 are available in the definitive monograph by Wnuk, Wlodzimierz, Związek Klubów Matopolskich w Ameryce (Warsaw: PAX, 1974)Google Scholar; and Poles of Chicago: 1837–1937 (Chicago: Polish Pageant, 1937), 172–73.Google Scholar

42. Wnuk, (Związek Klubów)Google Scholar provides numerous examples of such donations (for example, see pp. 43, 47, 53, 107, and 118).

43. Ibid., 26, 39, 85. One village sent aid to equip a school specifically for girls, 107.

44. Ibid., 23, 62.

45. Cierniak, Jędrzej, Zaborowska Nuta (Warsaw: Ludowa Spóldzielnia Wydawnicza, 1988)Google Scholar. This posthumous collection covers Ciemiak's philosophy in general. Also see his editorials and articles in his journal Teatr Ludowy, especially in volumes 20 (1928): 25–28, and 22 (1930): 16–17. His correspondence with the Zaborów club in the United States is described in Teatr Ludowy 20 (1928): 4850Google Scholar. In 1946, the Zaborów village club organized a conference in Chicago on Cierniak's work (Wnuk, , Związek Klubów, 222–23)Google Scholar. Cierniak died in 1942 at the Pawiak prison camp.

46. For one example, see Wnuk, , Związek Klubów, 43.Google Scholar

47. Krzyżanowski, Julian, ed., Slownik Folkloru Polskiego (Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1964), 356Google Scholar. Gromada, Thaddeus V., “‘Góral’ Regionalism and Polish Immigration to America,” in Pastor of the Poles, ed. Blejwas, Stanislaus A. and Biskupski, Mieczyslaw B. (New Britain, Conn.: Polish Studies Program Monographs, 1892), 105–15.Google Scholar

48. At first, two earlier góral federations existed side by side, one strictly limited to immigrants from the villages near Nowy Targ and Zakopane and the other using a looser definition of membership (Wnuk, Wtodzimierz, Górale Za Wielk- Wod- [Warsaw: Ludowa Spóldzielnia Wydawnicza, 1985], 32Google Scholar; Poles of Chicago, 182Google Scholar; and Gromada, , “‘Goral’ Regionalism,” 112–15.Google Scholar

49. Two of the most prolific playwrights were Józef Lopatowski and Franciszek Chowaniec (Wnuk, , Górale Za Wielką Wodą, 49, 51Google Scholar; and Gromada, , “‘Góral’ Regionalism,” 113–15).Google Scholar

50. Teatr Ludowy 20 (1928): 147–53.Google Scholar

51. See Wnuk, (Związek Klubow and Górale Za Wielką Wodą)Google Scholar for numerous biographical sketches of the officers of the village clubs. On domy ludowe and populist notions of education, see Cygan, Mary E., Political and Cultural Leadership in an Immigrant Community: Polish American Socialism, 1880–1950 (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Evanston: Northwestern University, 1989), 121–22, 129.Google Scholar

52. Conradite (Buffalo: Joseph Conrad Literary Club, 1927).Google Scholar

53. Zawacki, Edmund, “Mickiewicz in the American Polonia,” in Adam Mickiewicz in World Literature, ed. Lednicki, Waclaw (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), 362.Google Scholar

54. Glomski, Hyacinth M., “President's Column,” [National] Polish Arts Club Bulletin 1, no. 2 (05 1947): 4.Google Scholar

55. Poles in Chicago, 4953Google Scholar; Polish Arts Club Bulletin 1, no. 1 (09 1946): 9Google Scholar; University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Milwaukee Urban Archives, Papers of Helen Barnet, Florence Landowski, Conrad and Jane Saskowski; Kucharski, Jerzy, “Halka — Wisconsin's First Motion Picture,” Polish American Studies 33 (1974): 4447Google Scholar; and Janta, Alexander, “Barriers Into Bridges: Notes on the Problem of Polish Culture in America,” Polish Review 2 (Spring-Summer 1957): 7997.Google Scholar

56. Helen Stankiewicz Zand's entire series has been reprinted with a helpful introduction and conclusion placing Zand's work in the context of ethnographic studies of the period by Eugene Obidinski, a sociologist at State University of New York (SUNY) at Oneonta, as Polish Folkways in America: Community and Family (Lanham: University Press of America, 1987)Google Scholar. Pieśni Ludowe (Minneapolis: Polanie, 1942)Google Scholar; Contoski, Josepha K., ed., Treasured Polish Songs with English Translations (Minneapolis: Polanie, 1951)Google Scholar; and Pawlowska, Harriet M. and Engel, Grace L., Merrily We Sing: 105 Polish Folksongs (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

57. The short story appeared in the Polish Arts Club Bulletin 1, no. 2 (05 1947)Google Scholar. Samuel Putnam's lecture was reprinted as “Poland's Contribution in Art,” in Poles in America: Bicentennial Essays, ed. Mocha, Frank (Stevens Point, Wisc: Warzalla, 1978), 8392Google Scholar. The pluralist vision informed the view of Poland as well. In the 1930s, a monthly aimed at the educated second generation reprinted editorials from European Polish papers strongly condemning anti-Jewish riots as having “nothing in common with the spirit of Poland or with the Polish people” (Polish American Review 2, no. 1–2 [0102 1936]: 9).Google Scholar

58. Zahariasiewicz, Walter, “Organizational Structure of Polonia,” in Poles in America, 649–52.Google Scholar

59. Keil, Charles, Keil, Angeliki V., and Blau, Dick, Polka Happiness (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 2535Google Scholar; Kantor, , “W Ameryce,” 671Google Scholar; and Falkowski, William G., “The Polka: An Ethnic Working Class Cultural Phenomenon,” in History for the Public, ed. Brumberg, G. David, John, Margaret M., and Zeisel, William (Ithaca: New York Historical Resources Center, Cornell University, 1983).Google Scholar

60. Spottswood, Richard K., “The Sajewski Story: Eighty Years of Polish Music in Chicago,” in Ethnic Recordings in America: A Neglected Heritage (Washington, D.C.: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1982)Google Scholar; and Kleeman, Janice Ellen, The Origins and Stylistic Development of Polish-American Polka Music (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1982)Google Scholar. For a different perspective on the commercial process of marketing ethnic music to a national audience emphasizing the brief period in which a homogenized version of ethnic music made fortunes for a few, see Greene, , Passion for Polka.Google Scholar

61. The large, illustrated advertisement was headlined, “Don't Be Ashamed!” (Nie Wstydz Sie!) (Dziennik Chicagoski, 01 2, 1918)Google Scholar. Keil, et al. , Polka Happiness, 35.Google Scholar

62. Polish American Review 2, no. 3–4 (0304 1936): 37.Google Scholar

63. Cygan, Mary E., “A ‘New Art’ for Polonia: Polish American Radio Comedy During the 1930s,” Polish American Studies 45, no. 2 (Autumn 1988): 521.Google Scholar

64. Wertheim, Arthur Frank, Radio Comedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 169Google Scholar; and MacDonald, J. Fred, Don't Touch That Dial! Radio Programming in American Life, 1920–1950 (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1980), 102–7.Google Scholar

65. Over 150 scripts of the Bartek Bieda program from the 1930s are in the possession of Radio Station WHLD in Buffalo, New York. The examples given here come from scripts dated May 15 and 22, 1935; July 6, 1935; January 23 and 25, 1938; and February 3 and 17, 1938. For more examples, see, Cygan, , “New Art.”Google Scholar

66. For more on the range of programming nationally, see Migala, Józef, Polish Radio Broadcasting in the United States (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1987).Google Scholar

67. Thomas, W. I. and Znaniecki, Florian, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Boston: Beacon, 19181920)Google Scholar; Handlin, Oscar, The Uprooted (Boston: Little Brown, 1951)Google Scholar; Symmons-Symonolewicz, Konstantin, “The Polish American Community — Half a Century After ‘The Polish Peasant’,” Polish Review 11 (Summer 1966)Google Scholar; and Lopata, Helena, Polish Americans: Status Competition in an Ethnic Community (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976).Google Scholar

68. Driggs, Gerald E., Economic Elite Study: Detroit 1975 (Detroit: Michigan Ethnic Heritage Studies Center, 1975), 78Google Scholar; and Ostrowski, Mary, “A Discussion With Stan Franczyk: The Internal Politics and Discrimination Faced by Polish Americans in Buffalo,” in Ethos 8, no. 26 (04 17, 1975): 21.Google Scholar

69. The original Community Relations Committee consisted of Carl Kubaszewski (chair), Loretta Grabarek, Matilda Jakubowski, Robert Radycki, Mitchel Wojtycki, and Mary Cygan. Grabarek and Jakubowski were both slightly older, second-generation women who had previous experience in community organizing. The information in this paragraph comes from the author's own notes and conversations with Karl Kubaszewski and Matilda Jakubowski in 1995. Governor Walker signed Executive Order Number 9-(1973) as Amended on February 18, 1976. Because adequate funding was not supplied, the provision regarding “Eastern and Southern European Americans” was never fully implemented, despite continued lobbying for such funding by several Southern and Eastern European ethnic organizations, such as the Italian Joint Civic Committee.

70. Jarrett, Vernon, “A Minor Event But Great Significance,” Chicago Tribune, 02 11, 1976.Google Scholar

71. A summary of the positions in this debate can be found in Taras, Piotr, Pienkos, Angela T., and Radzialowski, Thaddeus (Radzilowski), “Paul Wrobel's Our Way - Three Views,” in Polish American Studies 37 (Spring 1980): 3251Google Scholar, which provides three separate reactions to Wrobel, 's book, Our Way: Family, Parish and Neighborhood in a Polish-American Community (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1979)Google Scholar. Ethos 8, no. 26 (04 17, 1975).Google Scholar

72. The Oral History Archives of Chicago Polonia tape recorded, indexed, and transcribed 130 immigrant autobiographies (now part of the permanent collections of the Chicago Historical Society and Loyola University) and prepared three guides to the collection: Passage (for the general public), Teacher's Guide, and Master Index. In 1976, Robert Radycki directed the film, For the Benefit of the Country Hereafter, which was shown at local libraries, in classrooms, and at Polish American gatherings.

73. Author's notes.

74. Falkowski, Bill, Polka History 101Google Scholar, published as a free pamphlet by the Polka Project in 1980, reprinted in Blumberg, G. David, John, Margaret M., and Ziesel, William, eds., History for the Public (Ithaca: New York Historical Resource Center of Cornell University, 1983)Google Scholar. Also see Bill Falkowski's interview with the Dynatones' Larry Trojak and a description of the polka opera in Keil, et al. , Polka Happiness, 162–72, 182–85.Google Scholar

75. Many group members lived in a single Hamtramck neighborhood, some in the three homes owned by the PAFT and others in three nearby homes owned by members. The PAFT also had a roster of fifty private homes in the neighborhood willing to house members of visiting dance troupes or other guests of the PAFT.

76. Congressman John Conyers and Mayor Roman Gribbs were also active with the Polish-Black Alliance (interviews with Krolewski, Michael, 05 27, 1998Google Scholar, and Radzilowski, Thaddeus, 05 28, 1998)Google Scholar. Resolution of the Common Council of the City of Detroit, December 5, 1973, quoted in Pokoj, 3, no. 12, 12 1973Google Scholar. On the mock funeral that preceded the resolutions, see Pokoj, 3, no. 11, 11 1973.Google Scholar

77. Baldwin, James, Nobody Knows My Name (New York: Dell, 1961), 86.Google Scholar

78. Hampl, Patricia, “The Need to Say It,” in The Writer on Her Work, ed. Steinberg, Janet (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 2: 2425.Google Scholar

79. Michalski, Daniel, “Emo,” Chicago Reader, 11 19, 1976, 1113Google Scholar; Shea, Suzanne Strempek, Selling the Light of Heaven (New York: Pocket, 1994)Google Scholar; and Wasescha, Anna, “Babushka,” in Concert at Chopin's House, ed. Minczeski, John (Minneapolis: New Rivers, 1987), 1011.Google Scholar

80. Dybek, Stuart, “Blight,” in Coast of Chicago (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 4647.Google Scholar

81. Kovacik, Karen, Return of the Prodigal (Atlanta: Poetry Atlanta Press, 1990), 15.Google Scholar

82. Bukoski, Anthony, Children of Strangers (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1993), 53.Google Scholar

83. Mizejewski, Linda, “Keeping My Name,”Google Scholar in Minczeski, , Concert at Chopin's House, 12Google Scholar