Post‐War Immigration in the United States and the State of Minnesota:
| Published date | 01 June 1986 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.1986.tb00794.x |
| Date | 01 June 1986 |
| Author | BARBARA LOBODZINSKA |
Post-
War
Immigration in the United States
and the State
of
Minnesota:
THE PROCESS
OF
ENTERING AN ALL-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
BARBARA EOBODZINSKA
INTRODUCTION
This article is based on participant observation, publications concerning immigration to
the United States, and unstructured interviews with newcomers from Poland and other
Eastern European countries.
Emigration from Poland became a way of life, an option considered by many
generations of Poles, during the last two centuries. Political and economic pressures were,
and are, the foundations of this phenomenon. The early and mid-nineteenth century
emigration was caused mainly by the loss of Polish national independence. These
emigrants consisted of educated patriots. Whereas, at the turn of the century
(1
9th and
20th century), the emigration was caused by rural over-population, economic exploitation
by foreign oppressors, and political persecution
of
Poles by the invaders
(S.
Kieniewicz,
1980: 389-392). Most of those emigrants emigrated from the rural areas.
Following Thomas and Znaniecki’s theory
on
emigrants, post World War I1 and recent,
continuing emigration from Poland seems to have originated under basically the same
conditions
of
social
disintegration (1927).
In the present, as in the past, the majority of Polish emigrants chose the USA as their
destination. Most of them arrived in Polish ethnic communities in Chicago, Detroit, New
York City, and Buffalo. The majority of them still live there, and most of the Polish
language press is published and many Polish-American organizations function in these
cities. The Polish-born and the Polish-Americans who live there are the best known and
the most exploited sources of information for historians, sociologists, politicians,
journalists, etc. This phenomenon is not unique to Poles. Immigrants of other
nationalities have their own urban centres where they develop their ethnic communities,
and such centres act as magnets for the newcomers from their ‘old countries’. As a
consequence, most of the available literature refers to the people living in ethnic ghettos.
Processes
of
entering the new society, motives for selecting the USA, obstacles in
adjustment, factors in assimilation, social achievements in the new environment, levels of
41
1
participation in American institutions, contributions to the culture of American society,
roles played during elections, etc. are analysed, described, and brought to the public
attention
on
the basis of the ‘hyphenated’ Americans living in their own ethnic
communities.
Beyond the mainstream of arrivals, there exists a less noticeable but also numerous
category of people who settled in cities and towns lacking a large population of the same
ancestry as the newcomers.
When ‘old-stock‘ Americans are asked about their ethnic origin, they give several,
different nationalities. Ethnic ghettos are less desirable places of settlement, and suburban
America is the most attractive.
For
the newly arriving Poles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, can serve as an example
of a metropolitan area without a numerous and noticeable Polish-American ethnic
community. Some lesser known, although no less significant processes of selection and
being absorbed by Minnesota take place here. This selection of a place of settlement could
be symptomatic for those who avoided, intentionally
or
not,
Polish ethnic ghettos.
What kind of people decided to come to Minnesota? What caused their choices? How
did they become acquainted with the new environment? What type of obstacles did they
experience during the process of exploring and adjusting to their new residence? Is
Minnesota attractive enough, from the immigrants’ point of view, to make them stay
here? What can intensify their ties with Minnesota? How best can the process of
integration be facilitated for them? All these questions apply to Poles as well as to
immigrants
from
the other socialist countries.
Contrary to the economically motivated, earlier, turn of the century rural immigration,
the Poles who amved in the USA after the Second World War were predominantly urban,
occupationally skilled, and educated. They were not motivated by the attractiveness ofthe
‘country of opportunity’, but rather by the need for stability. The desire to escape political
and economic turmoil and the atmosphere of hopelessness and stagnation prompted their
emigration. [n their eyes the USA presented itself as a country of peace, optimism,
strength, and stability. Their motivation was to run away from collapse rather than to
reach for a paradise.
The question of how these hopes survived in confrontation with the reality of
mid-Westem America presents itself as a problem
to
be analysed.
Many
of
the newcomers made the decision to leave Poland hastily, impulsively, and
without any preparations for their great adventure. This sudden step often had much that
is improvisational about it, although others treated their decision as a carefully
prearranged strategic operation. Several circumstances contributed to this ‘improvised‘
emigration, which differentiates the emigration of the last two decades from the earlier
ones. Moreover, an impulsive decision to emigrate could be considered an indicator ofthe
emigrants’ self-assurance, their confidence in their ability to cope and to find security in
the new land.
Some of the Poles who arrived after 1960 (when the Stalinist restrictions
on
emigration
to the West were somewhat eased) were born in pre-war Poland but were brought up and
educated in a socialistic Poland. Among them were also those who were born after the
Second World War. Many of them belong to the category influenced by the social unrest of
1980-8 1, the Free Trade Union ‘Solidarity’, martial law and other post-Solidarity events.
Some were motivated to leave Poland by earlier incidents of social unrest
in
1956, 1968,
1970, and 1976, which were less publicized in the
USA
but were
no
less drastic and
frustrating.
The question that seems crucial to me is how the immigrants, who underwent the
process of socialization in a socialist system, can become absorbed and incorporated into
the mainstream ofthe American life with its democratic institutions? The socialist system
412
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