POLISH IMMIGRATION TO THE U.S.

by Julitta Grocholska

Copyright 1999--Julitta Grocholska and Anglopol Corporation

This is a scholarly work about Polish immigration by Julitta Grocholska, wife of Michal Grocholski, former Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Chicago. Although it focuses particularly on immigration from southern Poland to the Chicago metropolitan area, much of it is applicable to any place Poles have settled in America. Originally published by National-Louis University in Nowy Sacz, Poland, this is its first publication in the United States.

Bibliography and footnotes have been omitted for simplicity. A few words have been added for clarity to American readers. Grammatical changes were made, but the sense of the writing has not been altered.

Part 2

PHENOMENON OF EMIGRATION

Taking into account Polish history and knowing the actual dispersion of Poles all over the world, we can easily find that Poland was and still is a country of emigration. On the other hand, during the last few years, when Poland became a free market country, we observe newcomers who apply to become Polish citizens. The last eight years have created new jobs and with declining unemployment figures some emigration factors have become less important.

The United States is traditionally a country of immigrants. Oscar Handling, a renowned Harvard University historian, said, "Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants of America, then I discovered that the immigrants were American history" (Handling 1994). The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service records that since 1820 (the earliest year when records were kept) fully 60.7 million immigrants have come to America, plus uncounted others who came illegally (Ungar 1996). This vital component of the American society has been expressed in an array of metaphors. I want to quote only two of them: 1) a well known "melting pot;" and 2) "a jazz ensemble, with each member improvising as an individual, but having to play together under the agreed on framework of a song" (National Endowment for the Humanities 1994). At the end it is good to recall "ethnic pride," which was expressed best in the opinion of the 1970s Democratic Representative Roman Pucinski of Chicago, an American of Polish ancestry who, when holding hearings on ethnicity, criticized the tendency to "homogenize 200 million human beings into a single monolith, instead of recognizing that America is a magnificent mosaic, made up of many cultures." (CQ Researcher 1997).

Statements that emigration occurs only for material or political reasons are to some extent over-simplifications. Sometimes it is an individual decision to change a previous lifestyle, to examine oneself in completely different conditions which, maybe, will be better than the present ones. But independent of the reason, emigration is always a difficult decision.

According to the Polish Statistical Yearbook 1996 (Rocznik Statystyczny 1996), 12 million Poles and people of Polish ancestry live abroad. Of this number about 5.6 million live in the U.S. [Editor: This figure is less than half the number believed correct by most Polish American calculations], which places this country on the top of the countries to which Poles emigrated. It means that emigrants from Poland and their descendants living abroad constitute almost one third of the total present Polish population which was 38,588,000 in 1995.

The Yearbook states that during the decade (1981-1990) 266,968 persons left Poland (123,354 males and 143,614 females). From this number 26,578 settled in the United States of America (12,193 males and 14,385 females In 1995 26,344 persons left Poland (13,305 males and 13,039 females out of this number 3,181 settled in the U.S. (1,707 males and 1,474 females (Polish Statistical Yearbook of Demography 1996).

American sources give much higher figures. In 1980 there were 3,805,740 persons of exclusively Polish ancestry and 4,422,297 persons of multiple ancestry--Polish and other groups (Allen 1988). Now the U.S. Immigration Office estimates that Americans of Polish ancestry, legal and illegal Polish immigrants of last decades including so-called "wakacjusze" (non-immigrants who entered to the U.S. as temporary visitors for vacation and have stayed there a long time) comprise about 10 million people.

In 1996 the majority of immigrants entered the United States as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or through the preference system, i.e. family-sponsored and employment-based immigrants. These preference system categories are subject to numerical limitation, while immediate relatives may immigrate without limit. In 1996 596,264 or 65% of all admissions were family-sponsored immigrants (INS Statistics 1996).

Employment-based visas were immediately available to skilled workers, professionals, needed unskilled workers, their families and aliens, subject to the Chinese Student Protection Act; skilled workers and professionals covered 81% in the third preference category. The next largest category, representing 23% of all employment-based admissions in Fiscal Year (FY) 1996 was the first preference or priority workers, including multinational executives or managers and aliens with extraordinary ability and outstanding professors or researches (INS 1996).

Another number of immigrants admitted under the "diversity" programs was 58,790 in FY 96. Nearly all (58,245) arrived under the permanent program. Diversity admission in FY 96 was above the annual limit (55,000), because some visas issued toward the end of FY 95 were not used to enter the U.S. until FY 96. The permanent diversity program selects immigrants through a postcard lottery. No single country can receive more than 3,850 diversity visas annually. The leading countries of admission in FY 96 were Nigeria, Ghana, Bangladesh, Poland (3,444) and Ethiopia (ranked according to the number of visas.) Since 1996, the postcard lottery is closed for Poles; it is open to citizens from the former Soviet Union.

In the last category called "Other" admission (143,163 admissions in FY 96) the largest was refugee and asylee adjustments. A total of 118,528 refugees adjusted to permanent resident status in FY 96. Refugees and asylees must wait one year after they are granted permanent resident status. Until 1992 there was a limit of 5,000 adjustments per year. Since the Immigration Act of 1990, the limit is increased to 10,000; in FY 96, there were 10,037 asylee adjustments. Between the years 1981-96 Poland found itself among the ten top countries with approved applicants. This status comprised 37,996 Polish refugees.

The dispersion of immigrants is varied according to the states and metropolitan areas. In 1996 the largest number of immigrants were settled in California 201,529 (22.0% of total immigrants), New York 154,095 (16.8%), Texas 83,385 (9.1%), Florida 79,461 (8.7%), New Jersey 63,303 (6.9%), and Illinois 42,517 (4.6%). According to the metropolitan areas this picture is different. On the top of the list is New York City with 133,168 (14.5%); Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif., 64,285 (7.0%); Miami, Fla., 41,527 (4.5%); and Chicago, Ill., 39,989 (4.4%). Similar picture existed in the previous years.

In FY 1996 Poles obtained 15,772 immigrants visa. From this number 5,605 were admitted under family-sponsored preferences; 3,681 under immediate relatives of the U.S. citizens; 2,785 under employment-based preferences; and 3,444 under diversity programs. The great difference between Polish and American statistics data results, I believe, from the fact that the Polish Yearbook gives the exact number of people who emigrated from Poland during the calendar year. But the INS report gives the number of immigrants born in Poland who entered the U.S. (from Poland or other countries) as well as obtained, sometimes after many years, the status of legal residency in the United States. The difference between a Fiscal Year in U.S. and the calendar year in Poland is not important.

Quoted rules and numbers show the actual politics of the U.S. government in relation to the immigrants. This politics has been changed throughout American history; once it was more friendly to immigrants, at other times less. It has always depended on when and for whom. But, already in 1800s, the U.S. earned the reputation as the world's most welcoming immigrants society.

CHICAGO AS DESTINATION FOR FOREIGN IMMIGRANTS

In a foreword to one of the recent books about Chicago, geographer Elizabeth Eiselen wrote: "Chicago is no longer the 'hog butcher' of the world, but is truly the 'Metropolis of the Mid-Continent.' The diversity of its spatial relationship has regional, national, and international impact and implications. Chicago interacts with a myriad of people and places. Its role in a world of increasingly dynamic cultures places on it the responsibility for dealing constructively with the complexities and challenges of change" (Eiselen 1982).

A location on the shore of Lake Michigan, close to other national centers of population, intensive agriculture in this area and good connections with industrial points of concentration has given Chicago the potential assets for fast growth. Besides these values, due to well developed networks of highways and railroads, Chicago has very good links with other places in the country and abroad.

Suitable to these assets, Chicago has had favorable conditions for developing commerce and industry. Generally these were: milling, meat packing, tanning, and woodworking. During the industrial revolution Chicago developed stockyards, steel mills, and other factories oriented to the needs of a fast growing city and its rural hinterland. All of these activities created a large demand for labor.

What is amazing about this city is its fast growth. On August 10, 1833, Chicago obtained the legal status of "town." At that time the population was 350 persons. Since then the growth of the city has been very rapid. A great calamity was the fire in 1871, which destroyed the whole commercial district, gutting most of its neighborhoods and leaving a third of its people homeless. After the fire, Chicago was rebuilt bigger and better than before.

Within the city frontiers Chicago reached its highest population in 1950: 3,620,962 inhabitants. Since then, its population has fallen; in the 1990 census it was 2,783,726. The decrease of the population in the city itself is followed by the increase of population in the surrounding cities and villages in what is known as the "collar" counties. This phenomenon developed because Chicago's administrative boundaries are very limited, and the present conditions of living within the city have many inconveniences.

Unprecedented growth of the city resulted largely from an almost constant flow of settlers into the area--settlers whose major points of origin have changed over time. In the beginning, they came mainly from the eastern United States; then from northwestern Europe; and later from eastern and southern Europe. Most recently immigrants have arrived from the southern United States, the Caribbean areas, Mexico and parts of Asia, as well as from the former Soviet Union since the beginning of 1990s.

Chicago's neighborhood system developed in the last half of the nineteenth century, had its roots in the rural past of its residents, who were accustomed to being within walking distance of everyday services. This partly explains that contemporary Chicago is to some extent an agglomeration of small ethnic communities connected to a common transportation network. Such spatial organization gives the possibility for one group of people to live in relative seclusion from the next, even through the physical distance is very small (Pacyga 1987). In these neighborhoods, immigrants find themselves "at home," where they can cultivate their habits and traditions. In recent times Chicago has gradually changed its character, but it still remains one of the most ethnic and diverse of all American cities.