What's your view on Polish people? (Polo, Ashland: apartments, home, wedding)

[Jandur]

Polish people are usually pretty cool. A lot of the younger girls turn into gold diggers and club rats though.

[cubssoxfan]

Most are hard-working trying to achieve a better life for themselves and their family. A small number lack some of the "Western" european social etiquette, but this is probably more parental and class related than ethnicity.

[Tenzo]

I like my views of Polish women
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/img/2007/entertainment/1104_jagaciak_sp_lg.jpg (broken link)

[jwaiter]

Originally Posted by moskiter

...Poles are the biggest European minorty in Chicago...

Is this true?

[jwaiter]

Wikipedia says... "Chicago bills itself as the largest Polish city outside of Poland with approximately 1,100,000 people of Polish ethnicity in the Chicago metropolitan area, although some maintain that after Poland's entry into the EU, London, England is now likely to have more than double this.[7]"

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by Attrill

Language and culture is a lot - just look at world history.

Poles do still come to Chicago, just not in the same numbers they did before 2008. Not many people are moving around since then, Ireland has actually seen a much greater drop off of Polish immigrants than Chicago (or the US in general) has.

Construction and semi-skilled labor is the main job draw for Polish immigrants, and the bust in the housing boom caused the big decrease in Polish immigration to Chicago. I've worked with a large number of Polish immigrants, the primary ones being the contractors who put an addition onto my house and a few 20 something programmers I've hired at work. All worked relatively hard, at least as hard as any US citizens I've hired/worked with, and were straightforward honest people.

The only negatives I found were some language issues and racism. There is a somewhat understandable resentment on the part of many immigrants (not just Polish) towards African Americans. They speak English much more fluently than the immigrants do, but they feel they don't take the jobs that immigrants do, or they don't stick with the jobs if they take them. There are a lot of reasons why that does happen in the really low paying jobs, but overall I believe it is more sociological than racial. Many immigrants don't get that, and just make some blanket judgements based on race. A Polish friend of mine was very dismissive of a black friend of mine who ran his own business (very successfully). He was convinced it was all due to some fictional grant or welfare money that just didn't exist. My friend is a just a good businessman who works hard and my Polish friend had a hard time believing that. I've had the same thing happen with a Russian friend.

Couldn't agree more. It is partly influenced by similar experiences that I have been known to post harsh generalizations about why Chicago may be one of the more diverse cities, although not necessarily one of the more "cosmopolitan" cities. (Because of the strong eastern European population, who come across as clannish and prejudiced.

My family is Polish, but I do agree that you come across many eastern europeans that can be quite judgemental about other people who they perceive as not being as hard working as they are, whether those other people are of a different race or a different generation.

[The_Fury_of_Chad]

I keep hearing about how Wicker Park used to be the Polish neighborhood. But it's hard to believe that now after visiting north Milwaukee ave

[Milwaukee City]

I love Polish People!


Polish Constitution Day Parade 2011 « IVO WIDLAK www.PoloniaLive.com

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

Because of the strong eastern European population, who come across as clannish and prejudiced.

I think it's worth pointing out that pretty much any newly-arriving ethnic group fits that description. It takes many generations & decades of intermarriage and dispersing away from the initial neighborhood where an immigrant group settles to develop a sense of identity tied to your fellow Americans/Chicagoans, and I think that doesn't really happen until the initial wave of immigration has markedly slowed down. And in the case of Poles, there's always been a steady stream (which I appreciate, I love the Milwaukee Ave culture between Diversey and Belmont).

I was reading about the lager beer riot recently, and the descriptions of the Germans were that they "stuck to themselves, showed no interest in assimilating or learning English" etc - you could have substituted Mexican for German and it would have been a perfectly contemporary story.

[CarolVa1977]

Polish women are very pretty.