Polish Citizenship By Descent Q&A

#polishculture #polishdescendants #polishcitizenship #poland
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[@timgrabowski718]

I'm glad you did an episode on Polish descendants! I had few remarks about your points (all good, I promise!) I doubt you'd find many Americans of Polish descent who still have citizenship or the right to vote. Perhaps among "newer" immigrants from the 70's - 80's, but the vast majority of people are many generations removed from their ancestors who came from Poland as late as the 1870's! There are a handful Polish-speaking neighborhoods/populations (ie. Chicago, NYC, etc.), but in most of the Northeast, the language and culture among many Polish Americans died out several generations ago, mostly after WWII when people moved out of immigrant-centric neighborhoods out to the suburbs. This isn't so much a Polish thing per se, but rather European immigrants overall. For example, one side of my family came from Italy in the 1920's, and even though my grandfather's first/native language was Italian, he never taught his children Italian. (Maybe it was so his kids didn't know what he was saying :-p ) I think the biggest factor that lead to the language and culture eroding away so quickly was the mentality that immigrants had to rapidly assimilate, and they had this thought engrained into them that "That was our old life. This is our new life. Europe is where we came from. We are Americans now." Perhaps part of that mentality was a coping mechanism for many young families who had to uproot themselves, leave everything they've ever known, and travel to a foreign land. I remember telling my grandmother (then in her 90's) that I was interested in genealogy research, but she thought it was silly. She could not be more indifferent. And it's because she was taught by her family, who emigrated from Slovakia, that she wouldn't want to know anything about their old life. Again, in the name of assimilation I suppose. There are a few old folks that I know that can speak a few things in broken Polish or Italian, and there are still some Polish cultural events (mostly hosted by a local Catholic parish). But for the most part a lot of that stuff is sadly fading away. It's a shame. It would be so cool to have learned Polish as a young kid.

[@biglance]

"many many years ago in the 80's..." My relatives moved from poland in the 80's... 1880's!!!! :) peace.

[@pokeflora2245]

Hello, Both my parents are polish but now they are french citizen. They move during the communist era. Are they still considered to be polish ? What polish people think of someone who speak polsih with an accent (me for exemple) ?

[@yourpolish]

As I say in the video, if they feel Polish, they are :) As for the accent, a foreign accent always sounds s sweet to me ♡ and also, I always appreciate the effort that a person puts into communicating with me in Polish.

[@pokeflora2245]

@@yourpolish thank you for your answer , have a nice day !

[@anthonystaniszewski754]

I'd say you are. I have a similar situation but I'm in Australia. We're not native but we are still Polish, we grew up in a Polish home, and at least for me I use to follow Polish traditions, I learnt how to read and how to write a little bit in Polish. I try to read and watch Polish things to keep that part alive.

[@pokeflora2245]

@@anthonystaniszewski754 yes same situation. Yes I tried to read some book writer by Polish author, watch polish films...