What’s Wrong With Being Polish American?

by

Bobby J. Sulecki

Why is it ok to be proud to be Italian, proud to be Irish, proud to be Hispanic, and proud to be African American?
The Italians have great food, the Irish have St. Patrick’s Day and are universally accepted, the Hispanics have been accepted into our culture, and African-Americans culture and music is now widely embraced.  They are the “recognized” ethnicities and good for them!
However, why can’t this count for Polish Americans?  If you say you’re Polish, some people laugh, some tell a joke, or they just dismiss you.  Do you ever get that reaction?  How does that make your feel, or doesn’t it bother you?
As a young person, I am proud to be a Polish American and I can’t understand why others aren’t.  If you ask a young person with a Polish name if they are Polish, they usually say that their grandparents are Polish.  What about their parents and themselves?  Doesn’t that make them Polish, too?  Yes, but they won’t admit it.  This is sad!
In my high school, a few years back, there was a bulletin board promoting the month of September as “Hispanic American Heritage Month-Celebrate!”  I reminded them that October was “Polish-American Heritage Month.”  They just laughed.  A few teachers think I should forget about all this “Polish” stuff and get into something else.  Which comes back to my original question:  Why is it okay to be proud to be something else?
Let us not forget why our immigrant ancestors came here in the first place.
We came from tough stock.  When my great-grandparents came to America in the 1920s, Poland was not their own at that time.  They were partitioned with Russia, Germany, Austria and were not allowed to be Polish or follow their own culture.  This is why our heritage is so important! The immigrants proudly brought their culture and customs with them.
Nothing was easy for them here.  They struggled for their families, for their Churches, schools, and a better way of life.  Let us not forget all this!
Granted, many of us have assimilated into the American culture, as should be expected, but, as was said of Fr. Justin Figas, he was equally proud to be Polish as he was American.
I’m not saying that you have to don Polish costumes or anything like that, but especially young people, embrace your culture!  It’s part of your life!

***Bobby J. Sulecki, 17, has been a long-time reader of the PAJ.  He is a staff member on his school newspaper The Husky Herald.  Sulecki is currently working on a book about Erie’s Polonia.  This is his second  byline in the PAJ.

Polish-American Journal…May 2007…..www.polamjournal.com