Polish Americans

Polish Americans

Growing up in America we have many privileges. We can study what we want and pursue a career in what we want. Many times we don’t look back on how we got to be here and who sacrificed for us to be able to have these privileges. Through this class I have learned many different notions on American and other cultures on how they have fought for survival. Throughout this personal ethnography I will be looking back and acknowledging my back ground of a Polish American. It was not easy for this culture to come to America through war and discrimination it was difficult.

My personal background is from Poland. Their country of origin is from the northeast part of Poland. My Great Grandfather on my mom’s side of the family came over here as a little boy. He was about eight years old when he entered the United States. He, his father, and mother came over in a boat in hopes to start a better life. They were not happy with how Poland was so that is the reason they decided to leave. Like many other immigrants they wanted to come to the United States to live the “American Dream”. They arrived in America at New York. They kept traveling around hoping for a job, this took many years but they then finally settled in a small town in Missouri. Over the next generation they migrated to Kansas.

My ancestors brought over some traditions that we still keep today. This started out when I was little. The first memories I grew up with four other siblings and we were a handful to say the least. My grandmother would always come over and babysit us to help out my parents. We would always be bugging my grandmother and she still spoke some Polish language. When we were bothering her she would say to us “Bayshe” this means stop bothering me. She would tell us this many times when she was trying to do something and we were interrupting her, we heard this many of times. Another saying my Grandmother loved to say is “O pa decha nie pa deche”. This means that the clock is ticking and you not moving. When she would ask people to do something and they wouldn’t do it she would say this to you. She didn’t really like us sitting around after she asked us to do something she wanted us to do it right away not on our own time.

My family also has traditions on holidays with our food. On New Year’s we have a tradition to eat “lucky beans”. This is a tradition that if you eat these on New Year’s then you will have and successful great year. It is like a stew and it has black beans onion and ham. I have done this every year since I was born and it is a tradition in my family. Another tradition we have is on Easter we have a soup that we call “Borsche” it is a broth and you have the option of putting boiled egg, bread, and bacon fat. My aunt takes the eggs every year to a priest and he blesses the eggs. We do this because of the resurrection of Jesus. It is delicious and I have had