Poles in Seattle 1890–2020: Continuity and Change

Abstract

The text presents the preliminary results of the ongoing research on the Polish American community in Seattle, Washington. So far overlooked by the historians of the Polish American experience, the local group differs significantly from other centers of the Polish diaspora in the US. Poles settled in the Pacific Northwest from the late nineteenth century onward, and they developed in the city and around it a strong community that is internally diversified. In Seattle they were confronted with German, Irish, and Jewish groups, as was the case in other American cities, but also with other immigrants, for example with numerous Asians, Nordic people, Croatians, and Bulgarians. Contrary to the patterns of the Polish American community building, there has never been a Polish neighborhood in the city, and the Polish Roman Catholic parish was founded in Seattle as late as 1989. In fact, the parish never gained a crucial importance in the local ethnic community, and presently, as it used to be in the past, the immigrant life is organized around the Polish Home that was launched by the pioneer immigrants in 1918/1920. Many descendants of the earlier immigrant generations participate in the events initiated in Seattle by Poles who arrived in the last decades, and several recent immigrants became involved in the Polish Home Association. Moreover, web platforms – new forms of ethnic connection that developed in the last decades, contribute to the increase of the bonding social capital within the Polish group.