Polish Americans Today

Abstract

Dominik Stecula, assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University Fort Collins, wants to provide an updated, data-driven overview of American Polonia that tells us more than the mere demographic. This survey was based on 1,781 online respondents in 2020–21. The survey is a follow-up of one also sponsored and published in 2009 by the Piast Institute, authored by the late Thaddeus Radziłowski and Stecula.Stecula's survey covers a range of demographics, values, and political choices of the respondents. The respondents’ demographic data includes their age, marital status, educational and income levels, and religious affiliation (including frequency of practice). The values include both the sacred and secular: attitudes toward life issues (abortion and capital punishment) and attachment to Polonia (conceptually in the value attached to language preservation and heritage, and practically in terms of organizational membership, activity, and financial support). The political includes the ideological (conservative/liberal), the partisan (party affiliation and voting patterns), and views of current issues, like climate change, government-sponsored anti-poverty programs, and genetically modified foods. Other interesting questions include from whence Polonia gets its information of the wider world, of Poland, and of its own community, and attitudes toward “conspiracy theories.” The survey also examines whether and how often respondents travel to Poland. Data is almost always broken down between US- and foreign-born respondents.Stecula's respondents are overwhelmingly Catholic (65 percent). More than a third are pro-abortion; and 42 percent consider preserving Polonia's heritage the most important issue facing the community. The respondents reported greater reliance (68 percent) than Americans in general on traditional media and lesser reliance on ideologically identified outlets, like Fox or MSNBC. The largest cohort of respondents were first generation immigrants in the United States (39 percent) and nearly half held graduate or professional degrees (46 percent).The self-selected respondents learned of the poll through social media and ethnic newspapers. Stecula argues that the method is justified because Polonia lacks both money and human resources for a truly random national poll of Polonia. He also notes that the results represent Polonia's most active and engaged (e.g., those who found out about the survey and took the initiative to respond), and so gives us insight into the community's movers and shakers.Perhaps. Stecula's data gives us insight into a particular slice of Polonia, but the generational and educational skew of the respondents may also skew other results, for example, values. In the absence of broader, regular, and more systematic surveys of Polonia at-large—its demographics, values, and politics—this study provides a valuable data-point, at least in terms of further studies about Polonia's leadership. Stecula's research affords a useful point-of-comparison for further studies both of Polonia at large and how its leadership may or may not mirror its rank-and-file.