Polish Immigrants Research Articles

Kształtowanie się kultury edukacyjnej francuskiej Polonii

Education as a special value in today's world is a force that generates both political, social and economic activity. It is a factor shaping self-awareness. For this reason, Poland attaches great importance to educational problems not only in the country, but also in Polish emigre environments. An example of a country that has and is of great importance for the emigration movement is France The aim of the article is to attempt to systematize knowledge about the formation of educational life of Polish immigrants in France, to indicate the tasks and challenges that it has to contend with over the centuries. It was shown that regardless of the era in which Polish emigres came to live, they worshiped values that do not go away: a sense of separateness, patriotism and love for their homeland, and they had constant urge to acquire knowledge.

Health-Related Lifestyle Behavior and Religiosity among First-Generation Immigrants of Polish Origin in Germany

Background: Health-related lifestyle behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity and obesity are major cardiovascular risk factors. Previous studies have mostly demonstrated a favorable association between religiosity and these cardiovascular risk factors; however, no studies have investigated this relationship in Polish immigrants. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine the association between health-related lifestyle behaviors and religiosity in Polish immigrants in Germany. Methods: The smoking patterns, frequency of alcohol consumption, physical activity, and presence of overweight/obesity were assessed in 257 first-generation immigrants of Polish origin living in Germany. Religiosity was measured with the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS, Huber, 2003) consisting of 15 items that categorized the respondents into intrinsically, extrinsically, and not/marginally religious. Results: After adjusting for various sociodemographic, migration, and health-related characteristics, intrinsic religiosity was significantly associated with a lower risk of being a smoker (odds ratios (OR) = 0.34, confidence intervals (CI) = 0.15–0.76) and was also associated with a lower risk of alcohol consumption (OR = 0.33, CI = 0.15–0.71), but a higher risk of being overweight/obese (OR = 2.53, CI = 1.15–5.56) in comparison with extrinsic/marginal religiosity. No significant relationship was found between religiosity and physical activity. Conclusions: In Polish immigrants, intrinsic religiosity acts as a protective factor against some cardiovascular risk factors (smoking and alcohol consumption).

Obraz Polaka-imigranta przedstawiony na łamach Dialy Mail i The Sun podczas kampanii wyborczej w Wielkiej Brytanii w 2015 roku

Polish mass immigration to the United Kingdom after 2004 according to the British media, has had a big impact on changing the look of the contemporary Britain. Polish immigrants apear in a public debate but more often are not presented in a good light. The purpose of this paper is to examine the image of the Polish immigrants presented mainly by Daily Mail, one of the most popular newspapers in the UK, which has got a big impact on forming a negative attitude towards Eastern Europeans. The paper doesn’t describe the the scale of the Polish immigration in the UK but it tries to show the way of perception of Poles by British tabloids.

Polonia w Stambule: imigranci w globalnym świecie, tożsamość i obywatelstwo w drodze transnarodowych przestrzeni społecznych.

In the article, the author analyses the community of Polish immigrants in Istanbul: as descendents of the refuges who settled near Istanbul in Adampol in 19th century, as well as modern immigrants living in the city. Having briefly described the former, the author focuses on the latter group, finally comparing the two communities, which allows torethink some immigration processes in modern Europe. Next, the integration processes and institutions which enable these processes are described. Finally, the author shows how artistic spaces, playing crucial role in sustaining Polishness, are created.

Security of polish economic migrants in Great Britain in the light of Brexit

The results of the referendum on leaving the European Union by Great Britain have surprised experts from the world of politics, business analysts and immigrant community which functions in the British Isles. British people have decided, by a majority of votes, to shape the future of the UK outside the structures of the European Union. What does this choice mean for the community of Polish immigrants, which numbers almost one million people, working in the United Kingdom? Does Brexit and its consequences constitute a threat to Poles? The aim of this article is to analyse the economic, social and cultural effects of leaving the European Union by Great Britain, from the perspective of the Polish community in the British Isles.

Post-migration labor market: prejudice and the role of host country education

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how prejudice in a post-migration labor market can be mitigated, specifically, whether education received in the host country can serve as a signal of social integration for immigrant workers in employment settings.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted an audit discrimination study, using an experimental setup to examine the interplay between prejudice and education as a signal of the social integration of immigrants in employment settings.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that signals of social integration, such as, qualifications acquired in the host country through education, counter prejudice against Polish immigrants in Iceland.Research limitations/implicationsThe study provides evidence that immigrants are subjected to prejudice that can restrain their employment opportunities. The acquisition of education in the host country can mitigate this effect, but also diminishes the line between social integration and assimilation. However, the study is limited by a relatively small sample size and a single-country context.Practical implicationsThe study offers insights for both countries and organizations worldwide that are facing the need to successfully embrace a mobile workforce and the challenge of a diverse workforce composition.Originality/valueThe study addresses the under-researched effects of education on human capital transferability in the host labor market. More specifically, it uncovers that the differentiation between education acquired in the home country and education acquired in the host country is a signal that can mitigate prejudice and its effects on the employment of immigrants in the host countries.

The Role of Culture and Needs in the Cycling Habits of Female Immigrants from a Driving-Oriented to a Cycling-Oriented Country

The enormous potential of cycling to make cities and regions more sustainable is often not realized. Given the evidence that women cycle less than men, this study looks into the cycling habits of female immigrants from driving-oriented to cycling-oriented countries in relation to the fulfillment of their needs and their immersion in their new culture. A survey measured existence, relatedness, and growth needs with Likert-type items and collected socioeconomic characteristics and travel habits of 570 female Polish immigrants who moved to established and developing cycling cultures. A hybrid bivariate ordered model captured the propensity toward habitual cycling in the adopted country and cycling intentions upon return to the home country in relation to the needs and the traits of the female immigrants. Model results suggest that the cycling habits of female immigrants are related to past travel habits, while future intentions of cycling are connected to tangible (e.g., distance) and emotional (e.g., income stigma) barriers. Relevantly, model results indicate a positive relation between cycling culture and cycling habits in terms of both culture strength and exposure, but also a negative relation between relatedness to the home country and future intentions of cycling. Lastly, model results show that cycling habits relate to the fulfillment of existence needs and even more of relatedness and growth needs. Accordingly, the key to promote cycling among female immigrants is not only to satisfy their functional needs, but also cater to their emotional and self-actualization needs.

No Country for Poor People

Since the creation of the European Union, anti-immigration rhetoric has traditionally been directed at non-European citizens. However, in recent decades hostility towards migrants has been extended to the rejection of EU citizens, to whom the European treaties ostensibly guarantee freedom of movement. In particular, the migration of the largest European ethnic minority, the Roma, within the EU has been accompanied by inflamed media reports and populist discourse laden with explicitly racist sentiments. Whereas the dynamics of Romani migration in the original Member States has received substantial political and academic attention, the movement of Roma people across newer Member States continues to be overlooked. An intrinsic assumption that Romani migration is a solely westward phenomenon has led to a failure to examine the role of Central and Eastern European states in generating exclusionary policies. Despite urgent calls from human rights activists about the intensifying violation of the legal rights of Romani migrants the situation has yet to be acknowledged or scrutinized by international organizations and academics. To shed analytical light on this under-researched area, the article presents an analysis of the impact of Polish immigration regime on Romani migrants and long-time residents from Romania. Drawing on data from official documents, activist reports, and semi-structured interviews the article traces the neoliberalization of Polish migration regime: one that mobilizes aggressive attitudes and behaviors towards the poorest and most marginalized European citizens. In turn, it argues that the deterrent tactics employed against migrants by the Polish State has its roots in the increasingly restrictive EU immigration policies and economic determinism of the Freedom of Movement and Residency Directive.

Narrar la experiencia de la emigración. Los polacos en Misiones Argentina

Narrating the experience of emigration: Poles in Misiones Argentina The object of this study is to analyze how life accounts, histories, and testimonials of the Polish immigration in Misiones, Argentina, are constructed. The methodology employed for the analysis consists of: the ethnographic method, life accounts, biographic perspectives and research inter­views, not only for information concerning the manner, but also the process of putting togeth­er gaffes, according to what Rosana Guber explains in her book La etnografía: método, campo y reflexividad. The corpus of data was formed by Polish residents of the province of Misiones, Argentina. The results of the investigation determined that: their discourse acts as narration and not only as personal stories, constructs new identifying models and still others that refer to their original sources. As a corollary, the “new” identities have their manners of expression which are manifested via a series of discursive forms that characterize the speaker, such as the use of narrations that form an integral part of them. Finally, the conclusion suggests that the presence of the Polish immigrant in the province of Misiones affirms the concept of territorial polyphony and of narrative identities, since we can assume that in the narrative constructions similarly we will find discursive and meta­discursive constructions that propose identifying and historic relationships.

‘Would it not be better to get someone out workin?’: ‘Safe prejudice’ against Polish workers

AbstractOne recurring criticism of immigrant groups is their alleged failure to be employed and contribute to the host society. Here we examine how speakers mobilise a criticism that has attracted less research attention: that through their economic activity immigrant groups usurp others’ employment entitlements. Discourse analysis of data from seven focus group discussions about pre‐Brexit Polish immigration into the UK, involving 31 UK nationals, shows that participants accomplish exclusionary outcomes in two divergent ways. The first attributes qualities to Polish workers but also makes explicit the consequences of these attributions for UK nationals, rendering speakers’ investment in such claims visible. The second relies on the production of category pairs, within which claims can be made for the category that excludes Polish workers. This use of categories comprises ‘safe prejudice’, a form of prejudice not previously identified but which is less open to challenge than other forms of prejudiced talk.

Polonijna prasa wydawana w Stanach Zjednoczonych w latach 1870-1924 w dostępie cyfrowym

The article presents the quantity and the contemporary state of digitization of the Polish-language press published in the United States in the years 1875-1924, when the Polish immigration to the US reached its apex. The analysis has covered digital libraries and repositories of both: non-commercial and commercial usage.

Emigration of Poles to the United Kingdom: history, present state and future prospects

AbstractThe history of Polish immigration within the United Kingdom is several centuries old. Yet never in its history was such a mass migration as that after the Polish accession to the EU in 2004. During the over ten years that followed, almost a million Poles chose to settle in the United Kingdom. This article reviews and analyses past and present Polish emigration to the United Kingdom. It provides answers to questions regarding who the Polish immigrants are, what work they perform and how they have integrated within British society. It also considers the factors that have influenced the future dynamics of migration from Poland. Based on these, we have formed the hypothesis that while the years of 2004‐2016 saw, statistically, the largest emigration from Poland to the United Kingdom in recorded history, in the future, the number of Polish expatriates living in the United Kingdom will drop or at least the number of newcomers will decrease.

Źródła do odbudowy państwa polskiego w archiwach polonijnych w USA

The article discusses the role of Polish and Polish diaspora organizations in the USA, and the role of their archives, libraries, and museum deposits in the study of the first years of the independent Polish state. The most important ones, created in the USA in the 19th and the 20th century by Polish immigrants, are the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America (located in New York), the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (located in New York), the Polish Army Veterans’ Association in America (located in New York), the Polish Museum of America (located in Chicago), the Polish Archive in the Polish Catholic Mission in Orchard Lake near Detroit, and the Polish Music Center in Los Angeles. The key role in the study of the restoration of the Polish state in 1918-1923 plays the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America, established on 4 July 1943 as a descendant of the Institute for Research into the Modern Polish History functioning in Warsaw between 1923 and 1939. The institute holds the so-called Belvedere Archives, saved in 1939 from Warsaw and taken from Europe to New York. It contains the documents of the Adjutancy Commander in Chief from the years 1918-1922, illustrating the struggle for the borders of the restored Polish state; documents of the Ukrainian Military Mission, showing Polish-Ukrainian cooperation in the face of the threat from Bolshevik Russia; documents from three Silesian uprisings, and archives of well-known supporters of Piłsudski, e.g. General Julian Stachiewicz and Marshal Rydz-Śmigły. Other additional sources from the years 1918-1923 are stored by Polish diaspora institutions, including priceless and understudied documents concerning the prominent composer, diplomat, and politician Ignacy Jan Paderewski, as well as unique materials concerning Polish volunteers from the USA fighting along with General Józef Haller’s so-called Blue Army.

Immigrants' Contribution to Innovativeness: Evidence from a Non-Selective Immigration Country

The economic consequences of migration are hotly debated and a main topic of recent populist movements across Europe. We analyze Polish immigration in the context of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union and find a positive and significant spillover effect of the immigrants on the number of local inventors in German counties in 2001-2010. For causal identification, we exploit a historical episode in the Polish migration history to Germany before the fall of the Iron Curtain and construct a shift-share instrument. Our results differ from findings for high-skilled migration to the United States, which is particularly interesting as Polish immigration to Germany was not based on selection by qualification in our period of analysis.

Motives for Civic Integration: Polish Immigrants in Iceland

Motives for Civic Integration: Polish Immigrants in Iceland

Emigracyjna epistolografia (1945-1989). Rekonesans

Emigracyjna epistolografia (1945-1989). Rekonesans

Kreowanie zrównoważonego transportu miejskiego na przykładzie Kopenhagi – wybrane aspekty

The paper aims to analyse urban transport in the context of how sustainable development is understood and implemented in the case of Copenhagen. An on-site query was conducted in order to reach the research objective. The results of the analysis helped the authors identify forms in which the sustainable transport concept is being implemented, including the diversification of means of transport, the development of intermodal transport and hierarchies of public transport, and the Copenhagenization of the city space. The outcome of the study also includes the indication of key challenges which are related to the development of sustainable transport and primarily stem from the ubiquitous bicycle transport in Copenhagen. In order to perform a more in-depth analysis, the authors also interviewed city space users – indigenous Danes and Polish immigrants. Two perspectives/opinions on the functioning of the Copenhagen urban transport system were thus obtained: that of the indigenous residents of the city and that of immigrants. The results of those interviews contributed to the indication of trends in the use of different means of transport by both studied social groups.

The Assistance of Canada and the Polish Diaspora in Canada to Polish Immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s

Studia Migracyjne – PrzeglÄ d Polonijny » 2018 (XLIV) » Nr 4 (170) » The Assistance of Canada and the Polish Diaspora in Canada to Polish Immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s A A A

POLISH EMIGRATION IN FRANCE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The main aim of the article is an attempt to show the life of Polish emigration in France in the first half of the 20th century and, above all, the circumstances and organization of the trips, the number of people, their distribution within the territory of individual departments, working conditions and the problem of assimilation. In those times, Poles were coming to work in France from the territory of Germany (Westphalia) and from Poland. France was a destination Poles were very keen on and emigrated to on several occasions. On the one hand, France needed workers and, on the other hand, the difficult economic situation prompted Poles to leave their country and look for work outside their borders. The Polish-French convention on emigration and immigration, concluded on 3rd September 1919, played an important role in this matter. It set out the rules that gave grounds for many Poles to leave Poland in the following years. Polish immigration in the 1920s and 30s was of economic nature. Poles chose to work in various branches of heavy industry, primarily in mining, metallurgy, construction, textile and, least profitable, agriculture. They had to get used to the new conditions of life such as learning the language, the culture and mentality of Frenchmen, which was different from Polish. For the first groups of Poles arriving in France, French was a serious problem, yet with each passing year the problem started to fade away. Poles were ambitious and tried to educate their children and young people. Working in France, despite many difficulties, meant an improvement of material conditions for them compared to those in Poland. Compared with the French workers, their position was much worse, their status was significantly lower, they performed physical work, they generally received lower wages, and did not have full occupational rights.

Zjawisko migracji Polaków. Następstwa i duszpasterska rola Kościoła

Migracje Polaków nie są zjawiskiem nowym. Już w XIX wieku Polacy podróżowali do USA i Kanady. W 1913 roku aż 40 proc. górników w Zagłębiu Ruhry stanowili Polacy. Migracje nie ustały po II wojnie światowej. Ich liczba wzrosła do 8 mln. Podobnie w latach od 1971 do 1989 Polacy szukali możliwości swojego rozwoju zagranicą. Migracje nie skończyły się także po roku 1989 i trwają do dziś. Statystyki wskazują, że obecnie najwięcej obywateli Polski wyjeżdża do Wielkiej Brytanii, Niemiec, Holandii oraz Irlandii.Wyjazdy zagraniczne mają skutki zarówno pozytywne, jak i negatywne. Do tych pierwszych zaliczamy poznanie języka obcego, nowej kultury i obyczajów, zapoznanie się z nowymi technikami produkcji, oprawę jakości i standardu ekonomicznego życia. Wśród skutków negatywnych podaje się: osłabienie więzi małżeńskich, a nawet rozpad małżeństwa, eurosieroctwo, osłabienie życia religijnego, większe prawdopodobieństwo chorób, pracę poniżej własnych kompetencji i aspiracji.O polskich emigrantach nie zapomina Kościół. Polskie Misje Katolickie działają na całym świecie. Mają one pomagać w rozwoju religijnym migranta, zapewniając mu opiekę duszpasterską. Obecnie duszpasterstwo polskojęzyczne regularnie prowadzi ponad 2 tys. duchownych. Podkreślają oni za Janem Pawłem II, który poprzez swoje spotkania z Polonią nakreślił program formacyjny dla emigrantów, że do istotnych elementów pracy nad sobą należą: zachowanie własnej tożsamości, integracja w nowym środowisku oraz budowanie zasad moralnych opartych na paradygmacie „bardziej być” niż „mieć”.