Essay: Taking Back My Polish Culture After a Century of Assimilation

The chickens squawk as the sun rises over my ancestral village of Święcany, Poland — at least, it does in my imagination.

I was born in the Chicago suburbs to a nondescript American family who’ve had their roots firmly planted in U.S. soil for around a century. Other than eating gentrified frozen pierogies, growing up I had no connection to my heritage. 

Ever since I was a small child, I’ve had an infatuation with my ancestry. I can recall being about 7-years-old and probing my dad for answers about our background. I was always told the same thing — “You’re Polish and German.”

But that was never enough. I was desperate to learn more and adapt my behaviors accordingly. I couldn’t understand how some families continued to eat their homeland’s cuisine and speak in their mother tongue, while mine didn’t. How could my family trade something so beautiful for something so drab?

A hundred years of assimilation had taken its toll on my family, and there was almost nothing left.

In the early 2010s, a new supermarket opened in my town, and it proved to be a cornucopia of cultural foods. While my mom was buying boring old American cheese and yogurt, I’d peruse the Eastern European aisle like a detective looking for clues. 

I kept this up for a while, but around age 12, I stopped buying unpronounceable foreign goods. I didn’t stop caring, I just got caught up in the torment of middle school. 

It took a while, but my thirst for answers about my family’s culture re-emerged in my first-year at Loyola. I grew up around a lot of people who were raised with Polish culture as a fundamental aspect of their home life. I was jealous of them — especially my friend Julia, whom I’ve known since kindergarten and now attend Loyola with.

Her parents were born in Poland, she’s been there countless times and her first language is Polish. My ancestry was a make-believe story compared to hers. We both had the blood, but she had everything else. 

But even though she had the cultural connections I wanted, to her it was nothing special. But when I expressed this frustration to her she explained something I had never thought about — she assimilated out of necessity. In order to be accepted by her peers, she had to leave her Polishness at home. 

While I thought the food and language was beautiful, she saw it as a signifier she wasn’t American enough. That put a lot of things into perspective. I was chasing something I found desirable — but to someone who already had it, it was a curse. 

It finally registered when my family came to America, assimilation was expected. I couldn’t be angry at my grandparents for foregoing their Polishness — they did it because they had to. 

But I was going to take it back.

I started by combing through information and compiling a family tree on various ancestry search websites. I was able to place my family’s hometown as a small village in the country’s southeast called Święcany. My biggest wish is to make it back there, to see what they saw.

I also discovered I’m more Polish than previously thought, as a lot of my German family had actually migrated there from Poland.

Luckily, I’m not alone on my journey. Julia understands how important learning about Polish culture is to me, and has helped me understand certain traditions, cook popular dishes and learn the language. She said seeing my passion for learning and introducing Polish customs into my life made her appreciate it more. 

Taking on a task like this isn’t easy. I’ve never been to the country, so I don’t have much firsthand experience with natives. This makes it unequivocally harder to understand the Polish way of life. 

Learning the language is even more difficult. Since I began learning Polish through classes at Loyola and online resources, I’ve spoken total gibberish an innumerable amount of times. One day, after months of struggling, I excitedly approached Julia ready to have a conversation in Polish.

 “Co jest i tak,” I said proudly. 

“You just said ‘what is and yes,’” she responded, fighting back laughter.

 As embarrassing as it may have been, I’m grateful to have someone to encourage me.

Maybe someday I’ll finally see those chickens squawk in Święcany.