Seeing Footprints of Polonia

I am a visually oriented social scientist whose primary focus is on ethnicity and urban society and for whom Poland and Polonia have been important subjects. Therefore, the first question that arose when I received for review Footprints of Polonia: Polish Historical Sites Across North America, which I read as an updated and revised Polish Heritage and Travel Guide to U.S.A. and Canada, was, “Should this book be deposited on my library shelf or on my coffee table?” After carefully going through it, as it is not a book to be read in the usual sense, I placed it with other valuable scholarly resources on the shelves of my library. In brief, I found it to be of great value not only to Polish and Polonia studies, but also more broadly to my related visual, urban, im/migration, and ethnic scholarly interests.Beyond the numerous individual geographical place entries, many of which were totally new to me, I found much in the way of scholarly reassurance in the book's front matter, some of which is key to my current evaluation. For example, in the prologue to the first edition, the late Stanislaus Blejwas (1941–2001) successfully appealed to my interest in immigrant religious architecture: “The churches are often on a grand scale, they are testimony to the faith, for God must be worshiped in a great house. They are also an assertion of the Polish presence. God's Polish house had to rival American churches. The immigrant, despite enormous difficulties and exploitative working conditions, manifested pride in his accomplishments in ‘Ameryka,’ pointedly reminding his American neighbors by the size and beauty of his Polish churches that he was just as good as any other citizen, and here to stay” (p. xiv). In my own excursions through America's Polonia, I have noticed that some of these churches and related buildings and monuments, especially in the central city, remain for the spiritual benefit of others even as the original worshipers and builders moved to “greener” pastures.The prologue to the second edition by Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann mimics the best and brightest insights from urban and cultural studies; including my own work on the changing appearance of cities around the globe:1 “The structure and design of cities on the North American continent is ever-changing, and nobody can predict what the future will bring. Any city on the continent can be read as a text that informs us about the lives, experiences, and aspirations of its past and present residents. Physical manifestations of belonging are important symbols and expressions of both continuity and discontinuity and create a sense of place for the Polish diaspora. This book aims to guide us through the process of cataloguing, preserving, and understanding the past as well as celebrating and commemorating it” (p. xix). To her enticing introduction, I would add that the visible and invisible impacts of Polish immigrants on places of all sizes in the Western Hemisphere are valuable contributions to the collective heritage of everyone.For social scientists and historians interested in migration, Footprints of Polonia is an extremely valuable resource for locating the numerous places where Poles in the Americas have left their mark. Perhaps those with a solid knowledge of global immigration patterns might have guessed some of these locations, but they are not easily found in the academic literature. In my opinion, this critical absence is because the history of Central and Eastern Europe itself, as well as its many diasporas, continue to be cultural, social, as well as geographical terrae incognitae—except for those committed to Polish and Polonia studies. What I found especially interesting were those places outside of major cities such as Chicago and New York in the eastern and midwestern United States. More important would be revealing why Poles settled where they did and why they stayed or moved on.Other takeaways from Footprints for scholars of ethnicity, immigration, and assimilation are “What do ethnic groups celebrate and why?” The book offers insight into what it is that more and less informed people of Polish descent designate as important to them. As with other ethnic groups I have studied, there are the usual suspects among the myriad contributions Polish immigrants and their descendants made to communities throughout the hemisphere in the form of monuments, bridges, churches, cultural centers, and cemeteries across the continent. They often commemorate key events and historical figures, such as Casimir Pulaski and movements like Solidarity, that are a source of pride among Polish Americans. Here I should add the equal devotion of Italian Americans for statues and place names of Christopher Columbus. And, as with other groups, for me the most valuable contributions to treasured spaces and places were those made by the toiling masses as opposed to the elites, who are much easier to track in both the written and visual records.I have studied the vernacular landscapes of both Poland and Polonia.2Among those in the United States have been current impacts and lingering traces of previous Polish residents in major cities including Chicago, Illinois, Cleveland, Ohio, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, New York City, New Britain, Connecticut, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Seattle, Washington, as well as many “small” local scenes such as the tiny village of Housatonic, Massachusetts. In a related visual research vein, I recently made two visits, one with Fulbright Visiting Scholar Anna Fin, to visit the 150th Anniversary Celebration of The Church of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr and viewed the otherwise waning impacts of Central and East European immigration to Manhattan's Lower East Side. While it is not yet obliterated by the burgeoning young, college, gentrifier and hipster cultural scenes, it is obvious that unless accommodations are made for the new population, for example as in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, very few retail stores will survive.I look forward to the future research this book will stimulate, as noted by the editor, Ewa E. Barczyk: “Future plans include the development of an interactive online site with maps, photos, and pinned locations that could be used on a phone when traveling. Many more sites were identified during the research for this book that could not be included so there is already an extensive base for a larger, more comprehensive project” (p. x).As to a minor issue, although most entries also include a color photo, in most cases the image, although of high quality, is too small for full appreciation. However, I do understand from my own work that the publication of larger images, especially those in the glossy form found in the book, make the price of the book prohibitive. Therefore, the inclusion of website links was greatly appreciated. Finally, the scholarly value of Footprints would also be enhanced by the generation of comparative studies of other ethnic and immigrant groups.