Polish and Slavic too(?)

I have just run across this entry in the US Polonia section of PF under the "Any Poles in Florida?" heading. It raises the issue of Slavic as a separate natioanlity discussed here earlier. Here is the quote from someone nicknamed Pierced_Veil:

"I recently found out that I am polish and my uncle told me something about slavic too... im not sure, but ever since then, I have been doing a lot of research about poland and the history and culture...etc etc.. I live in Florida, I am on the west coast...in sarasota.. is there anyone around here?"

Ok, I am delighted you found out about a previous thread. You seem to research PF pretty well, chapeau for that. But....What would your point be? Slavic is a certain group of ppl within the Caucasian race. Poles belong to that group. So do Russians, Ukrainians and a bunch of other ppl. So it's not a seperate race or nationality.

What is your point?

Edit: Let me make this clear by putting up a simple scheme:

Race: Caucasian
Group: Slavic, Germanic, Frankish, Semitic, and so on
Nationality: Polish, Russian, German, Dutch, French, Israelian, Arabian, and so on

>^..^<

M-G (puzzled)

I know it's hard to get my idea across. This is not a question of intellecual discourse but common street talk by ordinary people. So like the quoted chap said he'd only just learnt from his uncle he had Polish roots AND SLAVIC ONES TOO. Does that not suggest that Slavic here is being treated as something separate.

No-one would say he's got Dutch roots and Germanic ones too, would they?

or he could just be ill informed and stupid?

Polonius, with all respect but it seems that only Americans are obssessing with 'Slavic' here (and southern of course).
I'm Polish, born and bred. Caucasian is what I describe myself if needed. Not Slavic. Slavic - as Mare rightly pointed out - is a sub group within a race.

Yes, this is an American thing. I finally got off my bum and did a bit of Googling. This may be of interest. It deals with the local culture of Pennsylavnia immihtnat coalminers iof various nationalities in the early 19th and 20th centuries. A brief fragment ocntaining a reference to Slavisch:

Irish -- Lace Curtain vs Shanty: The shanty variety was a penniless immigrant. He/she became Lace Curtain when he got himself situated and began to get a decent wage.

Slavisch: Or Slovish. Or Slawvish. A variation on Slavic. What the local Irish, Italians, everybody not of Slavic descent, (and even some of those) called the Slovak, Ukrainian, and Byzantine churches. Or called the Slovak and Rusyn peoples.

Italian Police Dog: (Hazleton only) -- A goat, Billy, or Nanny.
Cat Eater: (Hazleton again). Irreverent Italian name for Tyroleans.
Tiroler: Hazleton Tyrolean for 'Tyrolean'.

users.erols.com/sfpayer/CoalR/commcoalr.htm

I tried to understand stuff from this link and Im trying to understand what you are on about, but have a problem.

As for the link you gave, the first sentence sounds false to me:


A good education in Europe by the age of 15 and emmigration to USA working in coalmines?

I think the history is a bit exaggerated here.

about Slavs start here:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_peoples

The problem for many Americans, is that families' stories are very sketchy, exaggerated and in many cases just tell-tales.
Immigrants, be it Polish, Russian, German etc created a culture within a culture, mixed things together and any American may be lost because there are no borders between truth, fantasy and a completely new tradition which has been created in this mixing process.