PolAms -- do you regard yourselves only as 'white Americans'?

The US Census seems to divides Americans into white, black, Hispanic, orietnal, Pacific Islanders, native Americans and a few other, but lumps all the rest in the 'white American' categoo. There has been a movement in somw quarters of Polonia to have PolAms cross out that term and pen in 'Polish American'. How do you feel about that?

I checked off that I was a White American but I also wrote in that I was a Polish American.

This recent census was strange in that it did not ask for European ancestry like Irish, Italian, German, Polish, etc so I don't know how they will be able to tell what the ethnic European ancestry profile is in the US.

I would cross out 'Polish American' and put the street address of the ancestor I feel I identified with most, that or my favourite pub but then again, I am not Polish and wouldn't care about such a thing.

My point is at what stage is the census supposed to stop? How far down a classification do you need it to go?

Yeah, they did that in 2000. Now they seem to REALLY want to know if you're Hispanic.

Less than a century ago people of Polish descent were considered non-caucasians by the U.S. census and classified as members of the "Slavic Race". Italians, Irishmen, and Jews are other groups that have now become "white".

That's a good question Sean.

Even though I am proud of my Polish ancestry, I am MOST proud of being an American first.

But we have a government and media that is obsessed with race and ethnicity and frankly seems to be more concerned with non-Whites so that's probably why they don't care about the ethnic profile among White ethnic groups or about Whites in general.

In theory we Americans should just be proud of being identified as being AMERICAN period and therefore there should be no need for a census. I would be OK with this if Americans of all other ethnic groups and races went along with it as well.

But this probably won't happen since we have a government and media that is obsessed with race/ethnicity which sadly is not in favor of White Americans. They seem to want to know the growth or "progress" of the non-White population.

Never heard of this nonsense. Provide a link plz.

I would be against it. Why would we white people want to divide ourselves when we are slowly becoming a minority and our rights are diminishing for fear of some a$$hole pulling out the race card?

If possible, you could have literally hundreds of hyphenated American ethnicities. All 4 of my grandparents were Poles but I don't feel entirely comfortable with the Polish-American label. I guess if I had some perceived axe to grind with my fellow Americans my first instinct would be to use my heritage as some type of offensive. We have not progressed far enough in this country to use the term American as a public word of cohesion and unity. I'm not talking about what goes on in the privacy of families. I think it's great to celebrate traditions and customs at home. It really can tie a family together. My mother and father spoke Polish to each other at home, but never out in public. They always considered themselves Americans first. I kind of feel bad that eventually they dropped their Polish dialogue. I was starting to get a little fluent in Polish during my formative years and now it's all forgotten. One term I had never heard though was Polish American. In fact, I never heard anything "My ancestry is + American". I feel that this is a backward trend in our country's development and it's going to take many years before we all acquire the educated and unified statement "I am an American".

falls under white.. you can't be serious, can you polonius?

how do you see yourself?

There is no such thing as a Polish American; only US American citizens who happen to be either Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American or what not.

they've never asked those


jews are "other" while the other two are white

poles are white although people say slav is not white there is a dif between dirty russian race mixed slav and clean polish slav

wow.. that's even dumber of a statement then what slow trener has been coming up with..

No it isn't. My wife thinks Russians are way too mixed and she has a point. Only those around Moscow are really Slavic. Much of their country is composed of mongoloids. Poles have Tatars but they are a tiny group here. Poles are purer Slavs than Russians will ever be.

dirty russian race? they aren't dirty nor a race.. and your wife sounds like she may have a bit of a racist streak in her then too.. hmm

A Polish woman being a racist? Come on, man ;) ;)

It's no doubt the work of the same people who voted for Jaroslaw Kaczynski because he's a TRUE ANTI COMMUNIST POLISH PATRIOT.

The American Polonia are frankly a disgrace, and this act just confirms that. The fact that I was watching an American TV show with someone with the last name "Marchewka" - no doubt Polonia, yet she pronounced her name as "mar-chew-ka" like an English speaker would....gah.

Sorry, but if you claim to be Polish-American, then you should be fluent in Polish (not just in listening/speaking) and you should actually have spent a decent amount of time in Poland. Holding a Polish passport and voting Jarek doesn't make you Polish!

Have you seen the size of Russia? Only a tiny percentage has mongoloid blood.


They only have that in Britain too..

insert British instead of American...

Yet one can be:

Pakistian British
Indian British
Afro Caribian British..
Somali British
etc
etc
etc

Looks like the fact Im English doesnt count..Even though Im actually English..which happens to be a country..just like India and Pakistan..

I too cross out British and write English :D

Other races have no problem when someone wants to identify themselves with the homeland of their parents or ancestors. They're actually happy and proud to find someone who has the same ancestry as them and they feel a kinship. For some reason, people from Poland have a problem with it. When someone's parents or grandparents were from Poland and they want to recognize that, it's not acceptable. Why is that?

<applauds>

It's about time someone said this.

Yet some of the "real Poles" on here wonder why I'm so critical of so many of their countrymen, and why I'm so defensive of the UK.

The irony is, despite what they think of those of us who were born here, they are still queueing up to get in and join us!

It's because the American Polonia are idiotic to the point of hysteria about it. Look at for instance, the British Polonia from post-WW2. That generation has more or less successfully integrated - and while there's plenty of Polish names about, the grandchildren consider themselves to be British, not Polish. They accept that they come from Poland originally, but they don't go on constantly about it - they are British to all practical extents. Really, I can't say a bad word about the post-WW2 British Polonia.

Then you get the American Polonia, who are frankly idiots. They consider themselves to be Polish, yet they don't speak the language, nor do they have any interest in the country. They vote for people like Jaroslaw Kaczynski based on what's reported in the English press - and they constantly preach about how great it is to be Polish - yet they're about as Polish as I am - ie, not at all. The worst thing is that they have a very ...hmm, sentimental view of what Poland should be - and they get upset when they visit places like Krakow and discover that it's no different to any other place. Many of them are longing for Poland to be just how it was in "Busha's time". The fact they even use words like "Busha" tells you about them!

Then there's the fact that many of them can't even pronounce their name properly - I'm sorry, but you can't claim to be Polish if you can't even say your last name properly. Then you get the fact that many of them claim that their great-grandparents came from Poland - yet when you listen to them, you discover that they emigrated before 1920. Most of them have absolutely no concept that Poland didn't exist for 120 years or so.

But then again, what can you expect from the descendants of very poor Poles from the turn of the 20th century?

Well, Slavs are said to be 85% but, then again, Hitler was said to be a good man by quite a few so.....

there is not such term in the census... it's white/caucasian....which fits perfectly...

it would be more correct to say that many of us consider ourselves to be both.

So then if someone goes to college and learns the Polish language fluently, learns how to pronounce their last name perfectly, learns more Polish history, and then discovers that their grandparents emigrated in 1921, they switch from not being Polish to being Polish? Is that how ancestry is decided? It doesn't make sense.

Seems to me like idiotic nationalism... then why not Irish-American, Italian-American, German-American, French-American, etc? How dull must one be to think they are asking for ethnicity/ancestry and not racial category?; if they wanted that information then they'd be bold enough to include an ethnic question/option....

as for what I'd do? Well I'd laugh at any fool being zealous enough to write that, what's the point? They're not even going to look at it or care, they're taking a census in race not ethnicity....

They're still not Polish, because they won't have spent any significant time here. If they move here and live the rest of their days here, then maybe, just maybe, they can be Polish. But otherwise? No.

And no, spending a week in Krakow doesn't make them Polish either, nor does teaching ESL for a year.

You know, your confusing genetic ancestry with culture. One does not need to be culturally Polish in order to be ethnically Polish.

The problem is that most American Polonia have no concept of what they might actually be ethnically. It's highly unlikely that many of the American Polonia are actually genetically 100% Polish, especially as many of them are descended from Poles who came from the Eastern part - which was a complete melting pot for so long.

That's why I get irritated with the 100% TRUE POLISH crowd - because many of them don't have a clue.

Yea, I 'm Polish-American. If your white and live in the US... you know that only your friends (mostly likely they are white too) care about your specific ethnicity. In my case, I got Irish and Italian friends, but a black person for example doesn't care about that. In America, white is it's own ethnicity, just every one from Mexico, Cuba, Dominican, etc... are labeled Latino and who on earth knows where in Africa all the black people were uprooted from.

delphiandomine:

Get over your self, you said your not Polish, go care about something else useless. I can't speak Polish well and I visit maybe every other year, but my parents were born there... If we stood side by side, no Pole would seriously think your more Polish then me, unless of course, you are one. Any animosity I have experienced from Poles, the kind you completely exaggerate, is simply passive aggressive jealousy. But the women have the right idea, they try to marry you. But anyway, I can only assume because there are certain advantages I have that they don't, but that is a different issue which nonetheless exists and I'm not looking to insult native Poles, just you. But you should know this, you live in Poland right?? Just looking at my family and friends, Poles are jealous and insecure beyond belief, but I'm not insulting, I got the same problems, just a different country, but same blood, seriously, you clearly know nothing about Polish people. I'd say being Polish is more an infection then an ethnicity, but I can say that because I'm Polish.

Any way, you are pathetic, sure Poland didn't literally exist 120 years ago, so then when it "officially" came into existence... all the inhabitants suddenly invented the Polish language and decided on Catholicism over the Orthodoxy or Protestantism of their oppressors?? My Grandmother passed away in Lviv in the 1970's, obviously, I had to enter Ukraine to visit her grave, but that mostly defiantly wasn't cyrilic or an Orthodox cross on her grave stone. So why the f*ck does it matter when any one emigrated?