I think it's also important to remember a bit of history. Until the 20th century, Slavs (including Poles) and other people from east of Germany, and southern Europeans (Italians, Greeks, etc.) were considered a kind of "second category" of "white" person in America-or sometimes not "white" at all.
From page 76 of Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race:
The ascendent view among native-born Americans in the 1890s, even Anglo-Saxons and Others as John Wigmore was writing, was not that Japanese immigrants held "as good a claim to the color 'white' as the Southern European and Semitic peoples," and therefore ought to be granted citizenship, but rather, that Southern European, Semitic, and Slavic immigrants held as poor a claim to the color "white" as the Japanese, and therefore ought to be turned away at once. The racialism of this prevailing view of the newer European immigrants, its basis in republican logic, and its relationship to racialized assessments of Asians (...)
The Immigration Act of 1924 severely limited Polish (and other undesirable) immigration and anti-Slavic stereotypes were prevalent (much, much more than now) in American society until the interwar period. Most were variations of stereotypes that attach to any new and different group: dumb (can't speak English), smelly (eat different foods), shady (stick together), dirty (poor), etc. Some were new. After 1917, Slavs carried the stigma of Bolshevism and of trying to undermine moral order and good government. Most people couldn't care or didn't know how to distinguish between Slavs. And it's true that Poles did participate in labour unions. Plus, Poles were Catholics and America has a vast history of anti-Catholic sentiment. The KKK disliked: Blacks, Jews and Catholics. Even when Kennedy was elected, there were grumblings about a "Papist" plot to take over America. Remember that America was created by people who considered themselves religious outcasts (and partly were). They disliked the Catholic Church, to say the least.
As for jokes today, I think they come from that "tradition" but are also different in that though they may be offensive and in poor taste, they are not treated as serious statements of fact nor are they malicious. They bug me sometimes and I agree that political correctness dictates who we may or may not make fun of and jokes about, but I think they're also a sign of how normal it's become to be Polish-American. The lack of Black jokes (except by Black comedians) and the flow of heroic or "good" Black characters is, I think, a symptom of American still having trouble with its slave-owning and segregationist past. It's a strange way of trying to "correct" a historical "wrong".
From page 76 of Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race:
The ascendent view among native-born Americans in the 1890s, even Anglo-Saxons and Others as John Wigmore was writing, was not that Japanese immigrants held "as good a claim to the color 'white' as the Southern European and Semitic peoples," and therefore ought to be granted citizenship, but rather, that Southern European, Semitic, and Slavic immigrants held as poor a claim to the color "white" as the Japanese, and therefore ought to be turned away at once. The racialism of this prevailing view of the newer European immigrants, its basis in republican logic, and its relationship to racialized assessments of Asians (...)
The Immigration Act of 1924 severely limited Polish (and other undesirable) immigration and anti-Slavic stereotypes were prevalent (much, much more than now) in American society until the interwar period. Most were variations of stereotypes that attach to any new and different group: dumb (can't speak English), smelly (eat different foods), shady (stick together), dirty (poor), etc. Some were new. After 1917, Slavs carried the stigma of Bolshevism and of trying to undermine moral order and good government. Most people couldn't care or didn't know how to distinguish between Slavs. And it's true that Poles did participate in labour unions. Plus, Poles were Catholics and America has a vast history of anti-Catholic sentiment. The KKK disliked: Blacks, Jews and Catholics. Even when Kennedy was elected, there were grumblings about a "Papist" plot to take over America. Remember that America was created by people who considered themselves religious outcasts (and partly were). They disliked the Catholic Church, to say the least.
As for jokes today, I think they come from that "tradition" but are also different in that though they may be offensive and in poor taste, they are not treated as serious statements of fact nor are they malicious. They bug me sometimes and I agree that political correctness dictates who we may or may not make fun of and jokes about, but I think they're also a sign of how normal it's become to be Polish-American. The lack of Black jokes (except by Black comedians) and the flow of heroic or "good" Black characters is, I think, a symptom of American still having trouble with its slave-owning and segregationist past. It's a strange way of trying to "correct" a historical "wrong".