Ethnic Identity and Politics: Personal Musings

[child_of_the_air]

A friend recently forwarded this Five Thirty-Eight article about the politics of two Cleveland suburbs, Parma and Shaker Heights, to me. I think he expected me to be interested in it from a political or urban history standpoint, but it actually hit me hard in a different, more personal way.  A lot of the article focuses on discussing Parma, a "white working class" suburb that bears a lot of resemblance to the Hamtramck, Michigan where my mom grew up, with the most pertinent difference being that Hamtramck is now largely African-American, Yemeni, and Bengali, while Parma has largely remained white. Like Hamtramck, Parma developed as a Polish Catholic ethnic enclave near a car factory and with a strong pro-union tradition.

The thing is that Parma, like "white working-class" and "white ethnic" communities in general, voted heavily for Donald Trump. And this wasn't a one-off fluke: it seems clear that it's the culmination of a few decades of responding to economic hardship and the collapse of unionized manufacturing jobs with xenophobia, racism, and a hatred of the welfare state because of a belief that it only benefits the "undeserving" poor.  The political shift of white ethnic communities like Parma to the right, and their support of Trump, are disturbing because of their implications for national and state politics. But they also make me personally uncomfortable because, on some level, I identify as a white ethnic, even though I'm (thankfully) not actually part of these communities.

That I'm a proud Polish-American is probably most evident to my friends from my cooking: I have a long history of inviting friends over for large, homecooked Polish dinners; I've made pierogi from scratch in thirteen states and one Canadian province; and my (Ashkenazi) ex-girlfriend used to rave about how she associated my apartment with safety and the smell of cabbage.  There are other components to my Polish-American identity, too, though. I make a point of reminding people of Marie Curie's maiden name and birthplace (Skłodowska and Warsaw, respectively). John Paul II, despite his conservative tendencies, will always sort of be "my" pope because he was, as my mom's family still thinks of him, "the Polish Pope." And, while I was never baptized and have certainly never been a Christian, Catholic ritual and iconography and theology still have a lot of emotional significance for me.

The Five Thirty-Eight article about Parma, Ohio was hardly the first evidence I'd seen of the Polish-American community having a problem with racism and fascism, but it was still a bit of a painful shock to see the African-American resident of Parma interviewed in the article say that she thinks twice about going into stores with Polish flags or ethnic emblems on them: "You're scared to because of the rejection of how people will act or treat you when you’re in there." After all, the sort of Polish groceries being discussed are places that make my feel happy—if also inadequate about the fact I don't speak Polish—right down to the portrait of Joe Biden¹ on the wall.

I suppose the "correct" response to these feelings of discomfort would be to find the time and energy to be an activist and try to push the Polish-American community to be more progressive and less racist. Except for one thing: I may think of myself as a Polish-American, or even as a white ethnic, but I'm really not part of these communities, and my pagan, trans, queer, graduate-educated self wouldn't be particularly welcome in them, even if I can pass as a cishet Catholic long enough to buy frozen pierogi, fresh keilbasa², and baked goods as a Polish grocery³.  This isn't just a matter of my being queer or an academic, either: while my mother grew up in a very traditionally Polish-American immigrant enclave, I only saw Hamtramck as a place we traveled a few times a year to see relatives and eat tasty food.

My dziadza (grandpa, pronounced "jah-dge") fit well into the Polish-American mold. His parents were both born in Poland, as were both his wife's parents. He left high school at sixteen to work in a car factory, was an early member of the UAW, got shipped to Europe to fight Nazis in Normandy, and ended up owning a small liquor-and-candy store he got from his father-in-law. He lived in the Polish enclave of Hamtramck his whole life, was pro-union but complained that it was too easy to go on welfare these days, and was a proud member of his local Polish Catholic parish until he died and was buried in Detroit's Catholic cemetery. I'd like to believe he would have seen through Trump's fascism if he was still alive—he died in 2002—but I can't help worrying that he'd be on the wrong side today.  After all, the statistics aren't in his favor.

None of Dziadza's six kids really followed in his footsteps, though. He made sure they all got bachelor's degrees, and all of them except my mother ended up with Master's degrees. For the most part, they ended up being teachers and librarians, though one black sheep became a bank loan officer. There's a wide variety of politics (from Republican to "both parties are fascists" radical), religion (from agnostics to quite observant Catholics), and connection to the Polish community (some stayed in Hamtramck and environs; others moved as far away as Los Angeles and, of course, DC). And my mom married my father, whose hometown, Worthington, Ohio, has a history of being as WASP and rich  as Shaker Heights, if not more so.  Although my dad isn't a WASP, and his family has some Central European Catholic roots as well—I really want to find out the details of the politics that got my great-grandfather Franz Weisner kicked out of Austria-Hungary—he's always been as solidly opposed to any sort of ethnic identity beyond "American" as my mom's family has been proud of their Polish roots.

Anyway, it's hard to say where this all leaves me.  A part of me wants to be proud of a Polish-American identity that's only partially mine, while another part of me is just angry and sad about what that identity has come to be associated with in this country today.  And it's not just a problem in this country, honestly: a look at present-day Polish politics is fairly disturbing, with a rather fascist and quite antisemitic party running the country.  I suppose I now understand better the dilemma faced by an MIT undergrad I used to know, who kept talking about how wonderful the small-town South she grew up in was while not quite grasping how unwelcome most of her friends—and she herself, if she didn't hide that she was bi and poly whenever she went home—would be there.  I hope I'm managing to do a better job of handling this than she did.



________________
¹ - I'm well aware of Joe Biden's problematic history on race and his issues with sexual harassment. I certainly don't think he should be running for president. But there's a part of me who finds a liberal Catholic who's pro-choice and is actually quite good on trans rights really strongly appealing.

² - If you've never shopped at a Polish grocery with its own deli counter—or eaten at one of my Polish food nights—you've probably only ever had smoked keilbasa. Fresh keilbasa is, in my opinion, better, but since it spoils quickly, being raw pork and all, it's harder to find and basically never available in supermarkets.

³ - If I can find one. I've developed a mental map of where to find Polish neighborhoods and food in a number of American cities, but DC's lack of a history of manufacturing means that—along with not having the working-class white suburban racism of many Rust Belt cities—it doesn't have much in the way of Eastern European neighborhoods.

Comments

[duskpeterson]

One thing I find weird is how minorities who were once highly oppressed (Italian-Americans, for example, which is one of my heritages) often go on to oppress other minorities.

I try to take pride in the once-oppressed-minority part, rather than the now-an-oppressor part. There are *always* people within such groups who speak out against bigotry, as you've just demonstrated.

[child_of_the_air]

*nods* It's definitely weird, but also doesn't surprise me that much from what I've seen of human nature, sadly.

[wolby]

This is something I think about a lot too. There's a book called "How Jews Became White Folks" (I've only read selections) that does what it says on the tin (for white european jews, at least). There's a lot of overlap in experiences with the process for Eastern and Southern European immigrants in the US, though a little earlier in time because peak immigration was earlier. And it might be starting to happen for some East Asian immigrant communities in the US.

I have lots of scattered thoughts on this. Obvi I engage with (european) Jewish culture a lot, but I do notice that it has an effect on my social circle, and I also find myself fighting a lot with conservative members of my ethnic group about the way they talk about and use our shared history of oppression.

[duskpeterson]

I've been watching this type of excluding happen in the LGBTQ community for forty years now. First it was, "Bisexuals don't belong in our community." Then it was, "Transsexuals don't belong in our community." Now the fight is over asexuals in the LGBTQ community. There seems to be a human tendency to draw lines right behind oneself.

[wolby]

Hm, that analogy falls short for me. It's not so much exclusion (from whiteness, or from another marginalized coalition in the case of queer/trans stuff) that's the issue but theft/withholding/hoarding of resources. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in the US have overwhelmingly economic causes, mechanisms, and consequences. (On anti-Black racism, see "The Case for Reparations" by Coates; it's not long.) We don't undo it by letting more people into whiteness; instead, we decenter whiteness and end white supremacy.

[duskpeterson]

"It's not so much exclusion (from whiteness, or from another marginalized coalition in the case of queer/trans stuff) that's the issue but theft/withholding/hoarding of resources."

Without having read the book you mention, I can't be sure I'm understanding your comment correctly, but it seems to me that exclusion always has economic consequences. A lot of the fight over gay marriage has had to do with the fact that married couples enjoy certain financial advantages that unmarried couples don't possess. Likewise, the recent rationale given for excluding transfolk from the US military is that their medical needs are too expensive.

In these days of corporate sponsorships of Pride parades, it can be hard to remember that, at one time, a common media image of "homosexuals" was of poor people living in slums.

https://books.google.com/books?id=_zkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA93

Today, gay neighborhoods tend to be gentrified, but when I graduated college in the 1980s, there was still a connection between "gay village" and "low rent."

Out of curiosity, I just checked to see what happened to Rochester NY's Italian American neighborhood ("ghetto," was my father's description of it), which my mother grew up in. It turns out that most of the Italian Americans moved out, while black and Latinx people moved in. Now Rochester is trying to "revitalize" the neighborhood by turning it into a Little Italy. I think it's clear which group ended up economically on top.

"We don't undo it by letting more people into whiteness; instead, we decenter whiteness and end white supremacy."

I agree full-heartedly, but will that entirely resolve the Animal Farm problem of formerly oppressed people turning into oppressors? I'd say that you put your finger on it in saying that economics plays an important role in all this. Class systems will still exist, even if we end white supremacy.

[wolby]

I think we agree overwhelmingly! My objection was more specifically to bi activism as an example of how progress gets made, because (as a bi) I've never actually seen any bi activism by that name that a) was about economic issues (unless we count 'promoting suspect stats about domestic violence'), or b) targeted the straight majority instead of other queer people. But we're getting pretty far afield, and I don't want to clutter up Lemur's comments too much.

Here's the article, btw---I highly recommend it if you get 20 min this weekend. The Case for Reparations

"will that entirely resolve the Animal Farm problem of formerly oppressed people turning into oppressors?"

Reminds me of a passage in a memoir I just picked up that was talking anecdotally about people turning their own (very real!) experiences of oppression into a way of controlling others. Which I think is also what Conflict Is Not Abuse is about, but I haven't gotten to that one yet... argh, so much to read, so little time.

[child_of_the_air]

Hah...don't feel bad about cluttering up my comments. People very rarely comment on my posts, especially not more than a sentence at a time, so it's kind of exciting to see a conversation happening here, even if I don't have anything to add to it.

Also, regarding your mention of engaging in European Jewish community a lot, it is notable that nearly all the people I know who have an ethnic community they actually feel involved in are Jewish.

[duskpeterson]

Thanks for the recs! And you've brought back memories (pleasant ones) of the first - and, it turned out, only - time I met the bisexual community (as opposed to individuals). The 1987 lesbian and gay march on Washington; I ended up marching with the bi contingent. But the closest bi group was in Philadelphia, and I lived near DC, without a car, so that was it.

[calledtovienna]

Reading that article, I also found myself saying "Oh hey, that looks similar enough to comfort food, and like home -- oh, uh". It is different in a lot of ways, of course, but it is a hard circle to square, given how firmly I believe in my chosen SF/queer/left culture.

A friend (another FSU queer person that I met at a party for queer people...) introduced me to a Facebook group for liberal Former Soviet Union immigrants/children of immigrants, which has been surprisingly healing, and I wonder if something like that exists, or could exist, for Polish Americans.

>> But there's a part of me who finds a liberal Catholic who's pro-choice and is actually quite good on trans rights really strongly appealing.

I think that's a reasonable emotion to feel actually!

[child_of_the_air]

*nods* Interesting to hear that it's not just me, and not even just people who are a few generations separated from the Old Country. I do seem to know a lot of queer people who were born in the Soviet Union, come to think of it.

[calledtovienna]

Yeah, I do too. I think there is something there that makes sense, both in selection bias (you mostly know FSU people who left) and in general experience (if your country falls apart, that might cause you to be more chill about some things). But of course things are different back there.

Actually, I am coming back to note that I have been listening to a podcast on the Haitian revolution, and it mentions the Polish (!) armies that were sent to quash the revolt, weren't told why it was happening, showed up, went "woah what" and defected to join the ex-slave armies. Which is kind of cool, even if the entire revolution overall is a nightmare. Reminded me of you though, and this conversation and Polish legacy in general.
More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Haitians

[child_of_the_air]

Huh. I didn't know about the Polish Haitians, but I suppose it fits in the pattern of Poles being involved in revolutions throughout Europe in the first half of the 19th Century.