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child_of_the_airA 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-13 06:09 am (UTC)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.