SobieskiSavedEurope
Gold Member
- Apr 13, 2017
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That stereotype is decades old. Many of the Polish immigrants were not highly educated when they came to this country, so they appeared to be stupid. However it was true with just about any ethnicity of immigrants at the time. Or as Archie Bunker once said "They only created Polack jokes to take the heat off the Dago's."
It does remind me of a true story though. My late friend was a first generation American. His father brought them over from Poland in the 50's, and he was quite a character. He was driving home drunk and a cop spotted him, and followed him home. After he parked his car on the street, the cop tested him, arrested him for DUI, and had the car towed.
When he went to court, he told the judge "I know, I do wrong, I drink and drive. But they tow my car. My car was not drinking, I was!"
The judge bust out laughing, and got such a kick out of the old man he gave him a slap on the hand. All he had to do is some community service work cleaning up city hall and the police station for a period of time.
A lot of Poles & Italians are pretty well off around these parts.
Despite facing the brunt of media & Hollywood discrimination.
They tend to be in slightly better shape than Irish Catholics & Germans.
Most of the White Trash in Dutchess county, NY are Protestant English, Scots, Irish Protestants, Dutch.
But also some French Catholics too.
Basically the colonial populations are behind.
At least in the neighborhood I was born in, now called Slavic Village, most everybody was Polish, and didn't have much money. The Italians were in a little bette shape, but the reason some joined the mob is because there was no way for them to make good money outside of crime, due to their lack of education when they came here.
Instead of higher eduction, the Polish immigrants spent a lot of time learning how to become Americans. They studied our culture, went to English class, and the men spent a lot of time working to support the family. Many rented because they didn't believe in borrowing money and paying interest. In their minds, if they didn't have to have something out of necessity, then they just did without. The immigrants that did buy homes usually did so with money they saved. I had several neighbors that didn't even have a telephone back then.
I'm against Polish jokes, but I don't support jailing people, or even discipline for those who disagree with Poles.
The same can't be said for many Blacks, and Hispanics.
The US census data shows Polish Americans are fairly well educated & have fairly high incomes.
Polish Americans - Wikipedia
The same can't be said for many Blacks, and Hispanics.
Without a doubt. However I"m going back to the 60's. Back then was an entirely different time. I think most immigrants came to this country pretty much uneducated. But you are correct, Polish people are very intelligent.
I remember this neighbor we had growing up. When she got here at five years old, she didn't know a word of English. My sister (with the help of my mother for translation purposes) taught her English. She went back to her family and relayed what she learned. Eventually she began to speak with a heavy accent, and by an adult, had no accent at all. She studied hard because her father was obsessed with eduction for his children. She went on to become a doctor, and I believe still practices today as a gynecologist.
Bill Gates was a very smart guy, but nobody advanced technology in the computer world more than Steve Wozniak. Back then, we Apple users used to laugh at the new PC version of Apple which they called Windows. We laughed because all Windows did was turn your PC into a Mac.
Plenty of discriminated against groups have done well in the USA, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Asian Indians, Poles, Italians, Lebanese, Iranians, Pakistanis, Irish Catholics, etc. etc.
