Insights Into Polish Immigrant Experience: An Ethnographic Interview

Sample Ethnographic Interview K and V have been my neighbors for the last 3 years, and they are proud Polish immigrants. They moved here from Chicago and brought his mother M with them. They are now the proud parents of 2 sweet children. We have had plenty of conversations at the mailbox and gotten to know each other on the surface. Our lives are in different places, so we don’t have a lot in common, but they are always great about bringing in a garbage can for you or grabbing a package. Taking this time to spend with them and get to know them like this was so amazing! I originally asked for half an hour to an hour to talk, I ended up being there for over 2! I know they are a family very rooted in their Polish culture, and the first thing I noticed in their house was that there was nothing ethnically decorative that jumped out at me, it seemed like any other home in any other neighborhood. A neighbor on my street when I was a kid had a Polish flag in their front window, so I think I was expecting something like that (Chapter 1 Ethnographic Eyes). V grew up in a small city outside Warsaw and moved to the U.S. senior year of high school. He compared his home city to Rockford in size. V came here to be with his father who had already been here for 2 years. When immigrating from a European country to the U.S. you need to prove that you have connections here. His father already had some family that was here. His mother came for a month every year, it was just normal to have their family divided. Crime is very different in Poland. It is minimal with some robberies. If there is a case involving a child, it is a huge deal and plastered all over all the headlines. If you commit a crime, you are treated as guilty until proven innocent and are usually incarcerated while it is investigated. V’s niece is 18 and is perfectly safe taking public transportation alone at night. Stark contrast to life in Chicago where you may or may not be safe during the day. V said that primary school over there is different in that you stay in the same one class with the same kids, but if you fail 1 class, you have to repeat the whole year over again. In Poland, you take an exam for placement options in high school, and V was in the best one there was. Upon coming here, he was placed at his district CPS high school and experienced true culture shock. There were police in the school, metal detectors, and fighting in the lunchroom. V spoke very little English and knew absolutely no slang. He said that it took him years to understand words like “gonna, woulda, shoulda”. Due to the language barrier, he was placed in general classes and much time left to his own devices to read and pass his classes. Math was a very strong subject for him, and at one point, the teacher moved him to the end of the room away from everyone. He thought he was being accused of cheating, but the teacher wanted to prevent the others from cheating off him as he was getting perfect scores. His father offered to send him back to Poland after 2 months, but he wanted to stick it out. During this time, V overstayed hi