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Both immigrantPoles andAmericans of Polish heritage live inChicago, Illinois. They are a part of worldwidePolonia, thePolish term for the PolishDiaspora outside ofPoland.Poles in Chicago have contributed to the economic, social and cultural well-being ofChicago from its very beginning.Poles have been a part of thehistory of Chicago since 1837, when Captain Joseph Napieralski, along with other veterans of theNovember Uprising first set foot there.[1][self-published source][2] As of the2000 U.S. census, Poles in Chicago were the largestEuropean American ethnic group in the city, making up 7.3% of the total population.[3][4] However, according to the 2006–2008American Community Survey,German Americans andIrish Americans each had slightly surpassed Polish Americans as the largest European American ethnic groups in Chicago. German Americans made up 7.3% of the population, and numbered at 199,789; Irish Americans also made up 7.3% of the population, and numbered at 199,294. Polish Americans now made up 6.7% of Chicago's population, and numbered at 182,064.[5] Polish is the fourth most widely spoken language in Chicago behind English, Spanish, and Mandarin.[6]
According to Census estimates as of 2023, the Polish ancestry population in the broaderChicago metropolitan area numbers 721,538, making it the metropolitan region with the highest Polish population in the country, and likely the most Polish metropolitan area in the world outside of Poland.[7][8] While it is often claimed that Chicago has or had the highest Polish population outside of Warsaw, this is unlikely to ever have been the case, given the population of Łódź and Wrocław has historically outpaced the Polish ancestry population in Chicago.[8]
A number of Poles contributed to the history of the city together with Captain Napieralski, a veteran of Cross Mountain[clarification needed] during theNovember Uprising. Along with him came other early Polish settlers such as Major Louis Chlopicki, the nephew of GeneralJózef Chłopicki who had been the leader of the same insurrection. Not to mention certain A. Panakaske (Panakaski) who resided in the second ward in the 1830s as well as J. Zoliski who lived in the sixth ward with records of both men having cast their ballots forWilliam B. Ogden in the 1837 mayoral race in Chicago.[2]
According to Dominic Pacyga, most of the Poles who first came to Chicago settled in five distinct parts of the city.[9] The first of thosePolish Patches, as they were colloquially referred to, was located on theNear Northwest Side. Centering on thePolish Triangle at the intersection ofMilwaukee and Ashland avenues with Division street it later became known asPolish Downtown. The second large settlement, developed inPilsen on the west side near 18th street and Ashland avenue. Poles established two separate enclaves in theStock Yard district, one inBridgeport, the other in theBack of the Yards near 47th street and Ashland avenue. Another Polish neighborhood developed in the area around the massiveIllinois Steel works inSouth Chicago in the area colloquially referred to as "the Bush".
Polish communities in Chicago were often founded and organized around parishes mostly bypeasant immigrants who named their neighbourhoods after them, likeBronislawowo, named after St. Bronislava.* Sometimes the neighbourhoods are contiguous so its difficult to say precisely where one ends and one begins, as in the case of 'Stanislawowo' by the church ofSt. Stanislaus Kostka and 'Trojcowo' byHoly Trinity Polish Mission in the former area ofPolish Downtown.
InPolish the ending 'owo' in e.g., Bronislawowo functions similar toEnglish 'ville' in Johnsville or 'ton' in Charleston. When added to a name of a saint, it indicates a Polish sounding town or a village. This is a colloquial phenomenon, not present in educated Polish; however, it persists in the names of different Polish areas of Chicago.
Polish Downtown-(Pulaski Park,River West,Bucktown,Wicker Park,East Village, andNoble Square)
Later as Poles grew in number and advanced economically, they migrated further out into outlying areas.[10] The result was that theWest Town/Logan Square settlement inPolish Downtown spread westward along North Avenue and northwestward alongMilwaukee thereby creating a "Polish Corridor" which tied in contiguous areas such asNorwood Park,Jefferson Park,Portage Park, andBelmont-Cragin.[10] The same kind of advance occurred in the other original areas of Polish settlements so thatPoles from both theLower West Side and theBack of the Yards moved into both sides ofArcher Avenue, giving rise to sizable Polish settlements on theSouthwest Side of the city such asMcKinley Park,Garfield Ridge,Brighton Park andArcher Heights.[10] On the farSoutheast Side, theSouth Chicago "steel mill settlements" spilled over intoPullman,Roseland,East Side,Hegewisch andCalumet City as well as intoLake County inNorthwest Indiana, where thriving Polish communities were found inNorth Hammond,Whiting, the Indian Harbor section ofEast Chicago and several neighborhoods in the newly built industrial city ofGary.[10]
AvondaleChicago's Polish Village:
Over the course of the city's development as the city's Polish community climbed further up the economic ladder and were followed by new waves of immigrants the concentration of Poles shifted to different areas of the city.
As in Poland, the overwhelming majority ofPolish immigrants who settled in Chicago were culturally very devoutRoman Catholics. Though almost all of thePolish Americans remained loyal to the Catholic Church after immigrating, abreakaway Catholic church was founded in 1897 inScranton, Pennsylvania. Polish parishioners founded the church to assert independence from the Catholic Church in America. The split was in rebellion from the church leadership, then dominated by Irish and German clergy, and lacking in Polish speakers and Polish church leaders. TheBucktown campus of the formerCathedral of All Saints still stands as a testament to this community of faith. The currentCathedral and Cemetery complex on the city's periphery byRosemont remains active and is still independent from the authority of theRoman Catholic Church.
Poland is also home to followers ofProtestantism and theEastern Orthodox Church. Small groups of both of these groups are present Chicago. One of the most celebrated painters of religious icons in North America today is a Polish American Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr.Theodore Jurewicz, who singlehandedly paintedNew Gračanica Monastery inThird Lake, Illinois, over the span of three years.[11]
While large numbers ofJews from the former lands of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth immigrated to theChicago area, they faced a historical trajectory far different from that of their Christian counterparts. In the process ofAmericanization, manyPolish Jews in Chicago would lose their identification with Poland, with notable exceptions. There have also been small numbers ofMuslims, mostlyLipka Tatars originating from theBiałystok region.
Chicago bills itself as the largest Polish city outside of Poland with approximately 800,000[12] people of Polish ancestry in theChicago metropolitan area. Chicago's Polish presence is felt in the large number ofPolish American organizations located there, including thePolish Museum of America, thePolish American Association, thePolish National Alliance and thePolish Highlanders Alliance of North America. A column fragment ofWawel Castle, the onetime seat ofPoland's royalty, has been incorporated intoChicago'slandmarkTribune Tower as a visual tribute to Chicago's large Polish populace.
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Chicago also has a thriving Polish cultural scene. ThePolish Arts Club of Chicago was founded in 1926. The city hosts the Polish Film Festival of America where variousPolish films are screened during the weeklong festival every October. Polish stage productions in bothPolish andEnglish are regularly staged at numerous venues throughout theChicago Metropolitan Area. The most prominent venues among these are theChopin andGateway Theatres. TheGateway, which is also the seat of thePolish Cultural Center in Chicago is the home of the Paderewski Symphony Orchestra. The Lira Ensemble, the only professional performing arts company outside of Poland that specializes in Polish music, song, and dance is Artist-in-Residence at Loyola University Chicago. Chicago is also host to severalPolish folk dances ensembles that teach traditions to Polish-American children.
Chicago celebrates its Polish Heritage everyLabor Day weekend at theTaste of Polonia Festival inJefferson Park, attended by such political notables as PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush,Dick Cheney,Newt Gingrich,Hadassah Lieberman, CongresswomanMelissa Bean, andTipper Gore.[13] Illinois, due to the influence of this large population, is also one of the few states that celebratesCasimir Pulaski Day. Some schools and government services in the metro area are closed for the holiday.
The Almanac of American Politics 2004 states that "Even today, inArcher Heights [a neighborhood of Chicago],you can scarcely go a block without hearing someone speaking Polish". This may be anachronistic because, although once true, today the Archer Heights neighborhood is predominately Mexican-American and Mexican, with many of the Polish former residents having died or moved to the suburbs. This is reflected in many of the businesses which served the Polish community having been replaced with businesses which serve the Mexican community. Polish-language business signs, once ubiquitous in Archer Heights, are now quite rare, while Spanish-language signs are seen on many businesses in the area.
Much of 1950s Chicago Polish youth culture was captured in the 1972 musicalGrease, in which the majority of characters had Polish surnames (Zuko, Dumbrowski, Kenickie);Jim Jacobs, who conceivedGrease, based the musical on his real-life experiences in a Chicago high school. Much of the Polish-American nature of the musical was discarded whenGrease was made into afeature film in 1978, casting non-Polish actors in the lead roles, and subsequent productions have also followed the film's lead in toning down the Chicago Polish influences.
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Some of ChicagoPolonia (the Polish term for members of theexpatriate Polish community) speak the American sub dialect ofPonglish (usually referred to as Chicagowski by local Poles) a fusion of thePolish andEnglish languages. Ponglish is a common (to greater or lesser degree, almost unavoidable) phenomenon among personsbilingual in Polish and English, and its avoidance requires considerable effort and attention. Ponglish is a manifestation of a broader phenomenon, that oflanguage interference.
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