The Polish Community: George's Story
A background of diversity
“It’s extremely complicated how I came the UK. My mother is Polish, my Dad is German; I was born in Germany, lived in Hungary for 7 years, and went to Lviv University in Ukraine doing Languages and History. I had 2 things; I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to be an archaeologist. After university, because I enjoy History like Middle Ages, so I think about England. I thought about United States but there is nothing there but highscrapers and that’s about it.
The first 3 years it was like a paradise. I used to live in Evesham; very, very nice, very, very clean town. I spent there probably about 5 years and then I moved to Coventry, after that I moved to Birmingham. I went to South Birmingham College doing Sound Engineering.
I was more interested in composing my own music, because it’s like a different language, but with music you can’t hear accent; it’s just music.
Reaching out to the community
I got frustrated because I found that with professional musician it’s so difficult to make some connection, so now I finish with Polish Translation Centre and I feel more when you’re giving something you’re get lots and lots back. When you help people you can see it in their eyes that they are happy, and because they are very happy word spreads like the wind! In first 6 months in every shop was my advertisement, recreation centres, factories, everywhere, and I heard nothing! Only when I started working as translator in Job Centre and start to meet people, now I get probably 3 booking a day, because you know so many people and I can show people that I am interested in their problems.
With the Polish community 90% don’t speak English and because of that they get abused, discriminated, that kind of things. So I can fill in forms for people, like Job Seeker’s Allowance, Tax Credit and all this kind of things. Even if a Polish person go to university and he can speak English; he’s got no idea what’s going on. They are from different cultural background – economical background, different law, different procedure; when they come here; they’re lost.
Cultural differences
In UK now you have 2 Polish communities; with an extremely big gap. The first is 1st and 2nd World War immigrants, now in 2nd/3rd generation and you’ve got newcomers; age only 18,19,20. The first are people with English kind of culture now, but those second people don’ t like it here at all! They came here because they think that they can earn some money. Some of them stay here, but more of them, they go back.
Back in Poland you have big families. You might have your grandmother and grandfather living with you – and parents usually visit you on a regular basis, probably bring you some kind of bread or meat. Everybody in Eastern Europe they’ve got some sort of garden or beach house and families all get together for one month of the year. Always in Eastern Europe it’s the man who has to provide. If you lose a job with a Polish woman, you’ve got to find it very, very quickly! She has got you because she thought you were a good provider. That’s why when the guy come from work you’ve got everything on the table, very nice. Lifestyle here is different. Polish women when they come here they file for divorce after a few years because they see the life!
Most Polish people are catholic – usually their kids do Saturday church. Ukranians come too to Catholic Centre. Ukranian and Polish are close together. Here Ukranians are 80% Polish because most of them came to this country from Western area that was under Poland.
Sausages and socialising
Main problems of Polish community is lack of information and language barrier. They don’t mix with English people. They got their own shops; because they don’t eat sandwiches, or whatever. They cook their own soup, usually, or eat mustard with sausages and that sort of thing. Traditional food is potato, or meat and rice. There is a lot of different spices. Most traditional dish is Pierogi: some sort of pasties with onion, garlic, meat, cheese inside. But people here probably won’t do what their grandmother in Poland do. If you go to your grandmother’s you got soup, you got meat, you got dessert, you got so much! And if you don’t eat it all you’re in trouble!
They don’t go out – very rarely they might go to discotheque or something. They drink at home – much cheaper and these are people they know. If you don’t know English, why go to the bar? You can imagine yourself going to Polish pub, everybody speak Polish and they don’t want to know you. So what’s the point of spend 3 hours to get one drink after 5 days of hard work, and who are you going to get to know?
Poles apart from the arts
I like to go to concerts and art galleries and everythings like that because I came from that background. This generation that’s here now, working, economic migrants; they won’t go to arts because if you’ve never been to school, you’ve never even read a book, you’ve never been to a gallery in your life and then you come to this country - what sort of concerts are you going to go to? What’s the point? Maybe small percentage that come over as students, maybe that kind of people may go to gallery or concerts. But even then I have met students here who have been here 6 months and just work, then home, and haven’t even left that house!”
From ‘Who are the Other ethnic groups’, based on 2001 Census data