PolAms -- do you regard yourselves only as 'white Americans'?

So - when did the people in question emigrate? Was it during the partitions or not? If it was, then they didn't come from Poland - end of story. The country didn't exist!


Did you even read what I said? The chances of you being ethnically 100% Polish isn't very likely - if you knew the history of the country that you claim to be from, you'd know fine well that Poland was a melting pot and that many people who lived in Poland weren't actually Polish at all. Can you trace your lineage right back to the founding of the Piast dynasty? No? Then you can't claim to be 100% Polish, especially when Poland-Lithuania was home to so many different ethnicities!

Well, the fact that you weren't even taught about Poland says how Polish you really are! Or more accurately - it says how un-Polish you actually are and how you really are just a plain old American.

Nobody is 100 percent anymore in the world. That doesn't mean anything. Based on that idea, how would you explain Native Americans and Mexicans or Africans or Middle Eastern races? They're all a mixture of native and European and nobody tells them that they're not their race.

Why are Native Americans still considered Native American even though they have a mixture of European in them? What about all the Latin American countries? They're a mixture of all sorts of races but yet their kids who are born outside of those countries are considered descendants of them. No one tells someone of Mexican descent that they or their parents are not really Mexican just because the full blooded Aztecs are gone.

Unfortunately, over here, we have a lot of people (usually liberal-lefties, naturally) who think that no-one is allowed to call themselves "indigenous British". Although it is unlikely that anyone alive today can claim to be descended from the earliest settlers, it's clear that a group of people eventually came to be regarded as "ethnic Britons" (Scots, English, Welsh), irrespecive of their origins.

There's even evidence that people lived in houses here as long ago as 12500 years ago: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Carr_house

(Far too small for people from the Indian sub-continent to claim that they might have been the original settlers :D )

Of course, as we've discussed elsewhere on this forum, there's a group of people in the UK (see first paragraph above) who love putting down anything English/British, and promote anything non-British as superior, which it often isn't.

Yet, although New Zealand was only settled about 700 years ago, these same people would never have the nerve to go to NZ and tell the Maori that they ought to go back to Eastern Polynesia, "because they aren't indigenous" :D

OMG what an idiotic statement. So because Poland didn't exist during the partition, Polish people ceased to exist somehow magically turning into Russians or Germans.

Read the first two lines of Polish national anthem:

Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła,
Kiedy my żyjemy

Yes, I'm married and have a wonderful little daughter. :) And it's great to see you and Patty around here again. I thought you already gave up on this place.

Congratulations! Here, have a late cigar! :)

Russians are not dirty, this isn't 1930's Russia anymore, they are clean people who take care of themselves. With regards to admixture they do have an admixture but so do we. Of course Polish in America regard themselves as white, that's what we are.

Thank you very much. Ahh Ich maine, danke schon Herr BB. :)

The point that delph was trying to make is that if you are like second gen American, why would you consider yourself anything other than that.

+ the other point delph was making is that if you were born somewhere in the east of Poland, were of either Ukrainian, Belorussian or Lithuanian ancestry. Why would you consider yourself Polish, when these ethnicities have their own countries today?

You're the idiot if you can't work out that someone who came from Russia/Prussia/Austra-Hungary didn't come from Poland, but rather one of those three countries. They might have been Polish, but they certainly didn't come from Poland unless they were born before the partitions!

(just a point : all these Polish-Americans talk about how proud their ancestors were of Poland, yet many of them left in the first days of the 2nd Republic...so proud, that they abandoned their country when their country needed them!)

I didnt give up, i am working my arse off :)


consider the source.. he argues for the sake of arguing.


lol, it wasnt magically it was more like forcefully.

because maybe "they" are polish and not one of those? how about that?


it was occupied PL, you dolt


wtf would a limey know about Polish ancestry.. it's rather laughable how you are senselessly arguing these points when you aren't even from PL..


that's just stupid.. nobody can trace their lineage that far even if we tried.. are you that thick, really?


sure, glad to see ya, hon. :)

He's trying to knock down the American Polish communities and without sucess.


awww nice to see you too sweetie. ;)

Patrycja19
one word: sarcasm


Let's assume for the argument's sake that I can figure that out, better yet I'll let you on a little secret: I definitely CAN figure out that if someone having emigrated from the territories of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth partitioned by Russia/Prussia/Austro-Hungary technically didn't come from Poland, as it no longer existed on the map. The point of my post (my whole post including that little linguistic riddle in the end) was to show You how far off the mark you are in your assumptions. Clearly its brevity and the sarcasm involved as well as some foreign words had you confused. Allow me then to be more didactic.

Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła,
Kiedy my żyjemy
Translation (a loose one): Poland is not lost, As long as we live.

Which is the essence of Polish spirit. This is why Poland emerged again despite the active russification and germanization efforts on part of the occupying powers (Austro-Hungary being the exception) spanning over 120 years. Poland survived thanks to its people. At the time Polish people were very much aware of their nationality, fiercely resisting the occupiers (as the many uprisings show). Therefore not surprisingly they were saying ' I come from Poland' wherever in the world they ended up .

Following your logic an average limey should go and say : "Hi my name is John Smith and I come from Germany", had the Hitler won the war and conquered UK. Perhaps that is what you would do...

Why am I explaining the obvious? Well because you seem to use the lack of Polish statehood during the partitions as an argument denying Polish ancestry to some of the posters here.

I would have never guessed without your input ;)

off for a while. bbl

Indeed, attempting to debate with delphi does slow me down:)

Congratulations! A daughter? How sweet. I've been here the whole time, probably just in different threads than you.


That's interesting. People in the U.S. can prove through DNA tests that they're related to the indigenous tribes. It's also like that in Canada, and Latin American countries and probably other countries in the world.

Poland was annexed, not occupied. That's a historical fact, even if some people here don't like it.

you can split hairs as to which word to use all you want but in the end the polish territories were OCCUPIED by foreign forces.

Wrong. There was NO Polish territory to occupy because the country of Poland didn't exist. The ethnic Poles who had been living in these annexed areas became Prussian, Russian or Austro-Hungarian citizens. Should we see western Poland as occupied German territory, or is it Polish now because Poland was allowed to annex it after WW2? You can't have it both ways.

Ummm...that is not "polish"...I would say that is quite common feeling!
Poles don't have the monopoly on feeling patriotic! ;)


Na ja....it needed a war and the victors deciding on giving Poland their independence....

Their polish spirit didn't help them much during the 120 years!


His ancestor very probably was called originally Johann Schmidt and came from Germany! :):);)


Because the indegenous Brit is a German! :)

*ducks and runs*

The world (legally) accepted the dissolution of Poland and the annexation of her territories. The Polish city of Poznan became the Prussian/ German city of Posen automatically.

I think is matter of perspective, Confederates were called rebels, yet they viewed themselves in totally different light. The same is with Poles, I think, they used to view dissolution of Poland as occupation, at the end of the day, does it really matter?

the american government gives reperations to citizens who are only a quarter indian. 100 percent blood is a fallacy. alot of europeans would be surprised to see the middle eastern(jewish) in their blood and african(moores) in their blood. they are just as mixed as americans. In fact alot of early knowledge and technology was drug back to europe from the middle east after the crusades. Meaning that blood is as mixed as knowledge. Europe is not a pure and uninfluenced continent. no matter what people want to believe.

... and the victors needed to make sure that future German state wasn't too robust hence the resurgent Poland, fair enough, though had the Poles succumbed to germanization/russification over 5 generations (perfectly feasible scenario) as intended by the occupiers that option would have been close to impossible. Resilience=spirit, yep it helped them in the end.


A Dane!!! (Saxons came from Jutland) ;);)


*FlaglessPole blows his horn triumphantly over the scores of fleeing Teutons*
*he stopped now, scratching his head and muttering: where the fvck is my flag??* ;) ;)


So was the Sudetenland in 1938 and then the rest of Bohemia and Moravia later on. Every Czech must have breathed a sigh of relief : "Phew, that was close, no worries we got only annexed not occupied..."

So was Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia after the end of WW2... . You missed my point. I wasn't talking about whether an annexation is just or not.

I know, but by pointing out this mere technicality, you seemingly gave it the connotation of 'lesser evil'. As if...

You're still missing the point, but never mind. If we continue, we'll end up in Off-topic.

It did actually. Had it not been for Greaterpolands Uprising Poznan would definatelly stay in German hands as neither Piłsudski nor the Legause of Nations was keen on giving this predominantly polish land to Poland. The people had to spoke.

PS: @ shewolf: thanx :)

No it didn't.
If it hadn't been for the fear of France and GB for a strong Germany and hence pushing for a cut of german territory to keep it smaller and more "manageable" all your spirits would had still accounted for nothing.

Poland was the one sole profiteur of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles (well, you and Czechoslovakia), for the rest of Europe it spelled doom! But then...you were just a pawn too. Your fate was decided in Paris, not in Warsaw.