Polonia

During the nineteenth and twentieth century, Polonia, the Polish community in the United States of America located especially in Chicago, became a considerable element of American society. According to the American Census 2000, approximately 933,000 persons of Polish ancestry live in the State of Illinois. Currently, the majority of these Poles live in the suburbs of Chicago. The fact that this ethnic community is not only a small group of immigrants, but rather composed of many thousand Polish individuals makes this community an interesting cultural subject, which will be analyzed in this thesis.
The guiding objective of this analysis, which includes historical, sociological and cultural elements, is to portray a comprehensive picture of the Polish ethnic community in Chicago of the twenty-first century, taking into consideration the beginning of Polish immigration into the USA, the development of this ethnic community and key factors leading to its ongoing evolution.