From Polonia with Love

By J. MADELEINE NASH

% Prominently displayed in Chicago last week stood three 40-ft.-long containers loaded with food and medicine bound for Gdansk, Krakow and Warsaw. The desperately needed cartons of flour, baby food, pasta, antibiotics, surgical gloves and hospital linens are manifestations of one of the most profound changes brought about by Poland's dramatic opening to the West. A Polish government is at last receiving the enthusiastic support and recognition of "Polonia," as Poles who have left their homeland refer to the colonies they have established in other countries. In the week that brought Lech Walesa to the Windy City, it was evident that the heady transformations in Poland have also stirred a seemingly insular and parochial community.

With more than a million residents of Polish descent, the Chicago area is the unofficial capital of Polonia. Many of the janitors and cleaning women who vacuum and scrub the city's high-rises and the clerks who sell kielbasa and clothing in the shops along Milwaukee Avenue speak little or no English. News about the old country is broadcast in Polish on radio and television and headlined by the daily Zgoda (circ. 15,000) and at least a dozen thriving Polish-language weeklies. The reaction of leading commentators in recent months has sometimes bordered on euphoria. "Events in Poland have infected the rest of Eastern Europe," exclaims George Migala, host of the popular radio show Voice of Polonia. They have also infected Chicago.

The Poles came to Chicago in three large waves. Between 1890 and 1930, more than 350,000 Polish peasants poured into the city to labor in the steel mills and meat-packing plants. Their descendants now live in the suburbs or in neat bungalows on Chicago's northwest and southwest sides. As Stalin's Iron Curtain fell across Eastern Europe after World War II, another flood of immigrants arrived, many of them soldiers who had fought with the Allied forces.

The latest migration began in the late 1970s, accelerating after martial law was declared in Poland in 1981. Among the 30,000 new Polonians to arrive in Chicago were cosmopolitan intellectuals who found they had little in common with their predecessors. "Polka is not a Polish dance," laughs Bozena Nowicka, who teaches Polish at Loyola University. "Pirogen is not a noble dish. Polish America is an archive for a culture that no longer exists." In June, Nowicka and 4,500 other new Polonians lined up outside the Polish consulate in Chicago to cast their votes in the historic election back home that catapulted Solidarity leaders into a position of power.

The June election proved a turning point for old Polonia as well. For the first time in its 45-year history, the powerful, traditionally anti-Communist Polish American Congress established official relations with representatives of the Polish government. In October a P.A.C. delegation traveled to Poland to meet with the leaders of the new coalition government, Communist and Solidarity alike. Since 1981, in response to a special plea from Walesa, P.A.C. has channeled $150 million in emergency relief to Poland. "We Americans of Polish descent are going to help our brothers in Poland as much as we can," declares P.A.C. President Edward Moskal. At the top of P.A.C.'s priority list is getting American companies to help revive Polish agriculture. "Farmers in Poland have tractors," says Moskal, "but they have no spare parts. They are plowing their fields with horses."

Last week the Polish-American Economic Forum, a group allied with the new Polonians, held its first national meeting. "Our purpose is to encourage private investment in Poland," declared forum chairman Mitchell Kobelinski, a Chicago banker. The low cost of Polish labor is a prime selling point. "When you're in business, you cannot afford to be merely patriotic," said Polish American fashion designer Yolanda Lorente. "In Poland I see a great opportunity for making money." Lorente is setting up a joint venture with a Polish firm. Kobelinski is trying to establish a bank. Walter Kotaba, president of the Polamer Travel Agency, wants to build a housing subdivision near Warsaw. "What's taken place is a revolution without blood," he exults. "It's a wonderful thing."

But beneath the jubilation runs a strong undercurrent of worry. American Poles are well aware that the country's economy is in ruins. "The pessimism and impatience in Poland is terrifying," acknowledges Chris Kamyszew, director of the Polish Museum of America. "Sometimes I wonder if freedom of speech and freedom of thought will compensate for the lack of the simplest products." Agrees Edward Dykla, president of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America: "The Polish people expect miracles overnight, and they won't get them. The biggest problem Walesa has now is time." At week's end, as Chicago's Polonians gathered by the thousands to cheer Walesa in Daley Plaza, it was clear that they were determined to help him buy that time.