PNA Centennial History of the Polish National Alliance of the United States of North America

A History of Organized Polonia in America

This book is a history of the PNA (Polish National Alliance). But it is much more than that. It is, to a certain extent, a history of Polish Americans in the last century before the publication of this book (1984).

Pienkos recounts the experiences of Poles during the Partitions, and their struggles to maintain their identity in the face of foreign rule. Prussian rule was the worst: Bismark's Kulturkampf sought to extirpate all traces of Polish national consciousness, and to suppress the Catholic Church. Many Poles fled to America. Ironically, Polish immigrants to America were often falsely labeled Prussians, Russians, or Austrians.

Early Polish immigrants were forced to perform backbreaking labor (p. 5), much the same as the black slaves in the South had performed before the Civil War. And, of course, racism and discrimination were not limited to nonwhites. For example, despite his later pro-Polish policies, US President Woodrow Wilson thought that Italians and... read more