The Borders of Integration: Polish Migrants in Germany and the US, 1870–1924 by Brian McCook (review)

In the belief that contemporary debates about immigration are not adequately informed by a systematic consideration of historical examples of relatively successful integration, Brian McCook’s history of Polish migration to northeastern Pennsylvania and the German Ruhr region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries aims to inform discussion about migration in the twenty-first century. He believes that the Polish experience was “not altogether dissimilar . . . from that of contemporary migrants” (6), and argues “that integration was dependent on Poles engaging in social conflicts within the boundaries of civil society, first as members of a group and then as individuals” (15).

McCook is very careful to situate his research in the current historiography. He embraces the emerging “neo-assimilationist” model, which posits that both immigrants and the native population alike change over time. McCook, who self-consciously defines his study as working within a “transnationalist” framework, believes that integration is abetted by the formation of transnational spaces and transnational identities, which encourage “greater participation in local community life” (9). Furthermore, these transnational identities need to be tolerated by state and society. To this end, McCook emphasizes the role that states play “in determining the parameters of immigrant transnational social spaces” (8). With regard to citizenship, McCook takes his cues from T. H. Marshall and Reinhard Bendix in viewing citizenship “broadly,” and from Jürgen Habermas in appreciating the power of “self-transformation” (10–11). Following Dieter Gosewinkel, the author believes that citizenship is not determined by national tradition, but rather by “political circumstance” (13).

If citizenship and integration are not determined by, but are instead subject to, circumstances, scholars cannot merely extrapolate from certain laws, but actually need to see how things happened on—or, in the present case involving miners, under—the ground. To that end, McCook first provides portraits of the coal industries in the Ruhr and in northeastern Pennsylvania, and then examines how Poles integrated themselves into the workforce, as well as how they interacted with the Catholic Church. He also looks at the growth of Polish ethnic associations, and assesses the transformative effect of World War I on Polish communities.

McCook shows that although the patterns of organization differed in the Ruhr and northeastern Pennsylvania, Poles did manage to incorporate themselves into both existing workforces. In the German context, the Poles organized an independent trade union, the Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie (ZZP), which, while remaining a distinct entity, did work together with German unions. McCook sees the ZZP as both preserving Polish identity while also serving as a vehicle by which Poles could take part in strikes and become increasingly integrated—though, in some cases, begrudgingly—into the native German workforce. In contradistinction to the situation in the Ruhr, where unions had a more established tradition before the influx of Poles, in northeastern Pennsylvania Poles were able to integrate into the main coal miner’s union, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW), the early development of which coincided with the arrival of the Poles. In both countries, the Poles—despite widespread discrimination—managed to integrate into the workforce through their active involvement in strikes.

Although many of the obstacles that Poles faced in the Ruhr and northeastern Pennsylvania were the same, there were important differences in the character of integration in the two areas. In the Ruhr, the Poles—as Prussian citizens—“possessed more political, civil, and social rights” (167) than Poles in northeastern Pennsylvania, many of whom were not American citizens. But in terms of cultural rights, the situation was more favorable for Poles in northeastern Pennsylvania. In the Ruhr, Poles were subject to a greater degree of state interference, particularly with respect to associational life. The state clamped down on Polish language usage and associational meetings of all kinds under the pretext that any Polish association was inherently political and thus subject to police meddling. The Poles...