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Mary Patrice Erdmans 9 New Chicago Polonia: Urban and Suburban POLES HAVE BEEN immigrating to Chicago for over a century. Immigrant numbers peaked in the first decade of the twentieth century and by the time national quotas were introduced during the 1920s, almost half a million Poles and their children were living in Chicago. During the middle of the twentieth century, Polish migration was limited to mostly postwar refugees, but in the last decades, a new surge of immigrants arrived. These contemporary immigrants are similar to the earlier arrivals in that most of them are coming in search of jobs and a better life, many of them work as skilled laborers or in service positions, and a significant number do not initially intend to stay permanently. This recent migrant wave differs, however, in that today immigrants are more educated, they are more likely to have had managerial and professional occupations in Poland and, because of the changes in immigration policy, the newcomers are not classified only as “immigrants” but also as political refugees and undocumented workers. Another difference is that, while the majority of immigrants continue to live in the city in the old Polish neighborhoods , an increasing number of new arrivals are resettling in nonethnic suburban communities. Today,overamillionPolesandtheirdescendents live in the larger Chicago metropolitan region and, although the newcomers make up only a small percent of the total population, they have a noticeable presence in the city and the suburbs . THE NEW IMMIGRANTS: EDUCATED AND UNDOCUMENTED TRANSNATIONAL WORKERS In 2000, 133,797 foreign-born Poles were living in metropolitan Chicago (along with nearly 900,000AmericansofPolishheritage).Thepresence of new Polish immigrants in Chicago is a consequence of larger global patterns, which include cold war conflicts and the dismantling of the Soviet Union, as well as neoliberal U.S. immigration policies that support capital ’s need for low-wage labor. During the first half of the 1960s, roughly 7,000 Poles were admitted into the United States annually; the 1965 policy revisions cut this rate in half for the next 20 years. Despite this rate reduction, the migration cohort grew steadily throughout the 1970s and 1980s with the arrival of political refugees and temporary visitors. The 1968 upheaval in Poland produced the first wave of refugees, but the largest numbers came after the national strikes in Poland in 1976 and the formation of the trade union Niezalezny Samorzadny Zwiazek Zawodowy (Independent Self-Governing Trades Union), popularly known as Solidarnosc (Solidarity) in 1980. In December 1981, the Polish state declared martial law, disbanded Solidarity, and jailed opposition activists. The United States, always receptivetopoliticalexilesfromcommunistcoun tries , admitted more than 40,000 Polish refugees during the 1980s. 116 Mary Patrice Erdmans In addition, over the last 30 years, an increasing number of temporary nonimmigrants arrived , particularly “visitors for pleasure,” known within the community as wakacjusze (vacationers )orturysci(tourists).Manyofthesevacationers overstayed their visas for significant periods (insomecases,fordecades)andworkedwithout authorization. Their numbers rose from an average of 24,000 admitted annually during the 1970s, to 36,000 during the 1980s, to almost 52,000 annually during the 1990s.1 Although the majority of wakacjusze intended to return to Poland, estimates made during the mid 1980s indicated that roughly a third had overextended theirvisas,andthat95,000Poleswereliving(and working) illegally in the United States. Efforts to reduce this population through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) gave amnesty to more than 16,000 Poles and another 2,000 of their dependents. A decade later, estimates of the illegal Polish population dropped to 70,000. The number of permanent immigrants also has grown steadily. Just over 42,000 Polish immigrants arrived during the 1970s; this doubled to almost 82,000 during the 1980s. During the 1990s, more than 180,000 Poles were admitted into the United States. Metropolitan Chicago attracted the largest share of the new immigrants. One-third of all Polish immigrants in the United States live in Illinois (mostly in the Chicago metropolitan region ). Between 1972 and 2000, roughly 100,000 Poles immigrated to the Chicago metropolitan region, and two-thirds of them came during the last decade of the century (Figure 9.1). During the early 1990s, an average of 11,000 new Polish immigrants resettled annually in Chicago. Theincreaseinimmigrationduringthe1990s is explained by a variety of factors. First, not all new admissions were new arrivals. The recipients of the 1986 IRCA program arrived during the 1970s and 1980s, but they were not officially admitted until after they received amnesty...

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