Not many people can say they’ve participated in folk dancing, given up Saturday’s to attend Polish School, or fly out of the country because they have no relatives in the United States. Despite my Polish heritage often clashing with the American culture around me, I wouldn't trade my life for all the normalcy in the world. Being raised in a Polish household has not only impacted everything about me, but it also defines who I am.
Ever since I was a little, I noticed that my life ran a bit differently than all my other American friends. I always ate my dinner right after school and I always needed to help my friends understand what my parents were saying, due to their broken English and thick accents. I often found myself accidentally slipping Polish words into my everyday conversation
...s. Hoping they wouldn't notice or mention it. Finally, I realized that all these differences did not set me apart, but made me an individual.
As I mentioned, my parents and I traveled once to Europe to reunite with our relatives. We would stay in my grandmothers small house in the even smaller town with a population of 22,451 people. People would be ecstatic to be able to leave the continent and visit a whole new country, but in my case, lacking any contact with my friends, and watching one of the only five available channels on a prehistoric television, there was clearly nothing to look forward to.
As I grew, I took mental notes on peculiar details. At parties, I began noticing the differences in how people conversed, and greeted each other with kisses rather than just handshakes. My
parents would communicate with my grandparents regularly through Skype, rather than just texting. My father would tell me how he once would ride miles on a bike to meet in a park, rather than driving down to the mall. My mother would explain that the streets near her old house were practically always empty, because peopletruly valued taking strolls through town admiring the simpleness. Then and there, I noticed how odd this all seemed to me, despite it being a part of me.
From that point on, being Polish was not just an interesting fact about me. It became a lifestyle. I embraced that fact that I was different. It’s not because I did not have a choice in the matter, but because the culture and my identity go hand and hand.
