Polish Immigration

Many Polish immigrants came to America for economic, political and religious reasons. The majority came from the South and Southeastern parts of Poland, which at the time, were very poor and overpopulated areas. Many immigrants were illiterate and unskilled laborers, even in their own country.The massive immigration started when a group of farmers left the country in the hopes of finding better economic opportunity. Many of them had lost their land and weren't able to feed their families, which was a direct conflict of the Polish belief that if you owned land it showed stability, but without it you were in ruin. This belief, combined with political and religious conditions in Poland, was one of the reasons for the large Polish immigration to the United States.A large number of Polish immigrants came to the United States solely to make money. These people were called "za chlebem" or "for bread" immigrants. It was thought that once they made some money, they would return to Poland and be prosperous. Still other Polish immigrants sold everything to travel to America and start a new life, and once in America, encourage their relatives to make the same trip.Most Polish immigrants were Roman Catholics and they tended to stick together, forming large groups with other Polish immigrants. They continued with their Roman Catholic religion, and set up huge churches that became the centers of their communities.In Polish immigrant families, everyone in the household worked, including mothers and children. Men without skills worked in industrial facilities, did menial tasks and dirty jobs, while the women ran the households, took in borders and did laundry for others. But most Polish immigrants did not seem to mind, since they had been unemployed for years in their homeland.