Antonczak 1

Luke Antonczak
Dr. Kevin Ball
HON 1000
26 October 2014
Essay 2
My story is not one of a typical Polish immigrant. I do not come from a poor family who
came to America in order to seek a better life. My family was quite wealthy, and that allowed me
many great opportunities, such as the fact that I studied literature at the University of Warsaw.
However, my family cut me off from the money that I had relied upon for my entire life when I
revealed that I am an atheist. They could not cope with the shame that I had brought upon to the
family name by my lack of belief in a higher power, so they disowned me. I decided that because
my family disowned me, there was nothing else left for me in Poland, so I made my way to
Hamburg and used almost of all of my remaining money to buy myself passage on a ship to New
York. It was time for me to begin my life anew, to go to a place where few knew me and I could
at least attempt to live a life without being judged for my beliefs. The ship that I bought passage
on was called Hansa, some of the crew that I talked to during the trip across the Atlantic told me
that it had been previously known as the SS Deutschland, but had been refurbished and
rechristened as the Hansa, as it had been used in the Great War1.
We arrived in America at Ellis Island, and even though we had finally reached our
destination, many people were nervous because of the immigration quotas that had recently been

"Deutschland (3), Hamburg America Line." Deutschland (3), Hamburg America Line. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct.
2014.

Antonczak 2
put into place.2 I was one of the lucky ones, as they let me through with little trouble other than
changing my name to a more American version of it. It felt odd to have my name stripped
from me, but it was a necessary evil. No longer am I Szczepan Krl, I am now known as Stephen
Crull. It was a few months before I became used to being addressed as Stephen. Even though I
do value my Polish identity I insisted that other people, even other Poles, refer to me by my new
American name. My journey didnt end in New York, I continued travelling until I reached
Detroit, where a friend of mine from University was the editor of a Polish newspaper called The
Polska Press. He had promised me work when I wrote him to tell him that I was leaving Poland
for America. I used the very last of my savings to buy a train ticket from New York to Detroit, as
Caspar had agreed to put me up upon my arrival to Detroit until I was able to find myself other
lodgings. When I arrived in Detroit I was immediately struck by the beauty of the train station
there. The Michigan Central Station is its name; it was still almost new when I first got to the
city, having been built only eight years before.3 I then made my way to Caspars home in a
neighborhood called Poletown.
In Poletown I noticed that there was a very large population of Poles in Detroit, I had
known that it was large before, but I had never imagined the size of the community in Detroit.4 I
found Caspars home fairly quickly, it was a good-sized house, as he made a very respectable
wage editing The Polska Press. He lives there with his wife Josephine, and their two sons Peter
and Michael. The boys share a bedroom, so they gave me the small extra room where

Barrientes, Brenda. "U.S. Immigration Legislation: 1921 Emergency Quota Law." U.S. Immigration Legislation:
1921 Emergency Quota Law. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
3

Martelle, Scott. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review, 2012. Print.

Bukowczyk, John J. The Decline and Fall of a Detroit Neighborhood: Poletown vs. G.M. and the City of Detroit,
41 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 49 (1984), http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol41/iss1/5

Antonczak 3
Josephines late mother, Katherine, had lived until she had passed away the year previously.
Caspar was ecstatic when I arrived, as we had not seen each other since before the war when we
were at the University of Warsaw. He had left Poland in 1915, soon after the war broke out, and
moved to Detroit with his uncle, Stanislaw, who had not survived the trip across the Atlantic. He
buried Stanislaw in New York, and then moved on to Detroit where he used all of his savings
and the inheritance that was left to him by Stanislaw in order to carry out his dream of founding
a newspaper for the Poles who had gone to America. I remained in Poland, where I heard about
Poles who had immigrated to America going to France to fight for Polish Independence in the
so-called Hallers Army in France.5 As I wanted Poland to finally be free of the influence of
empires such as Russia, I traveled in secret to France where I enlisted in this army, and it was
there that I learned English.
Throughout my time in the war I kept up correspondence with Caspar, who still remained
in Detroit because he and Josephine had been married soon after my enlistment, and she was
already expecting Peter. I saw many things in the war, but this is my recollection of my coming
to America, so I will not discuss it at length here. It is a story for another day. After the war I
returned to a newly independent Poland, speaking English, and knowing a good deal of French
curse words.6 My family was happy to see my return, but angry with me for sneaking off to war,
which helped start the entire chain of events that led to me being disowned and leaving for
America.

Czuchra, James J. "PGSA - Haller's Army Index." PGSA - Haller's Army Index. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

"Polish/Russian - The Nation of Polonia - Immigration...- Classroom Presentation | Teacher Resources - Library of
Congress." Polish/Russian - The Nation of Polonia - Immigration...- Classroom Presentation | Teacher Resources Library of Congress. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

Antonczak 4
I settled in to Caspars home quickly, and fit right in with the family, his children calling
me Wujek. After a few days of getting acclimated to my new life Caspar took me to the offices
of The Polska Press, a small building off of Gratiot. It was constantly busy in those offices,
young reporters (who made me feel old at my 30 years) were always running around trying to
find the next big story or hastily trying to meet a deadline before 10pm when the paper would go
to the printing press. I loved that office, and I worked there until I retired in 1959. A few days
after I started at The Polska Press, Caspar showed me an article from the Detroit Free Press that
he had read soon after he had first arrived in Detroit. He had kept it because of how offensive he
had found it, and I agreed with them. To objectify our suffering as a positive for that article was
a terrible thing. It had talked about how the war that was devastating Europe was a positive thing
because less of the undesirables would be immigrating to America and instead it would be the
very best stocks. It did refer that to the fact that this migration was occurring under unfortunate
circumstances, but that was for the most part all the sympathy that was shown in the article.7 To
be fair I did hear that in the last seventy or so years before the article had been written, the
population of the United States had more than tripled.8
Time passed quickly those next few years. I never did move out of Caspars house and
strike out on my own. I had worked up to assistant editor of the paper, and he liked having me
close at hand in case he needed my opinion on any decisions for the paper. Immigration quotas
were becoming more and controversial. Some people were for them because they helped to
protect their jobs because droves of immigrants werent coming in to the country to look for

Patten, Simon. "EUROPE'S BEST BLOOD FOR AMERICA." Detroit Free Press (1858-1922): 4. Dec 20
1915. ProQuest. Web. 28 Oct. 2014 .
8

Rybczynski, Witold. City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World. New York: Scribner, 1995. Print.

Antonczak 5
work, but it angered others who had family and friends turned away as they tried to enter the
country because very few people were being let into the country form other nations.9 I remember
seeing an article in the New York Times where an editor of a Polish newspaper in New York
talked about how he approved of the quotas because it allowed for industry to progress and for
prosperity, because there were no large groups of people who couldnt speak the language
looking for jobs.10 Personally, I was never sure how to feel about the quotas because they had
begun to be instituted around the time that I first arrived in the country.
I did begin to see where those who were in favor of the immigration quotas were coming
from. There just couldnt be enough work to support the unrestrained immigration of people
from both Europe and Asia, especially when there was already so much tension in workplaces
about unions and the rights of workers.11 I think it was all that I saw in my work at the paper that
brought me to this very American way of seeing things. People want to be able to fell secure in
their jobs, and that is difficult to do when thousands of new immigrants are arriving every day
looking for work. They try to unionize to better protect their rights and their jobs but the leaders
of industry in the city that they live in are notably antiunion. This all leads to clashes between the
new immigrants and the Americans that were here before them. So many people are immigrating
here, overcrowding is becoming an issue in poorer neighborhoods, I see it all around me.12 I
finally understood why the people were excited about people coming over because of the war
being from the middle class, like that Detroit Free Press article had discussed. The middle class

"Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925-1927." Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925-1927.
N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
10

"SAYS LABOR FAVORS IMMIGRATION LAW." New York Times (1923-Current file): 1. Dec 20
1925. ProQuest. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
11
12

Martelle, Scott. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review, 2012. Print.
Martelle, Scott. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review, 2012. Print.

Antonczak 6
of Europe had other skills, besides needing to work in factories and take the very contested
industrial jobs. They could do things like open shops, practice a trade, or write for a newspaper. I
came to see that there was a reason the Americans believed things as they did, and I began to
agree with some of these beliefs because of how reasonable they seemed to me. That is when I
feel that I truly became an American.

Antonczak 7
Works Cited

Barrientes, Brenda. "U.S. Immigration Legislation: 1921 Emergency Quota Law." U.S.
Immigration Legislation: 1921 Emergency Quota Law. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
Bukowczyk, John J. The Decline and Fall of a Detroit Neighborhood: Poletown vs. G.M. and the
City of
Detroit, 41 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 49 (1984),
http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol41/iss1/5
Czuchra, James J. "PGSA - Haller's Army Index." PGSA - Haller's Army Index. N.p., n.d. Web.
26 Oct. 2014.
"Deutschland (3), Hamburg America Line." Deutschland (3), Hamburg America Line. N.p., n.d.
Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
Martelle, Scott. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review, 2012. Print.
Patten, Simon. "EUROPE'S BEST BLOOD FOR AMERICA." Detroit Free Press (1858-1922):
4. Dec 20 1915. ProQuest. Web. 28 Oct. 2014 .
"Polish/Russian - The Nation of Polonia - Immigration...- Classroom Presentation | Teacher
Resources - Library of Congress." Polish/Russian - The Nation of Polonia
Immigration...- Classroom Presentation | Teacher Resources - Library of
Congress. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
Rybczynski, Witold. City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World. New York: Scribner, 1995.
Print.
"SAYS LABOR FAVORS IMMIGRATION LAW." New York Times (1923-Current file): 1.
Dec 20 1925. ProQuest. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
"Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925-1927." Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration

Antonczak 8
Quotas, 1925-1927. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.