As one writer puts it: "The miracle which America works
upon the Bohemians is more remarkable than any other of our national
achievements. The downcast look so characteristic of them in Prague is
nearly gone, the surliness and unfriendliness disappear, and the young
Bohemian of the second or third generation is as frank and open as his
neighbor with his Anglo-Saxon heritage."[36]
The bitter, political and racial suppression that made the Bohemian
surly and defiant seem, on the other hand, to have left the Polish
peasant stolid, patient, and very illiterate. Polish settlements were
made in Texas and Wisconsin in the fifties and before 1880 a large
number of Poles were scattered through New York, Pennsylvania, and
Illinois. Since then great numbers have come over in the new
migrations until today, it is estimated, at least three million
persons of Polish parentage live in the United States.[37] The men in
the earlier migrations frequently settled on the land; the recent
comers hasten to the mines and the metal working centers, where their
strong though untrained hands are in constant demand.
The majority of the Poles have come to America to stay. They remain,
however, very clannish and according to the Federal Industrial
Commission, without the "desire to fuse socially.
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