The history of Port Richmond is a long one filled with a diverse background of people coming and going and settling down roots. The Polish community started arriving in the mid to late 19th century during a tumultuous time in Poland’s history. The Polish-Lithuania commonwealth better known as Rzeczpospolita had fallen into a state of decline and the three larger powers neighboring it, Prussia, Russia, and Austria took the state apart in three partitions and so the state ceased to exist. This caused a large exodus of Poles from their former lands known as the Wielka Emigracja(Great Migration). From 1830-1870 almost 4 million Poles emigrated to several places with a notable 2.6 million settling in the United States. This led to Poles settling in Philadelphia in the Port Richmond neighborhood. Even after the larger waves of migration, Poles came in waves and settled in the neighborhood after both world wars and after the fall of communism in the 1990s.
Julia Krasowska-Zloadek’s parents are from Poland and immigrated to the United States in the late 1990s. Born in the U.S., she is a dual citizen of both Poland and America. Polish culture has always been a significant part of her life, as it was spoken at home during her upbringing. Her parents attended a Polish church, and she grew up participating in various community events associated with it. Every Saturday throughout her childhood, she attended Polish school, where she learned more about the language and culture. Krasowska-Zloadek has been active in her community for a long time and still continues to try and uphold her culture and community. Shetakes part in Polish dance clubs from an early age.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity*
What does being Polish-American mean to you? And would you call yourself Polish-American?
I would call myself Polish-American. My cultural identity is very much a blend of Polish and American. To me, Polish-American of course, is being a Polish person living in the United States. And to me, it’s about channeling those two parts of your cultural identity. It has a lot to do with sort of the preservation of Polish culture and the Polish language in a foreign country.
And how do you connect yourself with your Polish heritage?
I connect myself with my heritage by engaging with it as much as I can. My parents and I visit my family in Poland every summer. So, we fly to Poland. We visit my grandparents, we visit family, we visit our family friends. Very cool, people that we know, it’s just, it’s very refreshing to go home, I guess, and just be in Poland to speak the language and to see how the people there live. When I’m here in the states, I listen to a lot of polish music, I speak Polish to my parents as much as I possibly can. I watch TV. I watch Polish news and polish content, like YouTube videos, my Polish creators and like Polish tiktoks, and it just helps me sort of stay in the know to the goings on across the pond.
And in your neighborhood of Port Richmond, what was the Polish community like growing up?
There’s a lot of, a there’s a big, big Polish community. We have lots of family friends who we can speak to in Polish, engage with sort of Polish-centric conversations. We can participate in different cultural practices together. We go over to family friends’ houses, We have Polish food together. We can speak in Polish. And just like we talk about the different happenings, we talk about Polish politics. Sort of what the average American doesn’t really know what’s going on. It’s nice to have people to talk to about current events in Poland.
And how has the Polish community changed over the years?
I would say that it has declined a bit, but I do not live there full time anymore, but I would say that, you know, we haven’t really stayed in touch as much with the people that we know and the people that we do know, I guess have started to move away from their either to the suburbs or to Poland. And there’s also people who have sort of moved away from their heritage in some ways. And you know theres less people now there, it’s a bit more scattered now.
And what places were like the pillars of the Polish community?
I would say the church, Polish people are very religious, very, very Catholic. So I who does not practice Catholicism anymore, I still do love to go to church with my parents, because it is just such a cultural spot for us. And there’s always Polish people there. It’s just, it’s just very, very embedded into our heritage and our background, and there’s always community events and people connecting together and talking in Polish together. It’s just a spot that’s teeming with Polish culture.
What was a core memory for you growing up being Polish, and how has that like influenced you to stay in touch with your heritage?
I have a lot of different memories. I guess the most relevant one was going to Polish school, growing up, having to go to class every Saturday didn’t make me very happy, I wasn’t a happy camper, but I’m very, so incredibly thankful that I did a lot of children of immigrants I’ve found don’t speak their mother or speak it poorly. They can’t read, they can’t write and there’s nothing wrong with that, my brothers that way. But going to a Polish school and sort of having a secondary place to develop my Polish skills, which has truly, truly helped me. I’ve taken test […].
[Krasowska-Zloadek goes on to explain the intricacies of the Polish Education system and how she passed her fluency test in the Polish language.]
I guess, like another sort of like cultural, memory that I have, like our family traditions. So, when I would explain to my friends growing up during Christmas time, they would always be incredibly confused. Everyone here celebrates Christmas Day on December 25th. But in Polish culture, everyone celebrates Wigilia, which is on Christmas Eve. You open your presents then and you have a full table of Polish food, and that’s just something that was always a little bit different.
Would you say there’s like a divide between Polish-Americans who know the culture and speak the language, versus people who don’t know anything about it and might be removed from it by like a generation or two?
Yeah, I would say that there’s a difference, between the people who are more removed from their culture between those who aren’t, and that’s really nobody’s fault, but like I mentioned some people might not speak Polish all that great or might not know the Polish history, or current events and it takes them out of that identity a little bit. A big part of Polish identity is our history and the things that have happened in the past and it plays a huge part in our cultural identity. I guess it does create some kind of splits in our community. Because you know some people are just not as engaged and you know that’s nobody’s fault but being less engaged means not going to community events and not having as many meaningful conversations with Poles.
And for a final note, what would you say your hopes are for the Polish community?
I have a lot of hopes for the Polish community in both Poland and here in the United States[…]
When it comes to young Poles living in the United States, I hope that they can sort of recognize that I sort of guess help if they can and lend support, lend their ears, listen to the voices in Poland, and I guess just stay in tune with their culture. I think some people can ignore that part, of their cultural identity, but when you embrace it, it’s just so fulfilling.
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