Who Wants a Hyphen? Generations of Polish-Canadians since World War II

This paper analyses how and why Polish- Canadian community leaders in Montreal and Toronto constructed and maintained a particularly narrow, gendered ethnic identity in their publications.  Six major moments since 1945 challenged their notions of hyphenated identity: the integration of displaced persons from WWII; the rise of Quebec nationalism and the 1960s generation; the evolution of multiculturalism; Solidarnosc in Poland; and the collapse of communism. These historical contexts modified the public definition of “Polish Canadian”, as the ebb and flow of Polishness and Canadianness affected the way in which generations saw themselves. Early in the Cold War, Polishness in displaced persons, other immigrants, and their children diminished rather quickly. During the rise of multiculturalism during the 1960’s and 1970’s, Canadianness paralleled a reinvigorated Polishness, despite the sharp generational divide of these years. In the 1980’s, Polishness was reawakened as support for Solidarnosc waxed. The degree of ethnicity leaders advocated depended more upon social, cultural, and political events in Canada and Poland than simply time spent in Canada. 
Thus, post-WWII Polish Canadian identity promoted by leaders did not develop in the ways social scientists have generalized or in the manner historians have described for other groups. Even the best linear assimilation models do not apply. Spikes in Polishness or Canadianness, generational conflict, whiteness, and back migration reveal that events in the home or host country could cause quantum leaps in either or both directions, within or even off the scale. Moreover, as Ewa Morawska has noted, discussions of ethnicity have taken place largely without regard to the effects of gender. This paper shows that neither sociologists nor historians have fully captured the complexity of ethnic identity as it is invented and maintained in specific historical contexts over time.