Patryk Perkowski was born in Poland in 1992 and arrived in New York City in 1993 as an infant less than a year old. His family, with whom he moved due to instability in politics and economics in Poland at the time, originally arrived in Williamsburg. After living there for 2 years, they relocated to Greenpoint, where he has been residing for 18 years. He is not too familiar with the Kosciuszko Foundation as he feels that they don’t perform enough community outreach. Other than returning to Poland once, Patyrk doesn’t identify as strongly with his Polish background as compared to others. He explained that neither him nor his parents yearn to return to Poland as they’ve “forged [their] own lives here and have the emotional support and financial stability [they] need here.”
“With the fall of the Soviet Union in ’92, the future of Poland was uncertain and the international image of the USA as the land of stability and opportunity attracted my parents.”
Dr. Jennifer Tomczak’s great grandparents moved from Poland to Greenpoint for economic reasons and 3 generations of her family have lived in Greenpoint, where she resided until attending medical school. Currently, she lives in Long Island with her non-Polish husband. She does not speak Polish and has never visited Poland mainly because she believes she has no relatives left in Poland except maybe distant relatives. She shows interest in visiting Poland in the future with her children. Still, she spends some time in Greenpoint where she goes to Polish bakeries and restaurants. She has never heard of the Kosciuszko Foundation.
Monica Brzostowska was born in New York, never lived in Greenpoint, and has no knowledge about the Kosciuszko Foundation. Having visited Poland once, she describes herself as one who is “not so much in touch anymore” with her Polish roots.
Maggie Dickinson has resided in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint area for about 15 years, 8 of which she spent living in Greenpoint alone. Because she herself is not Polish, she has not had much interaction with Polish people in Greenpoint until her children played with Polish children. Before this, she describes the Polish community as a “parallel universe” in which she occasionally ate Polish food or came into contact with her Polish landlord. She explained that she never felt like an outsider because Greenpoint has always been a mixed neighborhood rather than a continual Polish one.
Kamila, a young Polish woman who works at a pharmacy in Greenpoint, arrived in New York City about 12 years ago. Her family moved to the Queens neighborhood of Woodhaven where she still currently resides. Kamila’s parents had won two visas to the United Stated through a lottery system and thus she became a citizen through her parents. She said that although she has never lived in Greenpoint, her parents had done so but decided to settle their children in Queens. She said that the Polish population was moving from Greenpoint to Queens, in the towns such as Woodhaven, Maspeth, Ridgewood, Middle Village and Glendale. Still the older Polish residents return to Greenpoint to remain in touch with the Polish culture. As for the foundation, Kamila has heard of it through personal research and has attended one cultural event, but has no long standing involvement.
