Polish Soup and Mexican Fences

POLISH SOUP AND MEXICAN FENCES
By Marion Geiger

BOSTON—When Jake Siembida is at Boston University, he eats hamburgers and french-fries, but when he’s home, he has soup every night for the first course and some meat for the second, a traditional Polish meal.

Siembida, 20, grew up in Chicago. He has an American passport and speaks perfect English. However, Polish is his first language and his parents were once poor immigrants. Siembida recalls his mother working as a babysitter and that his father laid floors.

He has small eyes, a prominent nose and high cheek bones. He is thick in the neck and his hair is shaved down to a buzz cut. He has a Chicago accent and he is wearing green basketball shorts and a large white t-shirt like the American men who live around him.

Twenty three years ago his parents, Stanley, 55 and Barbara Siembida, 48, immigrated separately to the United States and met each other in Chicago during English classes, which they later dropped out of together.

“I didn’t speak English until kindergarten or first grade because my parents still don’t speak English,” Jake said in his small double dormitory room. Despite the language barrier, the Siembidas have found a comfortable home in the US, according to Siembida. He said they are an example of first-generation immigrants succeeding in the US and contributing to the economy in a positive way.

Siembida’s parents left Poland during the rise of the political force called “Solidarity,” or “Solidarność” in Polish. This group was formed due to labor struggles under communist Poland and eventually led to the dissolution of the Communist Party. By 1990 Poland became a democracy.

Barbara Siembida left Krakow, Poland, because of the pending revolution. Siembida said that his mother could not return to Poland until the democratic movement took over and the turmoil died down.

His father came to the U.S. from a small town in Poland called Pysnica in search of work. Siembida smiled with pride while telling his father’s story. “His story is actually kind of cool,” said Siembida, “my dad comes from a poor family. He went around his town, from door to door, asking people for money so that he could afford his airplane ticket. He flew over here and had something like fifty dollars.” Today, Stanley Siembida owns two construction companies in Chicago.

According to Siembida, Chicago has the second-largest Polish population in the world, even including Polish cities. “We never lived in a Polish neighborhood, but my parents’ friends are all Polish,” he said.

Siembida recalled a story his mother told him about how when they first arrived in the U.S., “police would randomly round people up and check if they had visas, and if they didn’t, they would be deported,” he said.

“They only became citizens when I was in high school, so pretty recently within the last five years. And I know that some of my family members here still aren’t citizens. I guess it’s pretty hard to get citizenship,” said Siembida “It was a six-year process after applying.”

Sympathizing with his parents’ story, Siembida said he thinks it is important to allow immigrants into the country. He said, “I’m not really for keeping people out because my parents came here and immigrated, so it makes me think we should give everyone an opportunity. But if there are too many people coming in, then something has to be done, I guess.”

“I think that’s going overboard,” said Siembida in respect to raising fences along the Mexican-American border, part of the immigration policies put forth by the Bush administration. They have added border patrol agents and technology such as fences to help deter illegal immigrants.

In reference to Bush’s State of the Union address in which he said the number of apprehensions of illegal immigrants has declined at the Mexican border, Siembida said matter-of-factly as he lay back against the wall behind his bed, “If I really wanted to get into the country, if I were really determined, I don’t think a fence would stop me.”