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Article Excerpt
Abstract
The First National Polish Canadian Youth Convention was held in October, 1969, at York University in Toronto. A major result of this meeting was the creation of Echo as a socio-cultural "Canadian Publication of Polish Youth," which debuted in February, 1970, and lasted until 1975. This paper argues that the historical context of the 1970s is crucial for understanding the generational differences amongst Polish Canadians at the time, questions of identity for the second generation, and the creation, success, and demise of Echo magazine. The staff and content of Echo were in many ways more Canadian than Polish or Polish Canadian because Canadian society was experiencing youth consciousness and ethnic consciousness simultaneously. This context stimulated Polish Canadian youth to create their own voice that was not necessarily deferential to authority in the Polish Canadian community. These youth were not affected by the society around them in the same way as non-ethnic middle-class Canadian youth. Nonetheless, Echo was a successful forum for young Polish Canadians across Canada to debate the meaning of Polish Canadianness and discover themselves in a 1970s context of greater ethnic activism and changing social attitudes.
Resume
La premiere convention nationale de la jeunesse canado-polonaise a eu lieu en octobre 1969 a l'Universite de York a Toronto. Une des initiatives les plus importantes de cette reunion fut la creation d'Echo, une > a vocation socio-culturelle, qui parut de 1970 a 1975. Dans cet article, nous considerons que le contexte historique des annees 1970 joue un r61e crucial pour comprendre les differences generationnelles chez les Canadiens d'origine polonaise de cette epoque-la, les problemes d'identite de la deuxieme generation, ainsi que la creation, le succes et la disparition de la revue Echo. Etant donne que la societe canadienne faisait l'experience d'une prise de conscience a la fois de la jeunesse et de l'ethnicite, le personnel d'Echo fut de bien des manieres plus canadien que polonais ou canado-polonais, ce qui orienta le contenu de la revue. Ce contexte historique a stimule les Canadiens polonais a chercher une voix qui leur serait propre et qui ne se montra pas forcement deferente envers l'autorite au sein de la communaute canado-polonaise. La societe dans laquelle ces jeunes vivaient ne les toucha pas de la meme facon que leurs contemporains canadiens de classe moyenne non-ethnique. Quoiqu'il en soit, pour eux Echo fut un succes d'un bout a l'autre du Canada en tant que forum ou ils purent debattre du sens d'une appartenance canadienne polonaise et se decouvrir eux-meme dans le contexte de l'activisme accru et des attitudes sociales en mutation des annees 1970.
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"Young people have less rigid political views than their parents; they are more politically sophisticated in many ways and seem to be more aware of and more sensitive to the contemporary needs within Polonia." (1) What could cause a young Polish Canadian to speak so forcefully and confidently against his elders in 1971? Part of the answer is in the question, but the complete answer first requires some understanding of the history of post-WWII Polish Canadians.
Poles have been coming to Canada in significant numbers since the end of the nineteenth century, but, in political and numerical terms, the twentieth century was the most important time for Poland, the Polish diaspora, and Polish immigration to Canada. (2) Prior to 1914, most Polish immigrants to Canada were sojourning males, and those who settled did so on the Prairies. Indeed, Winnipeg was the centre of Polish Canadian activities until World War I. However, between 1919 and 1931 over 40,000 Poles came to Canada, and Toronto gradually became the centre of Polish Canadian activities. World War II hastened this change, as approximately 5,000 engineers, technicians, skilled workers, and military personnel settled in Canada between 1941 and 1947. These professionals and other post-war immigrants refreshed and renewed institutions in Montreal and Toronto and created many new organizations and services to meet their needs. In fact, the vast majority of this fourth phase of Polish immigration (1945-1956) settled in Toronto and Montreal. A total of 64,000 Polish exiles and refugees settled in Canada during these eleven years. Thus, in 1971, Toronto had the largest concentration of the Polish ethnic group in Canada with 51,180 persons, or more than 16% of the total number. (3) From this base, a critical mass of a new generation would rise up and challenge the leaders of the Polish Canadian community.
The Polish immigrants to Canada during and after WWII were the most highly educated and skilled of all the previous waves, and most importantly, they brought a militant anti-Communism to bear on the organizational structure of Polonia. (4) Many of these immigrants joined existing organizations and transformed them into even greater ideological instruments, although they did not succeed in reorienting the Canadian Polish Congress from a focus on Canada to a focus on Europe. (5) Others formed their own associations with their desired level of anti-communism and political orientation. Nonetheless, these immigrants and the geopolitical realities of pre- and post-WWII Poland meant Polish Canadians and their organizations were divided. Even after 1956, when relations and connections with Poland opened up a bit, some groups continued to refuse recognition to the communist government, claiming the Polish government in exile (in London, England) was the only legitimate Polish government. (6) Yet, when young Polish Canadians of the second generation came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they would challenge the relevancy of such ideological divisions for Polish-Canadian identity and their existence in a multicultural Canada. For example, the young Polish Canadians writing in Echo magazine and those in the Polish Youth Congress broke with the politics of the older generation and encouraged contacts with other young ethnic Canadians, most notably Ukrainians and Jews. (7) While such changes were new, concern for the second generation within the ethnic group was not.
The Polish Canadian Congress, the umbrella organization established in 1944 and comprised of the majority of Polish Canadian organizations, had made some efforts to address young people of the second generation. The Polish Youth Congress arose from a 1945 meeting in Hamilton, Ontario of 95 delegates mainly from across Ontario, but also from Montreal and Winnipeg. (8) Even in these early years, language and the younger generation's lack of Polish skills were of central concern. Youth engagement with the Polish Canadian Congress was short-lived, and the Polish Youth Congress was disbanded a few years later. (9) The next major event to engage Polish Canadian youth was the 1969 Polish Youth Convention at York University in Toronto. A second Polish Youth Convention was held in Winnipeg in 1971, and a Polish Canadian Youth Congress was established. However, by 1974, the Youth Congress "was officially pronounced defunct." (10) Radecki noted in his 1979 book that the numerous Canadian-born-youth organizations active in the early 1970s had ceased to exist by 1975. (11) In 1986, older leaders and the younger generation were still arguing over such failures. (12) Thus, the early 1970s were critical years in the history of Polish Canadians because age-old generational problems of ethnic identity maintenance faced conditions (e.g., demographic, ideological) in the ethnic group and society at large that forced a public outcry for a redefinition of ethnic identity.
The First National Polish Canadian Youth Convention was held October 11-13, 1969, at York University. The group comprised young delegates from British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario, with the latter an overwhelming majority. One of their accomplishments was the creation of Echo as a socio-cultural "Canadian Publication of Polish Youth" founded in 1970 by students at the University of Toronto. In September, 1971, Echo became independent from the Commission that had created it, and from then on was produced in Toronto simply by "Polish youth in Canada." The quarterly/bimonthly contained essays; articles; short stories; poetry; profiles of community leaders, writers, artists, scientists, and other accomplished Poles; speeches from Polish-Canadian Youth conventions; and advertisements. The magazine was quite successful nationally and even had an international following. During the first two years the publication had approximately forty students working for it. In 1972, there were approximately 900 subscriptions. (13) However, Echo was short-lived. The last issue of Echo was March/April, 1975. The magazine was reconstituted and continued for only two more issues until the winter of 1976 as "O" A Publication of the Arts.
Through an analysis of the magazine, especially the content and letters to and from the editor, this article examines the Polish Canadian experience concerning generational differences, ethnic identity, and the relationship between second-generation youth and the changes in Canada during the early 1970s. Social scientists have produced many studies of the second generation of ethnic groups, and historians have chronicled the lives of ethnic groups and Canadian youth during the 1960s and 1970s. In short, social scientists have led the study of ethnic identity over generations; social historians have been content to generalize about the effects of the social and political events of the 1960s and 1970s; and immigration historians usually stop before or at the second generation. (14) This article connects these seemingly separate research areas in order to study, as Timothy Meagher has, the "critical generational junctures as important crossroads in the history of any white ethnic group or community." (15) For the readers and producers of Echo and the Polish Canadian community as a whole, 1970s Canada was such a juncture.
This study argues that the historical context of the 1970s is crucial for understanding the generational differences among Polish Canadians...
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