Ferocious Enemies and Noble Heroes: Images of 'Us' and 'Them' in Polish American Textbooks (until the 1930s)

Ethnic schools had an important role to play in propagating profiles of “ideal” heroes and members of society among immigrant communities. Consequently, it was often the role of school coursebooks to inform pupils of the messages adults wanted to transmit to the younger generation. In this paper the author attempts to describe contents of various textbooks used in Polish-American parochial schools. Invention of national mythology and simplification of facts was necessary to facilitate the memorizing process as required. But to form group solidarity one also had to identify common enemies. Various textbooks published in the U.S.A. before World War I did not help immigrants’ children to acculturate to their American realities. Being very didactic, they focused mainly on Polish realities and Polish history. Only after World War I did an American presence become more visible in books used in the first grade. In thirties Felicians predominantly used textbooks written in the U.S.A., mainly by S. M. Cyryla (Magdalena Tobaka). The heroes they presented were characterized schematically, and the ideals found therein were alien to Polish-American children. Polska by S. Mary Cyryla, was the book on which this analysis was based. The image of Poles and “other” nations is surprisingly defined in black and white. Foreign nations are depicted as cruel, monstrous, villain, pagan, barbaric, etc. “Us”, the Poles, are seen as brave, just, good, wise, honest, faithful, etc., they “have loved faith, country, and language” etc. Cyryla’s textbook tried to engender feelings of community by dividing the world into “us” and “them”, thereby provoking antagonism towards “them.” Polish personality traits were very much in keeping with the images and self-stereotypes which Polish society had about itself. In constructing a positive and ideal self-image, it was useful for “others” and “strangers” to be depicted as “enemies”. “They” were described negatively by their religion and, more often, by their “spirit,” “intellect” and “behavior”.