In Census 2000, there were 8,978,073 Polish Americans in an overall population of 285,230,516 (Piurek, 2001). Despite immigration and other factors, there were 388,033 less people identifying themselves as Polish American than in the 1990 Census. The top ten states with the most Polish Americans are New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Wisconsin, California, Ohio, Florida and Massachusetts, in descending order. However, the states with the highest percentage of Polish Americans are Wisconsin, Michigan, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Massachusetts, and Minnesota in descending order.
Analysis of this data shows that Polish Americans are moving out of traditional enclaves (Piurek, 2001). Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have seen increases in their Polish American populations, whereas Rhode Island and Massachusetts have seen their Polish American populations drop. Florida also saw a rise in its Polish American population in the last Census. Polish American populations have also grown in Western states which have shown overall population growths such as Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada. In these three states, the Polish American population has grown more than 56,600 since the 1990 Census, while California lost more than 86,000 Polish Americans in that time. It is not clear if this is due to migration patters or self-identification differences.
The early Polish immigrants to America were from the "peasant worker diaspora" but little has been written of their contributions to the American labor force (Polish, 2004). In Catholic theology, St. Joseph represented the model worker who fulfilled the Biblical exhortation that man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, yet the common laborer has always been regarded as belonging to the lowest rung of the social ladder. Leo Krzycki (1881-1966), a Polish American, was the vice-president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers...