'American Warsaw' by Dominic Pacyga is an invaluable history of Chicago Polonia
"American Warsaw" by Dominic A. Pacyga; University of Chicago Press (296 pages, $27)
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"American Warsaw," a new history of Polish immigrants in Chicago by historian Dominic A. Pacyga, is not a sentimental riff on Babcia's pierogi, polka parties and little girls dressed up in flowered shawls for Constitution Day.
It's also not a dry recitation of population statistics, and the names of famous settlers.
Instead, "American Warsaw" is something new and necessary, a book Chicago didn't know it needed until it showed up. "American Warsaw" chronicles the unique nature of Chicago's "Polonia" - its community of Poles and Polish descendants outside of Poland. Pacyga tells the story of how
