Poles, or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Central Europe. The preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines the Polish nation as comprising all the citizens of Poland, regardless of heritage or ethnicity. The majority of Poles adhere to Roman Catholicism.
Polish Americans are Americans who either have total or partial Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 9.15 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.83% of the U.S. population. Polish Americans are the second-largest Central European ethnic group after German Americans, and the eighth largest ethnic group overall in the United States.
Lemkos are an ethnic group inhabiting the Lemko Region of Carpathian Rus', an ethnographic region in the Carpathian Mountains and foothills spanning Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland.
The Polish diaspora comprises Poles and people of Polish heritage or origin who live outside Poland. The Polish diaspora is also known in modern Polish as Polonia, the name for Poland in Latin and many Romance languages.
Chicago's demographics show that it is a large, and ethnically and culturally diverse metropolis. It is the third largest city and metropolitan area in the United States by population, and the city was home to over 2.7 million people in 2020, accounting for over 25% of the population in the Chicago metropolitan area; home to approximately 9.6 million. The racial makeup of the city in 2010 was 45.3% white and within that 45.3%, 12.9% identify as having Hispanic ancestry, 32% black, 5% Asian, and 3% from two or more races. The ethnic makeup of the population is 28% Hispanic and 72% belong to non Hispanic background. English is the primary language of the city, and Christianity accounts as the predominant faith.
The Gorals, also known as the Highlanders are an indigenous ethnographic or ethnic group primarily found in their traditional area of southern Poland, northern Slovakia and in the region of Cieszyn Silesia in the Czech Republic, where they are known as the Silesian Gorals. There is also a significant Goral diaspora in the area of Bukovina in western Ukraine and in northern Romania, as well as in Chicago, the seat of the Polish Highlanders Alliance of North America.
Following centuries of relative ethnic diversity, the population of modern Poland has become nearly completely ethnically homogeneous Polish as a result of the radically altered borders as well as both the Nazi German and Soviet Russian or Polish Communist campaigns of genocide, expulsion and deportation during and after World War II in the country, in addition to the earlier long processes of Polonization. Nevertheless, multiple ethnic minorities of various origin remain in Poland today, including some newly arrived or grown in size in recent decades.
Polish Downtown was Chicago's oldest and most prominent Polish settlement. Polish Downtown was the political, cultural and social capital of not only Poles in Chicago but Polish Americans throughout North America as well. Centered on Polonia Triangle at the intersection of Division, Ashland and Milwaukee Avenue, the headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in the United States was clustered within its vicinity, beginning with the Polish National Alliance to the Polish Daily News.
The history of Greeks in Baltimore dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Baltimore is home to one of the largest Greek American communities in the United States. The community is centered in the Greektown and Highlandtown neighborhoods of East Baltimore.
The history of Czechs in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. Thousands of Czechs immigrated to East Baltimore during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, becoming an important component of Baltimore's ethnic and cultural heritage. The Czech community has founded a number of cultural institutions to preserve the city's Czech heritage, including a Roman Catholic church, a heritage association, a gymnastics association, an annual festival, a language school, and a cemetery. During the height of the Czech community in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Baltimore was home to 12,000 to 15,000 people of Czech birth or heritage. The population began to decline during the mid-to-late 20th century, as the community assimilated and aged, while many Czech Americans moved to the suburbs of Baltimore. By the 1980s and early 1990s, the former Czech community in East Baltimore had been almost entirely dispersed, though a few remnants of the city's Czech cultural legacy still remain.
There have been a variety of ethnic groups in Baltimore, Maryland and its surrounding area for 12,000 years. Prior to European colonization, various Native American nations have lived in the Baltimore area for nearly 3 millennia, with the earliest known Native inhabitants dating to the 10th millennium BCE. Following Baltimore's foundation as a subdivision of the Province of Maryland by British colonial authorities in 1661, the city became home to numerous European settlers and immigrants and their African slaves. Since the first English settlers arrived, substantial immigration from all over Europe, the presence of a deeply rooted community of free black people that was the largest in the pre-Civil War United States, out-migration of African-Americans from the Deep South, out-migration of White Southerners from Appalachia, out-migration of Native Americans from the Southeast such as the Lumbee and the Cherokee, and new waves of more recent immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa have added layers of complexity to the workforce and culture of Baltimore, as well as the religious and ethnic fabric of the city. Baltimore's culture has been described as "the blending of Southern culture and [African-American] migration, Northern industry, and the influx of European immigrants—first mixing at the port and its neighborhoods...Baltimore’s character, it’s uniqueness, the dialect, all of it, is a kind of amalgamation of these very different things coming together—with a little Appalachia thrown in...It’s all threaded through these neighborhoods", according to the American studies academic Mary Rizzo.
The Ethnic press in Baltimore, Maryland is press directed to a particular ethnic minority group or community in mind, including the non-English-language press. While English-language newspapers have always served the general population, many of Baltimore's ethnic immigrant communities have had newspapers published in their native languages.
The history of Poles in the United States dates to the American Colonial era. Poles have lived in present-day United States territories for over 400 years—since 1608. There are 10 million Americans of Polish descent in the U.S. today. Polish Americans have always been the largest group of Slavic origin in the United States.
The history of the French in Baltimore dates back to the 18th century. The earliest wave of French immigration began in the mid-18th century, bringing many Acadian refugees from Canada's Maritime Provinces. The Acadians were exiled from Canada by the British during the French and Indian War. Later waves of French settlement in Baltimore from the 1790s to the early 19th century brought Roman Catholic refugees of the French Revolution and refugees of the Haitian Revolution from the French colony of Saint-Domingue.
The history of Russians in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. The Russian community is a growing population and constitutes a major source of new immigrants to the city. Historically the Russian community was centered in East Baltimore, but most Russians now live in Northwest Baltimore's Arlington neighborhood and in Baltimore's suburb of Pikesville.
The history of Ukrainians in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. have the largest Ukrainian-American communities in the Mid-Atlantic.
The history of Lithuanians in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. Thousands of Lithuanians immigrated to Baltimore between the 1880s and 1920s. The Lithuanian American community was mainly centered in what is now the Hollins–Roundhouse Historic District. Baltimore's Lithuanian community has founded several institutions to preserve the Lithuanian heritage of the city, including a Roman Catholic parish, a cultural festival, a dance hall, and a yeshiva.
The history of Hispanics and Latinos in Baltimore dates back to the mid-20th century. The Hispanic and Latino community of Baltimore is the fastest growing ethnic group in the city. There is a significant Hispanic/Latino presence in many Southeast Baltimore neighborhoods, particularly Highlandtown, Upper Fell's Point, and Greektown. Overall Baltimore has a small but growing Hispanic population, primarily in the Southeast portion of the area from Fells Point to Dundalk.
Czas Baltimorski was a short-lived weekly Polish-language newspaper that began publication on July 11, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland. It was published by the Polish-American Times, Inc. with Wladyslaw A. Wusza as founding editor. Wusza and his English language editor Stanley A. Ciesielski were both young, second generation Polish-Americans, and Wusza's father had been editor of a Polish-language newspaper in New York City.
The history of White Americans in Baltimore dates back to the 17th century when the first white European colonists came to what is now Maryland and established the Province of Maryland on what was then Native American land. White Americans in Baltimore are Baltimoreans "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa." Majority white for most of its history, Baltimore no longer had a white majority by the 1970s. As of the 2010 Census, white Americans are a minority population of Baltimore at 29.6% of the population. White Americans have played a substantial impact on the culture, dialect, ethnic heritage, history, politics, and music of the city. Since the earliest English settlers arrived on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore's white population has been sustained by substantial immigration from all over Europe, particularly Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Southern Europe, as well as a large out-migration of White Southerners from Appalachia. Numerous white immigrants from Europe and the European diaspora have immigrated to Baltimore from the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, France, Canada, and other countries, particularly during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Smaller numbers of white people have immigrated from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, North Africa, and other non-European regions. Baltimore also has a prominent population of white Jews of European descent, mostly with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. There is a smaller population of white Middle Easterners and white North Africans, most of whom are Arab, Persian, Israeli, or Turkish. The distribution of White Americans in Central and Southeast Baltimore is sometimes called "The White L", while the distribution of African Americans in East and West Baltimore is called "The Black Butterfly."
