ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1919, as Poland’s long-awaited independence dawned, an estimated two million return migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers made their way across Europe’s war-torn landscape towards sovereign Polish territory. Perhaps the most pronounced effect of return migration was the disruption of longstanding hierarchies of authority in the village. The struggles faced by Polish Americans as they re-integrated into their post-war homes reflects a number of key shifts in Polish society and in the concentric circles of belonging within Polish culture. In contrast to the longstanding pattern of emigration and return from pre-war Polish villages, re-migration to the Second Republic represented a destabilizing influence. Scholarly examinations of American returnees situate their experience within the longstanding pattern of circular migration from the Polish lands. From a legal standpoint, returning Polish citizens who had been evacuated during the war were to be handled differently from refugees seeking safe haven.
