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Why I Write About Poland

To answer this question, you first must know some things about my history.

I know I’m white, duh, but I hate identifying that way. I’m Polish, Swedish, and Italian. A quarter Polish and Swedish each, and half Italian (yes, the blond hair and blue eyes are from the southern Italian side, go figure). Break it down further and I’m probably also Norwegian and Lithuanian, but that gets into a strange debate between nationality and genetic lines that’s beyond the scope of this essay.

I’m not one of those people who has extensive lineage in the United States. My Polish and Swedish ancestors came here in the early 1900s, and my Italian ancestors didn’t make it (on steerage, no less) until the 1930s. So on the Polish and Swedish sides, I’m second or third generation; on the Italian side, I’m second generation. Theoretically, there should be a wealth of culture in my background and family goings on.

Then America stepped in

I don’t think I need to tell any of you that the 1900s was the time of the “melting pot.” And by that, I mean, assimilation. You either chose to be American as apple pie, or you left—forcibly or not. And my ancestors had worked too hard to get here to leave, so they did what they had to. They learned English. They took on Anglicized names. Sabatino became Sam. Adelia became Ethel. (Ethel, I know.) They gave their children Anglicized names, moreover, and, here’s the kicker: they didn’t teach them their native language.

Already, we have the set-up for some major cultural loss. But it wasn’t complete. Especially from the Italian side, there are stories of big family parties, Sunday dinners at great-grandma’s house, games of briscola and soccer and bocce ball.

Then…

Where I come in

I had the strange luck of having old grandparents. My dad’s parents were in their 30s when dad and his siblings were born. My mom is 13 years younger than her brother and sister. And my own parents were 35 and 37 when I was born. That calculates out to some old grandparents.

To illustrate: dad’s parents were both dead by the time I was 3. Mom’s dad died when I was 4. Grandma (mom’s mom) lived until I was in 8th grade but with no surrounding aunts and uncles, and great-grandma (dad’s grandma) lived until I was a sophomore in high school but with a rather fraught and fragmented family around her.

There were no big family parties. No Sunday dinners and games of briscola. No one to tell me sighingly about the “old country” or teach me snippets of Polish, Swedish, Italian. We had almost no traditions, no heirlooms.

A void of culture that made me feel bereft. Adrift. Unhomed. American culture, whatever that is, never felt “right.”

And then there was writing

Writing has always been a big part of my life. I write when I’m sad, to investigate and vent my feelings. I write when I’m happy, about worlds beyond the borders of our own or strange horrors all too human. But for a long time, I was content to write in America or in my fictional worlds based on little bits of here and there.

And then, I started writing The Wandering Dolls. It was the first story where I said, I’m going to take aspects of a real-world country (Poland) and incorporate it strongly into my fantasy. So you have the country of Duznarod; the town of Pieklo; Daga and Wiolka and Jadzia and Poldek; pastel fronted houses and descriptions of pierogi feasts.

And something happened. I started to feel, for one of the first times, connected with my past.

So I did it again in Godkillers, by setting it in a world based on Renaissance Italy mixed with Imperial Rome (I swear it works). And then even a little bit in Howleirauh, where the country Iskheim is loosely Norse-inspired.

And for the first time, in these strange, cobbled-together diaspora worlds, I started to feel at home.

And so

And so. I know people will criticize my works as being “not real Poland” or “not Italian enough” (although, unfairly, the criticism will be far lesser than what my BIPOC friends get for delving into their histories).

But I hope there are others, perhaps assimilated kids like me, who find a home in these stories and use them as springboards to get to know a past that was taken from them.

A past that, perhaps, can still be recovered.