As the largest group of Slavic origins in the United States, there are more than 10 million Americans of Polish lineages in the U.S. today, making it the largest diaspora of Poles in the world.

Since the late 1800’s, Polish immigrants have been attracted to the U.S. by the high wages and ample job opportunities, with many working in laborious jobs, i.e., mining, meatpacking, construction, steelwork, and heavy industry. Now, it’s reported that over 90% of immigrating Poles have settled in heavily Polish populated communities, call Polonia, with the largest such community being historically located in Chicago, IL; which is ALL Equal’s initial service area.

Assimilation and success was not easy, which the founders of AEF, who are also of Polish descent, are aware. U.S. historical accounts reveal that in the early 20th Century, based on the Study of Human Intelligence (Bingham), which relied heavily on English aptitude tests from the U.S. military, concluded that Poles had inferior intelligence, which was highly damning towards blacks, Italians, Jews, and other Slavs. A United States Congress Joint Immigration study prepared on Polish Americans cited similar studies and said Poles were undesireable immigrants because of their “inherently unstable personalities”. Accentuating matters, President Woodrow Wilson called Poles, Hungarians, and Italians, in his 1902 History of the American People, “men of the meaner sort” who possessed “neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence.” Wilson later apologized, and met publicly with Polish-American leaders.