The Journey: One Family's Story from Poland to San Francisco

The Kowalski family’s story begins not in the gleaming towers of San Francisco, but in a small village outside Kraków, where generations had worked the same land under changing flags and empires. Their journey—spanning decades, continents, and cultures—mirrors the experiences of countless Polish families who traded the familiar for the unknown, carrying little more than hope and determination.

Life in Poland: The Decision to Leave

In the early 1980s, Marek and Anna Kowalski lived in a modest apartment in Kraków with their two young children, Piotr and Kasia. Marek worked as an engineer, while Anna taught elementary school. On paper, they had stable professions, but reality painted a different picture. Long queues for basic goods, political tensions during the Solidarity movement, and limited opportunities for their children’s future weighed heavily on their minds.

“We had education, we had family, we had everything but hope,” Anna would later recall. The declaration of martial law in 1981 crystallized their decision. Like many Polish families during this era, they faced an agonizing choice: remain in a homeland they loved but which offered little promise, or venture to a distant land where opportunity beckoned but uncertainty loomed.

The decision wasn’t made lightly. Family gatherings became forums for heated debates. Anna’s mother pleaded with them to stay, unable to imagine life without her grandchildren nearby. Marek’s father, who had survived World War II, understood the impulse to seek safety and prosperity elsewhere, though his heart broke at the prospect of separation.

Preparation and Paperwork

The emigration process consumed nearly two years of their lives. Mountains of paperwork, visits to government offices, medical examinations, and interviews tested their resolve. They studied English using worn textbooks borrowed from friends. Anna created flashcards, and the family practiced basic phrases each evening after dinner, their accents thick with Polish sounds.

Marek’s sister had immigrated to San Francisco in the 1970s, and her sponsorship proved crucial. Her letters painted pictures of a city of hills and possibilities, where Polish immigrants had established communities since the Gold Rush era. She described the Polish Club of San Francisco, weekend Polish school for children, and fellow Poles who had successfully rebuilt their lives.

Financial preparation meant selling heirlooms, furniture, and everything they couldn’t bring. Each item sold represented both loss and necessity. Anna’s grandmother’s crystal would buy airplane tickets. The family photographs, carefully selected to fit within luggage limits, were priceless.

Leaving: The Hardest Goodbye

Warsaw’s airport, autumn 1983. The family stood surrounded by parents, siblings, cousins—a circle of tear-stained faces. Anna’s mother pressed a small package into her hands: soil from their family garden, carefully wrapped. “So you always remember where you come from,” she whispered.

Ten-year-old Piotr tried to be brave, but eight-year-old Kasia sobbed inconsolably. Marek’s father embraced him one last time, slipping his own father’s pocket watch into his son’s hand. “Make us proud,” he said simply.

The finality of walking through security felt like stepping off a cliff. They turned back countless times, waving until their family disappeared from view. Anna clutched her children close, whispering prayers and promises that they’d return to visit, though nobody knew when that might be possible.

The Journey to America

The flight to San Francisco, with a layover in Frankfurt, seemed endless. Neither Marek nor Anna had flown before. Kasia became airsick, and Piotr pressed his face to the window, watching Poland disappear beneath clouds. They carried two suitcases each, packed with clothes, important documents, family photographs, and small treasures: a wooden folk art figurine, Anna’s mother’s recipe book handwritten on yellowed paper, the children’s favorite stuffed animals.

During the layover, they practiced their English ordering food, stumbling over words, pointing at menu items. Other travelers rushed past, comfortable in this liminal space between countries, while the Kowalskis moved cautiously, acutely aware they were navigating a new world.

Arrival in San Francisco: First Impressions

San Francisco International Airport, November 1983. After nearly twenty hours of travel, they emerged into a world of noise, movement, and English announcements they could barely understand. Marek’s sister, Krystyna, spotted them first, running forward with tears streaming down her face, shouting their names.

The drive to the city stunned them. The Golden Gate Bridge’s majesty, the Pacific Ocean’s vastness, Victorian houses in rainbow colors, and hills that seemed impossible for cars to climb. Everything felt larger, brighter, and more abundant than they’d imagined. Grocery stores overflowing with goods required no queues. The diversity of faces and languages surprised them—Polish wasn’t the only immigrant story here.

Culture Shock and Early Challenges

The first weeks passed in a fog of adjustment. Krystyna had found them a small apartment in the Sunset District. The perpetual fog reminded them oddly of Polish winters, though November in San Francisco was far warmer than anything they’d known.

Everything seemed designed to confuse. Light switches worked opposite to Polish ones. Stores used unfamiliar measurements—pounds instead of kilograms, Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. The children started school immediately, thrust into classrooms where they understood nothing, communicating through gestures and desperate dictionary consultations.

Marek’s engineering credentials weren’t recognized in California. Despite his experience and education, he started as a draftsman at a small firm, earning a fraction of what his American colleagues made. The humiliation stung, but bills demanded payment. Anna, whose teaching certificate was worthless here, found work as a housekeeper, scrubbing toilets in homes larger than entire apartment buildings in Poland.

Language barriers created daily humiliations. Marek once spent twenty minutes trying to communicate with a hardware store clerk before giving up and leaving empty-handed. Anna ordered chicken at a restaurant and received fish, lacking the vocabulary to correct the mistake. The children, however, absorbed English with startling speed, soon becoming the family’s translators—a role reversal that shifted family dynamics in uncomfortable ways.

Finding Community

The Polish community became their lifeline. Krystyna introduced them to other Polish families at St. Cyril and Methodius Church, where Polish mass was celebrated every Sunday. After services, families gathered for coffee and conversation, sharing job leads, housing tips, and sympathy for common struggles.

The Polish Club of San Francisco welcomed them warmly. Friday night gatherings felt like being transported back to Poland—the smell of bigos simmering, the sound of Polish conversation and laughter, familiar music playing. Here, Marek and Anna could be themselves fully, speaking freely without struggling for words, sharing frustrations without judgment.

They enrolled Piotr and Kasia in Polish Saturday school, determined their children would maintain their language and cultural identity. Sunday mornings meant Polish mass, afternoons often involved Polish picnics or cultural events. This parallel Polish life sustained them through difficult workweeks in an American world that felt alien and unwelcoming.

Building a New Life

Progress came gradually. Marek studied evenings and weekends, earning California engineering credentials. After two years of night classes and examinations, he secured a proper engineering position with a Bay Area tech company—timing that proved fortunate as Silicon Valley began its explosive growth.

Anna’s English improved through community college classes. She found work as a teacher’s aide, then eventually earned her California teaching certificate, returning to the profession she loved. Each small victory—understanding a TV show without subtitles, completing a phone call without anxiety, navigating BART independently—marked progress toward belonging.

They bought a small house in Daly City in 1987, a modest achievement that felt monumental. The mortgage terrified them—more debt than they’d ever imagined—but homeownership meant permanence, stability, and proof that their gamble had succeeded.

Raising Children Between Two Cultures

Piotr and Kasia adapted faster than their parents, but not without complications. At school, they were American; at home, they were expected to be Polish. They spoke English with each other, Polish with their parents—often mid-sentence code-switching that made both languages feel incomplete.

Teenage rebellion took cultural dimensions. Piotr resented missing soccer practice for Polish school. Kasia wanted American sleepovers and parties, not Polish community events. The children felt caught between worlds—too Polish for their American friends, too American for their Polish relatives during visits back home.

Marek and Anna walked a difficult line. They wanted their children to embrace opportunities America offered while maintaining Polish identity and values. Dinner conversations mixed Polish and English. Christmas combined oplatek and caroling with Santa and commercialism. They made compromises: Polish school until age fourteen, then the children could choose to continue.

Visiting Poland

Their first return visit, summer 1989, coincided with Poland’s first free elections in decades. After six years away, they stepped off the plane in Warsaw into a country transformed yet familiar. Grandparents had aged shockingly. Nieces and nephews they’d never met were now school-aged. Old friends struggled to relate to their American experiences.

Poland itself felt smaller, grayer, more worn than memory had preserved it. The children, now teenagers, struggled with Polish language that had grown rusty, feeling like tourists in their parents’ homeland. Yet certain things—family gatherings, traditional foods, the smell of their grandmother’s kitchen—transcended the years and distance.

These visits became regular, though never frequent enough. Each return highlighted how much had changed on both sides. Poland democratized and modernized, joining the European Union. San Francisco boomed through dot-com euphoria and subsequent crashes. The Kowalski family existed in both worlds and fully in neither.

Success and Contributions

By the 1990s, the Kowalskis had achieved a version of the American Dream. Marek advanced to senior engineer, eventually leading projects. Anna became a respected teacher, advocating for immigrant students who reminded her of her own children’s struggles. They volunteered extensively in the Polish community, helping newer immigrants navigate challenges they remembered too well.

Piotr attended UC Berkeley, majoring in computer science, eventually working for a Silicon Valley startup that made him financially comfortable beyond his parents’ imagination. Kasia became a lawyer, specializing in immigration cases, driven by family history to help others navigate the complex system they’d experienced.

The family maintained Polish traditions, now enriched by American elements. Christmas Eve wigilia featured twelve traditional dishes, but also included Kasia’s non-Polish boyfriend and Piotr’s friends from various backgrounds. Polish and English intermingled freely. Their Polish-American identity had become its own distinct thing—neither fully Polish nor fully American, but something new and valuable.

Passing Traditions to Grandchildren

When Piotr’s daughter Zosia was born in 2005, Anna became Babcia—grandmother. She spoke only Polish to her granddaughter, determined to pass the language forward. She taught Zosia Polish lullabies and nursery rhymes, made traditional Polish dishes together, told stories about Poland and the family’s journey.

Yet Anna recognized that Zosia’s connection to Poland would be different—more abstract, more optional. Zosia was fully American, with Polish heritage as one thread among many in her identity. This realization brought both sadness and acceptance. Immigration’s gifts included freedom and opportunity; its cost was a certain kind of cultural dissolution across generations.

Reflections on the Journey

Now in their seventies, Marek and Anna split their time between San Francisco and a small apartment they bought in Kraków. They’ve lived in America longer than they lived in Poland, yet both places feel like home and neither quite does.

“Would we do it again?” Anna reflected recently. “Yes. And no. We gained so much—freedom, opportunity, prosperity. Our children and grandchildren have lives we couldn’t have dreamed of in Poland. But we lost things too. We missed my father’s last years. Our children grew up without extended family. Some things, you can never get back.”

Marek added, “The immigrant experience means living with divided heart. Part of you always stays in the old country. Part of you never quite belongs in the new one. But we built something valuable—our children are bridge people, comfortable in both cultures, enriched by both.”

The Universal Immigrant Story

The Kowalski family’s journey—though specifically Polish and specifically San Franciscan—reflects universal immigrant themes. The painful decision to leave. The courage required to start over. The humiliations of being reduced to beginners in middle age. The sacrifice parents make for children’s futures. The complex negotiations of identity and belonging.

Every immigrant family has such a story, with different details but similar emotional terrain. These stories deserve telling and remembering, not just for historical record, but because they remind us what immigration actually means—not abstract policy debates, but real families making impossible choices, enduring hardships, contributing to new communities while maintaining connections to old ones.

The Bay Area’s Polish community contains hundreds of such stories. Each family’s journey added threads to the fabric of this region’s rich multicultural identity. From the first Polish pioneers during the Gold Rush to post-Solidarity immigrants to today’s Polish professionals in Silicon Valley, these stories of courage, sacrifice, and perseverance continue to shape both Polonia and broader American society.

The Kowalski family’s American Dream wasn’t perfect or simple. It was complex, costly, and worth it. Their story continues through their children and grandchildren, each generation adding new chapters to a family narrative that spans two continents and multiple identities—a living testament to the enduring power of hope, determination, and the willingness to journey toward an uncertain but promising future.

Learn More

• Dealing with Culture Shock: A Guide for Polish Immigrants
• Polish-American Identity: Balancing Two Worlds
• The Solidarity Movement and Polish Immigration to America
• Polish WWII Refugees in the Bay Area: Stories of Survival and Resettlement

References

1. Polish American Historical Association. “The Nation of Polonia: Polish Immigrants in America.” Library of Congress Immigration Collections, 2024.

2. “Polish Immigration to America: Waves of Migration.” Genealogy Tour Historical Archives, 2024.

3. Polish Society of California. “History of Polish Pioneers in San Francisco, 1863-Present.” Polish Club of San Francisco Archives.

4. Bukowczyk, John J. “Polish Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and Politics.” University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.

5. Erdmans, Mary Patrice. “Opposite Poles: Immigrants and Ethnics in Polish Chicago, 1976-1990.” Penn State University Press, 1998.

6. “Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939.” Polish American Studies Historical Journal.

7. East Bay Polish American Association. “Immigration Stories: Post-War and Solidarity Era Polish Families in the Bay Area,” 1987-2024.

8. Thomas, William I., and Florian Znaniecki. “The Polish Peasant in Europe and America.” University of Illinois Press (Classic immigrant family correspondence study).

Tagged immigration, family-story, journey, personal-narrative