Just east of Buffalo, New York is the town of Cheektowaga, a working to middle-class suburban community with a predominantly Polish-American population. The residents of that town are considered avid bowlers; there are bowling alleys everywhere there. About one out of every three or four houses is adorned with tacky lawn ornaments, with the pink flamingo being the most common. These displays aren’t seen in working-to-middle class suburbs that don’t have large Polish-American populations.
Ouside of Cleveland, there is a suburb called Parma, a predominantly Polish-American community that is also known for its lawn ornaments and fanaic bowlers.
So … why are Polish-Americans apparently more inclined to bowl and display lawn ornaments than other ethnic groups?
My family’s Polish-American, and I grew up in a community of Polish-Americans. None of them ever had a tendency to put pink flamingos on the lawn.
My parents did bowl, and so did I. Bowling was a big middle-class and lower-class game. There was a bowling alley block from where my father grew up. There were few polo fields anywhere nearby.
Of course, the entire town wasn’t Polish, so I suspect that there were a lot of non-Poles bowling thee, too. It was a very 50s thing.
I think you’re running across a lot of symbols of middle-class mediocrity and kitsch, and ascribing them to one ethnic group. I jnote that both “Bowling” and “pink flamingos” each have entries in The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste.
True that, CalMeacham. My family is Polish American, and I’ve lived in some pretty densely populated Polish (immigrant) neighborhoods. I’ve never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Maybe it’s kinda like that “White van at the end of the block” thing. It’s not always there, but when you notice it there, “My God! That suspicious van is ALWAYS there!”
The invention of the lawn flamingois an interesting story,back in the early 1950’s, in the town of Littleton, MA (the “Plastics City”, a small plastic firm had just gotten a cancelleation on an order of pink-colored plastic resin. They had no market for the stuff, so a Polish-American engineer at the palnt had a brainstorm-he made a mold, and used the unwanted resin for making pink flamongo birds! Thus, a great American tradition was born. If you wish, you can visit the plastic museumin Littleton, and read the story (the inentors name was Charly Wysocki, I believe).
Ditto to Cal. I grew up in a polish family, and we did not have any lawn ornaments or a tendency to bowl. However, out cook outs were second to non. Kielbasa, pierogi, sauerkraut!
As my grandmother would say, “Jedzcie, pijcie i popuszczajcie pasa!”
Another question on Polish-American decor, if I may:
In the Chicago area I’ve heard several people associate prominent table lamps seen in open-curtained front windows with Polish families. That is, a house with a large front window (typical of the Chicago area, although I don’t know what that architecture style is called), curtains open, and a large, somewhat frilly table lamp in full view.
Is this truly a Polish style? Or, as CalMeacham suggests re the flamingos, is it a general home fashion that is unspecifically and unfairly connected to Polish-Americans? Or is this association with Polish families limited to people in my family? If it is a Polish thing, does it have any special significance in the old country?
I never noticed any pink flamingos in my busia & dziadzia’s neighborhood (that’s grandma and grandpa to you Anglo types)-- this isthe neighborhood with the church that had Mass in Polish, by the way.
Nor as far as I know are or were any of that branch of the family avid bowlers. (now Pinochle, yes).
I grew up in a heavily Italian/Slovak/Hungarian/Polish area, namely the mill towns of the Mon Valley outside of Pittsburgh. Though not Polish myself, I’ve had my share of pirogi, and stuffed cabbage was served at all of our weddings.
I can vouch for the popularity of pinochle, bowling, and ugly awnings among all of these ethnic groups.
I saw few pink flamingos growing up, but lots of Mary-on-the-half-shell.
I can attest to to there being no lawn ornaments or bowling alleys in Poland, so this is definately a hokey U.S. thing. As for the table lamps - could this have anything to do with the tradition of putting lit candles in windows? I know some towns where it’s common to see a single lit candle in each window at a certain time of the year. I know this is not a Polish tradition, however. Driving through such a town with my very Polish grandma, she was quite befuddled. “What is that, a Jewish thing? They light candles, don’t they?”
[aside illustrating the ancient affinity of Central Europeans and bowling]
Mozart is said to have written his “Kegelstatt (Bowling Alley) Trio” between frames.
[/aside]
I believe the OP is referring to second and later generation Polish-Americans, not the native Poles who emigrated here, in which case pink flamingos (before they became ironically cool), bowling (before the Postmoderns discovered they could be ironically cool and drink, too), and big, ugly lamps in the front window (a picture window on a new tract house with no landscaping cries out for SOMETHING) are more artifacts of general lower-middle-class American white folk culture of the mid-20th century than of a specific ethnicity.
