Chris Rybkiewicz (left) of the Polish American Congress signs up new voters from St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

It took Ryszard Klimek seven years to register to vote.

Since he became a citizen in 2001, American politics was not a subject of his interest. “Politics in my country is a parody. So I lost interest in it and I didn’t feel like getting involved here either,” says Ryszard, 35, who came to America in 1995 and works as an electrician. When he was 16, the Communist regime that ruled Poland for decades tumbled. Since then the newly-created Polish democracy has turned into a rampant form of pluralism where parties easily come into being, merge or cease to exist, amidst divisions and disagreements.

To Ryszard, American politics seemed very different than what he knew from his home country, and not being proficient in English, it was very difficult for him to understand it. But this year he decided to finally register and vote.

“The candidates are more interesting and the issues are important,” said Ryszard, pointing out the war in Iraq, immigration reform, and the declining economy.

This year’s election ignites excitement across American society, including immigrant voters who hope to see the issues they care about addressed by the candidates.

(more…)

Polish Americans and Polish immigrants living in the US offered a variety of reactions to the missile shield agreement signed this week by the US and Poland. According to US officials the 10 interceptor missiles to be placed on Polish soil are intended to protect the US and its allies from an attack by a rogue state such as Iran.

As part of the deal the Bush administration also agreed to the placement in Poland of a Patriot missile battery – a short-range missile system that theoretically could be used in case of Russia’s attack. Moreover, as the New York Times reported, the deal came with a promise that, “at least temporarily American soldiers would staff air sites in Poland oriented towards Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO, of which Poland is a member.” The agreement came soon after Russia invaded Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, and a close American ally.

The move infuriated Russia. Shortly after the deal was announced a top Russian general, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said that Poland risks a military attack, possibly even nuclear, for agreeing to host a US missile defense system on its territory. “Such targets are destroyed as a first priority,” he warned.

It sounded all too familiar to Poles, who, still remembering the times when their country was a Soviet satellite, almost felt a gust of the Cold War era.

(more…)

The front page of last Sunday’s New York Times Metro section made much of the emergence of immigrants as an increasingly important voting bloc in New York City electoral politics, particularly with a view toward next year’s municipal elections.

The acknowlegment of immigrant voting power flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which has long said immigrants are not as engaged in US politics as those of their home countries.

According to the New Americans Exit Poll Project (conducted by Columbia University) and a recent analysis by CUNY’s Center for Urban Research, the number of immigrant voters is on the rise in New York City. What’s more, immigrants are responsible for much of the expansion of the city’s electorate.The CUNY study found at least a third of new voters added to the city’s voter rolls since 2004 were Russian, Chinese, Korean, or Muslim.  These new faces and ethnicities in the city’s electorate join the roughly one million immigrants already registered to vote in New York.

According to the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), a nonpartisan immigrant advocacy group that registers new citizens to vote, over 265,000 immigrants have been added to the city’s voter rolls since 1996.In a city where City Council races are won and lost by a margin of 5,000 votes, this infusion of new voters puts a distinctly New York spin on the nation’s growing realization that immigrant voters are crucial to political races.

(more…)

From the Society of Profesional Journalists:

Indianapolis — The Society of Professional Journalists announced today the recipients of its New America Award. First-place recipients are Karen Frillmann from WNYC, New York Public Radio and Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska of the Polish Daily News for the series, “Polish Immigrants in a Changing City.” No other places were awarded in the contest.

This is the fourth year for the award, which honors public service journalism collaborations that include ethnic media in order to explore and expose an issue of importance to immigrant or ethnic communities in the United States. The award will be presented at the society’s annual Sigma Delta Chi Awards banquet July 11 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

The winning work was a two-part series about New York’s Polish immigrant community produced for WNYC, New York Public Radio by Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, a reporter for the Polish Daily News. The first part of the series, “Feet in Two Worlds: Greenpoint, Brooklyn,” examined the impact of gentrification on the residents of a Brooklyn neighborhood that is the hub of New York’s Polish Community. Through the piece, broadcast on May 23, 2007, Kern-Jedrychowska was able to bring a fresh perspective on the story of old-age neighborhood transformation to public radio listeners.

Read more about Ewa’s win here:

http://www.spj.org/news.asp?REF=801#801