3 ms·

Without diminishing your personal experience, I should point out that kids can be pretty harsh and that almost all of us are picked on in one way or another, fo

Without diminishing your personal experience, I should point out that kids can be pretty harsh and that almost all of us are picked on in one way or another, for a variety of reasons. You know in 'Revenge of the Nerds' where at the end, the Nerds make a call to everyone who felt slighted and diminished to come out and stand against the 'Alpha Betas' (basically the cool/athletic alpha-bros?) - and everyone came out! 95% of people have either something that stands out that could enable them to be picked on, or, give them some kind of anxiety one way or another. So, the adult world is very different. I suggest there is a very low likelihood that you'll encounter acute problems (though maybe kids at school), issues would be more systematic than acute, i.e. the more local people have tighter social circles - much like Europe is very 'open, tolerant, progressive' both intellectually and in terms of policy, and yet at the same time 'very, very closed' socially. Even a white person, born and raised in Paris, utterly fluent and indistinguishable from anyone else ... but with a Polish last name ... might have some difficulty integrating outside of Paris. It's not like the French 'hate Poles'. It's just a kind of ethnocentrism that is fairly common in most places. Other than maybe your kids having to deal issues perhaps a little more often than the kids next to them in class ... I wouldn't ever be apprehensive about living most places in the US at all.

l9k 8y ago
I lived in France (not Paris) almost all my life with a Polish name and that has been a problem exactly 0 times. (I just need to spell my name when someone wants to write it)
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  I don't mean that it would be evident, definitely not in the way you could 'count the times' something would happen. That's not how I would describe systematic integration issues. I lived in France for quite some time with near fluent French and it was nary impossible for met to break into French circles. I made basically zero French friends, most of my colleagues were ex-pats. And it's not like I was ever remotely 'mistreated', nor could I pinpoint any specific time wherein I was 'left out' or 'ignored' because I wasn't French but there was obviously some kind of invisible barrier. My girlfriend at the time, much like you, was born and raised French, but has Polish ancestry, and though, like you I don't recall her ever mentioning a single 'incident' ... it was clear she wasn't quite in the same group as the others. The demarcation was subtle, but to me it was there. In Germany, where I lived for a year and barely speak a word of German, I felt as though my German surname gave me special access, as though I was 'a lost child', it's like I wasn't really 'foreign' just happened to be raised elsewhere - whereas the demarcation of Polish people (and especially Turks) was evident. Just like even in urban North America where you might see tables in a restaurant (or neighbourhoods) occupied by different groups (i.e. a very Asian table, a very white table), I found in Germany you'd see heavy demarcations as well, but more subtle: a table of Germans, a table of Polish/Germans, a table of Turks. Those divisions basically amount to barriers of a kind, because they will exist everywhere, at the office as well.

l9k 8y ago

I lived in France (not Paris) almost all my life with a Polish name and that has been a problem exactly 0 times. (I just need to spell my name when someone wants to write it)

sonnyblarney 8y ago
I don't mean that it would be evident, definitely not in the way you could 'count the times' something would happen. That's not how I would describe systematic integration issues. I lived in France for quite some time with near fluent French and it was nary impossible for met to break into French circles. I made basically zero French friends, most of my colleagues were ex-pats. And it's not like I was ever remotely 'mistreated', nor could I pinpoint any specific time wherein I was 'left out' or 'ignored' because I wasn't French but there was obviously some kind of invisible barrier. My girlfriend at the time, much like you, was born and raised French, but has Polish ancestry, and though, like you I don't recall her ever mentioning a single 'incident' ... it was clear she wasn't quite in the same group as the others. The demarcation was subtle, but to me it was there. In Germany, where I lived for a year and barely speak a word of German, I felt as though my German surname gave me special access, as though I was 'a lost child', it's like I wasn't really 'foreign' just happened to be raised elsewhere - whereas the demarcation of Polish people (and especially Turks) was evident. Just like even in urban North America where you might see tables in a restaurant (or neighbourhoods) occupied by different groups (i.e. a very Asian table, a very white table), I found in Germany you'd see heavy demarcations as well, but more subtle: a table of Germans, a table of Polish/Germans, a table of Turks. Those divisions basically amount to barriers of a kind, because they will exist everywhere, at the office as well.