Memorial Day from an Immigrant Perspective

Happy Memorial Day, friends! We hope you are enjoying a peaceful day with your loved ones, and remembering all those who have given all. The following post was written by Allison’s husband back in 2013 and sheds just a little bit of light on this day from a unique perspective–an immigrant from Eastern Europe.

1990-2013 has probably been one of the longest stretches of peacetime and economic prosperity in Poland since the end of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) after which Poland ceased to exist until the Treat of Versailles in 1918. As an immigrant thought that I would share a few thoughts about Memorial Day from an immigrant perspective.

The complete Czarnecki extended family; both of them.

Czarnecki Family: All of it.

America is my new and permanent home. Sure it’s nice to travel back to Poland every once in a while and see places and share a common language but since most of our distant and close family never made it to 1945 the relative connection isn’t there to draw me back all that much. I hear stories of people at family reunions having to wear name tags with their manes and the names of great-grandparent line they belong to. Not us, this is it. Now this is with the exception of my immediate family living in Los Angeles that we see a couple of times a year but this is it as far as extended family goes. On the left is my Godmother Marysia and on the right is my step-grandmother Eila from Helsinki.

Ever since I got off the airplane at Lewis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans in 1984 I have made America my home. I went to Junior High in America, High School, College, got married, had children, purchased a home, and found gainful employment. I have made America my home. On this holiday weekend let’s remember that you or your relative didn’t fight in foreign lands for just your freedom and peace but also for the freedom and peace that is the beacon for others around the world that see America as a light upon a hill for those that have made America their home and those that have yet to. Thank you.