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An Iron Ring: Polish Engineering Tradition in Canada
| Article
# : |
11712 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1994 |
2,820 Words |
| Author
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Mark Wegierski
Mark Wegierski is a Toronto-based historian and freelance
writer/researcher who specializes in issues of nationality and
ethnicity in modern society. His articles have been published
in the Review of Metaphysics (Catholic University of America,
Washington, D.C.), This World (Elizabethtown College,
Pennsylvania), and other periodicals. |
In February, around Saint Valentine's Day and before the onset of Lent, the annual ball of the Association of Polish Engineers in Canada (APEC) is held. It is a festive occasion. All dress formally. Gentlemen behave with courtly, Old World Polish gallantry, kissing a lady's hand in greeting. The waltz predominates. Memories are evoked of the elaborate balls of pre-World War II Poland and of the royal and imperial balls of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
The APEC ball reached its opulent height in the mid-1980s. For years, it was held in an elegant hotel. More recently, it has been moved to more intimate surroundings in a lodge outside the city, but it still may be attended by government officials, senior executives of major firms, or members of federal and provincial parliaments.
The ball is one of various events, including graduation rituals for engineers who are to receive their iron rings, that mirror the unique place, both in the Polish-Canadian community and in Canada, held by engineers and technicians of Polish descent. They are accepted at the highest levels of society and form an unabashedly elite immigrant group that has maintained its status because of intellectual, rather than folkloric, ethnic traditions. Indeed, the formal political leadership of the entire Polish-Canadian community (particularly the Canadian Polish Congress) has largely consisted of engineers and technicians.
In fact, since World War II, Polish immigrants and their descendants have made a significant contribution to the intellectual and physical development of Canada, one out of proportion to their overall numbers. It has been possible to descry a specific Polish, or Polish-descended, tradition of technical, engineering, architectural, and scholarly achievement and a particular community focus in that direction. A community and technically oriented Polish- and English-language newsletter, the New Link, has been published for many years.
During the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, a significant number of Polish immigrants were qualified in the technical professions; there were also a few scholars in the theoretical, applied, and social sciences. The émigrés were able to parlay these abilities into securing and elevating their social status in Canada. The continued arrival of immigrants with scientific and technical backgrounds is expected. However, now that Poland is free, many wonder whether the scientific and technical talents of people clamoring to immigrate to North America would not be better utilized in their homeland. Some émigrés have considered going
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