One thing leads to another on the Internet and I unintentionally came upon a website called Neighborhood Scout that provides “Custom Analytics to Invest, Appraise, or Finance Real Estate.” Naturally, I had to see what the website had to say about my neighborhood.
Most of what the report stated did not surprise me – stuff I already knew or suspected, but two items in the report surprised me.
According to the report, my neighborhood is “pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.9% of the neighborhoods in America.”
Since I am of Polish descent, this surprised me and struck home. Even though I was born and raised in the USA, my first language was Polish. I did not learn English until my parents brought home a television.
The other item of interest was that my neighborhood “has the amazing distinction of housing more same sex couples living together than 98.3% of neighborhoods in the U.S.”
There is a same sex couple living a few houses down the street from us (and we are on very friendly terms with them), but I was clueless that my neighborhood was competing with Provincetown! As a crossdresser, that fact makes me feel more comfortable about living where I live.
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| Wearing Shein |
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| Libor Landa femulating in the 2003 Czech film Kameňák. Click here to view this film on YouTube. |
Interesting website I’ll have to check that out Stana I didn’t know Polish was your first language. I wish my parents would have done that with us. I often wonder how many other Femulators are in the neighborhood. We are not that rare as we all know that 5% number seems to be fairly accurate. Makes you wonder what your neighbors are doing. Paula G
ReplyDeleteMy parents were first generation and spoke Polish in their parents' homes and continued to speak Polish when they married. So they spoke Polish all the time in my home and that is why Polish was my first language. It's not like I had a choice (LOL). TV channels 2 to 13 later taught me English.
DeleteWow! After all this time we still learn new things about Stana daily. I've two friends form different areas of Eastern Europe who emigrated to the U.S. more recently, as young adults, and both credit Sesame Street with how they learned English. Whoever said television rots the mind, LOL?
DeleteNorah
“Diversity
ReplyDeleteDid you know that the my neighborhood has more Polish and Italian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 18.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Polish ancestry and 23.5% have Italian ancestry.”
But considering that we are suburbs of New Britain…
“New Britain East is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 12.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in America.”
It is no wonder we have a high percentage of Polish ancestors.
Maybe our senior lunch club can have lunch at the East Side restaurant one day and we can sample the Polish cooking.
I am all in for Polish food! Sadly, my favorite Polish restaurant in New Britain burned down and the owners decided not to rebuild.
DeleteHi, greetings from Czechia. Just a bit of context for today's femulator. Libor Landa (Julia Landis) is/was a drag performer and this is his only movie role. He plays a man who applies for a job as a high school teacher and gets turned down, then returns as a woman and is given the job. Afaik nothing is known about the character's gender identity. The part is minor and purely comical, but all the fun comes from the fact that "a man dresses as a woman" and there is nothing more to it. The movie itself is a low-IQ slapstick, a notoriously bad one, widely considered to be one of the worst Czech films of all times, surpassed only by its own sequels.
ReplyDeleteI think the vast majority of men and women in my age group (Baby Boomers) are grandchildren of European immigrants who came to the USA between 1900-1920. During that period many well known men in government and industry sought to limit immigration from eastern and southern Europe. They considered people, like my grandparents, to be of a lesser "race." Take a read with "The Guarded Gate" by Daniel Okrent. It will make you wonder why so many are anti-immigrant when their grandparents and great-grandparents would have been turned away if that sentiment had prevailed during that time period. My grandparents, primarily from a German community in what was then Hungry and now Romania, would have been barred from entering. In 1921 the most restrictive immigration law was passed that effectively restricted immigration until a change in the law in the 1960's. Among those who would have been barred entry by the Eugenics Movement were Poles and Italians, along with my people.
ReplyDeleteI too am of Polish descent. The website says this neighborhood is 18% Polish in Chicago. I was bilingual till about 5 years old. My parents thought it would confuse me when I started kindergarten. Grandma said she would speak Polish to me answer in English. That’s why I understand more than I speak. My mother’s mom passed away when I was 7. Nobody else in the family spoke Polish after that.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Buffalo (a long time ago) and we had a large Polish population. some kids grew up in homes where Polish was the only language plus they attended early grammar school where the nuns taught in Polish. consequently some of these kids ended up with a slight Polish accent.anyone else have this experience?-Emily
ReplyDeleteThe school here in Chicago taught Polish. I guess the nuns were all Polish. There’s more Polish people in Chicago than Warsaw.
ReplyDeletein my neighborhood Ocean beach in San Diego I have a female gay couple next store, a male couple across the street and a female and her female friend on the other side of my house. I am not sure about her orieintation. They are all great neighbors.
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