Robotnicza arystokracja i biedni profesjonaliści. Imigranci z Polski i byłego Związku Radzieckiego w Nowym Jorku na przełomie XX i XXI wieku

The text attempts at explaining different positions that the two groups of Eastern European immigrants – Jews from the former Soviet Union and Poles – have acquired in the New York City labour market at the turn of the 20th and 21st century. The initial difference in the human capital, measured by education and occupation has been accelerated by the difference in social capital that the two groups could rely on in New York City (organizational network of legal and practical assistance coming from one of the wealthiest and prestigious group for post-Soviet Jewish immigrants versus support coming from working class but well-rooted group of Polish-Americans and ‘white ethnics’ for Polish immigrants). These different resources have been shaped in the course of over a century of Jewish and Polish migrations from Eastern Europe to the US. Additionally, since the late 20th century, the difference between the two groups has been further deepened by the legal status that is typically accessible to the two of them in the US (refugees vs immigrants, including the unauthorized ones). The text also compares the Eastern European immigrants’ position with other immigrant groups’ one in the New York City labour market. The US 2000 census statistics (The Newest New Yorkers 2000) document the difference in human capital and legal status of the two groups while results of my fieldwork in Greenpoint, a traditional destination of Polish immigrants in Brooklyn and of the existing qualitative research on post-Soviet Jewish immigrants in New York City provided data on social networks and extended evidence on human capital and consequences of legal status.