The Vietnamese in Poland

Résumé du document

"We have been living here for thirty years. It was a nice and quiet place. Now, we have all those people coming from somewhere we do not know..." . Those people „coming from somewhere we do not know ...” are in fact the Vietnamese immigrants who came with the new wave of immigration of the 90's, and those words were delivered by Maria DOMOSIEWICZ, a „basic” Polish citizen living in the village of Mrokow. This formerly 300-inhabitant-village has recently undergone the installation of dozens, even hundreds of Vietnamese citizens, attracted by the arrival of a commercial centre next to the village. This example may look anecdotic, but it embodies a new phenomenon as far as the minorities in Poland are concerned: the brand new development of a Vietnamese minority. The Vietnamese minority is, in my mind, one of the most interesting minorities to study in Poland.

Extraits

[...] This street is known as «Viettown», and reproduces the «traditional» scheme of immigration that we know in Western Europe. There, immigrants tend to gather themselves, so as to ensure two main goals: reproducing and transmitting the original national traditions, that is, their identity; and ensuring their security. Indeed, ensuring the security may be actually a real argument, since it is known that in some districts of Warsaw, streets at dusk are not safe for Vietnamese citizens. On the other hand, and more surprisingly, some Vietnamese immigrants have flooded to small Polish countryside villages, like Mrokow. [...]

[...] We have the example here of Nguyen Van Hao, a Vietnamese immigrant who arrived in Poland in 1970. He was a doctor, and decided logically to open his own private medicine center. However, this activity did not flourish, and he had to «come back to Vietnamese basics», by opening a Vietnamese restaurant in the city center of Warsaw. This example might illustrate what could be the future challenge of the Vietnamese community: to spread beyond their traditional «economic niches» and to develop more diversified activities. [...]

[...] Hence, we can say that the Vietnamese immigration has been, roughly speaking of course, an economic success, both for the Vietnamese themselves, who have quickly and well adapted themselves to the Polish economic environment, and for the Polish economy, which undoubtedly benefits from these dynamic and hard-working «entrepreneurs». The Vietnamese generally aim at taking advantage of their stay in Poland, to get a good education, and to provide their children with a good education as well. Indeed, more than 25% of them want to spend the money earned in Poland mainly to education. It may even be, from time to time, their main motivation for coming to Poland (at least, to Europe). [...]

[...] Those aspects somehow influence the process of integration of the Vietnamese in the Polish society. There is a problem with giving the right number of Vietnamese immigrants in Poland, notably because of illegal immigration, which, by definition, can not be studied and quantified. The number varies according to the basis of the survey: Vietnamese citizens who possess a resident permit; personal surveys made by university teachers specialized in Vietnam . Roughly speaking, the number of Vietnamese citizens on the Polish territory would be situated between and There are two kinds of members of this community: on the one hand, a few thousands Vietnamese are «long-term» immigrants, they have more or less integrated the Polish society and do not encounter any language-barrier. [...]

[...] The Vietnamese want to win. If we can work ten hours a day, they will work twelve hours. If we raise to twelve, they will work fourteen»[4].A lot is said about the working qualities of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese are generally believed to be hard working and honest. This may look quite basic and determinist, however it is true that the Polish workers generally refuse to make sacrifices that the Vietnamese are willing to accept. For instance would disagree with moving in another city to work would not accept to work later in the evening[5]. [...]