What I’m writing in here it’s just my personal perspective of the vision that Italians in general have of Poland and Poles. Of course I don’t put myself in this group, well I’m Italian but I have a deeper knowledge about Poland and Poles than Italians.
If I would ask about this to my friends in my city (just 50000 people) what they would say about Poland is that…this is a poor country in the Far East, that people are poor and they are coming to Italy to still our job! They don’t actually know anything about Poland except the fact that the last Pope got born there and that there is not communism system anymore, that’s what actually people told me when I decided to come here “…what are you going to do there?” …nothing bad but not even good
Of course things are changing let’s say that the Polish worker saving money is not anymore “our” stereotype of immigrant (after the crash of Iron Curtain in Italy after Poles there were Albanians and nowadays there are Romanians …the bad comments are so shifted to other countries!). I think that besides this big number of immigrants and refugee from Poland we had in Italy between the 80s and 90s, Italians didn’t change their opinion about this aspect of polish society because they don’t really know much about it.
…Things are changing, for the majority of people seeing Poland in the list of new EU countries means that this country is not that poor… and the capitalism is coming there as well…
what I wrote is what I think Italians in general think about Poland, for example in my family such comment would sound totally new, maybe because we are used to travel, but about people that are all the time in Italy, there is not that big will to get to know a country which is developing right now.
Anyway I have a very good opinion of Polish people and Poland and I’m spending a good time here, I really believe that because of EU, in two three years all this ideas will sound strange and old.
Ciao Ciao Ale
