The Polish American Historical Association (PAHA) is initiating the Polish American Memoirs Project in June of 2001. The purpose is to preserve and record the Polish experience in the United States through written personal experiences that provide insight into the nature, meaning and preciousness of ethnicity.

Dr. Thomas S. Gladsky, past president of PAHA and author of three books and a score of articles on the Polish experience in America, will serve as project director. The memoirs will be placed in the Polish American Archives at the Orchard Lake Schools in Orchard Lake, Michigan where the Polish American Historical Association has its offices. In addition, Gladsky plans to edit a collection of memoirs for publication and to publish selected Memoirs in "Polish American Studies" and on the PAHA web-site.

"We ask contributors," Gladsky explains, "to record and reflect upon those relationships, events, and experiences both subtle and dramatic, personal and communal, that best express what it means and has meant to be an American of Polish descent. For some, memoirs will describe a determining moment from which the writer first or perhaps more thoroughly came to understand the ethnic self. For others, the memoir will record people, places, and things that express some small but poignant part of Polish ethnicity. These memoirs will, I hope, be produced by people from a wide range of experiences, from diverse points of view, from different regions of the country and from different generations. They will collectively record the diversity as well as the core of Polish ethnicity."

According to Dr. Karen Majewski, Executive Secretary of PAHA, this project fits the mission of the Polish American Historical Society perfectly. "For more than a half century, the Polish American Historical Association has sought to document the Polish experience in America through scholarly research on the immigrant process, traditions, religious life, organizational activities, and individual achievements," Majewski points out. "This project will add another dimension to that effort. We are excited about it."