My grandfather, Stanislaw Glazewski, was a laborer who came to this country from Poland in the early 1900s. All of my immigrant grandparents were peasants and laborers, not literate in their own language, who came here looking for work and opportunity. We don’t have many things to remember them by, but I do have a copy of my Grandfather’s Declaration of Intent to Become a Citizen. When he signed it in Brown County, Wisconsin in 1919, the form required him to swear that he was not an anarchist or a polygamist. He and all his sons eventually became steelworkers, at Republic Steel in South Chicago.
Steelworkers worked in constant heat and around dangerous equipment. They had to fight for basic rights and protections and for good wages. Family lore suggests that my grandfather was part of some of the large strikes at Republic Steel, however no one remembers the details.
I think of my family’s ascent into the middle class and of what became possible for families with good, union jobs. All of my grandfather’s children had houses, many of their children went to college, and their grand-children hold a myriad of professional jobs, from teachers, to business owners, to nonprofit managers, to IT specialists.
When I think about the way my grandfather worked—hard, in dangerous situations, but with the benefits and protections of collective bargaining—I am struck by the potential of what one or two generations of good, stable income can do for a family and for subsequent generations.
Photo: Amy Smoucha’s Grandfather’s Declaration of Intention upon entering the United States
