AUDIO text>Language and
Communication
The problem of communication is this, that the
Polish people here, with few exceptions, didn't see any need in
learning the English language in the very beginning. Maybe they
didn't have the opportunity, because if you're a miner or if you,
if you work in textiles, and dust and noisy conditions, who do
you talk to? To nobody. You know, you talk to yourself, and then
when you come home to your Polish wife and, or to your Polish
husband for that matter, then you converse in the language which
is the easiest for you. Then I think it is also true that some
Poles lived with the hope that one day sooner or later the Polish
Question would be resolved and everybody would kind of return,
so what's the point? But when you talk to Poles who, who knew
that whatever happens, "I'm here, be it for a short time
or long time, I have to do, I have to master the language."
But unfortunately lack of communication is something which breeds
prejudice, lack of communication can breed isolation, and so forth,
and from here you can go on and on and on, and then you can see
how the problems will mount. Because if you feel threatened, if
you feel not wanted, if you can't communicate that with the indigenous
population, then obviously you become more and more insular. You
lose the will to be, and, er...then you drift into it, into your
past.