I am one of the people…		  
  By Natalia Ksiezyk
Based on an essay of the same title by Glenn Patterson in Lapsed Protestant (2006)		  
 


I am one of 303 million residents of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I am one of the (estimated) 50 million[1] citizens of “God’s Playground”[2], a country throughout history caught in the middle of superpower struggles..

I am one of the uncounted third culture kids[3] (TCKs), who cannot claim just one country as their homeland. I am one of a growing number of hyphenated Americans, of the subgroup which places Polish before the hyphen.

I am one of the 10-17 million Polish nationals living abroad and one of 9 million pursuing the American dream.
My hyphenated identity remains hidden in the United States until the moment I am asked my last name or when I hear a Polak joke.  In Poland, I remain incognito equally easily, until I venture into academic topics of discussion. 

When watching a sporting match which challenges my dual identity, I tend to root for the underdog.  In the 2002 World Cup match I cheered for the red and white Eagles so that both countries would advance to the next round.  Both were eventually eliminated: Poland in the first round; the US in the quarterfinals.

I am one of the 24 million  residents of the Lone Star State.  Although my family does not own a ranch and I don’t ride a horse, I have been heard saying with pride that I wasn’t born in Texas but I got there as fast as I could.

Although Spanish-speakers comprise almost a third of the Texas population, I belong to a much smaller group who learned espańol in school as a foreign language, and a still smaller group of Polish Texans who know Spanish. 
 
I am the only Polish Texan living in Mar del Plata, Argentina.  Now I speak castellano.
 

[1] Based on the 38 million current population of Poland (Source: GUS), plus the 10(GUS) to 15-17(MZS) million estimated Polish citizens living abroad.  http://wiadomosci.polska.pl/spoleczenstwo/article,,id,245143,from,rss.htm

[2] Term coined by Norman Davies in his book about Poland, God’s Playground.

[3] Term coined by sociologist Ruth Hill Useem in the 1960s, referring to “someone who [as a child] has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture.”