The Grasinski Girls: The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made

Being a 4th generation Polish American this book gave me better understanding of my previous generations. My realatives grew up in the same time and west side area of Grand Rapids, MI as the Grasinski's. This book shed light and gave answers to the questions I have wondered of my families past generations. The unique traits and values I find in these women are ones that I carry myself as a modern day women being of Polish herritage. The history and facts given in this book where excellent in regards to the Polish immigrants settling in Grand Rapids, MI and the life they established here. Which can still be seen in the beautiful historic Catholic churches that stand there today in a now diverse community.

I picked this book up just to glance at it without intending to read it. I read the first two pages and was hooked and completed the entire book several days later. What hooked me was Mary Erdmans' engaging style of writing about how class, gender, ethnicity and religion intersected in defining the post-World War II experience of her large Polish-American family. The author, a sociologist, focused on her mother and five aunts with extensive, sensitive interviews. She knew that sociologists, including feminist ones, had written critically about the experience of women like them who raised families in working class suburbs with manicured lawns. Her subjects though, contrary to some feminist views, did not see themselves as having led oppressed lives of quiet desperation. At the same time their lives involved unique challenges and struggles. This is an especially good book for anyone interested in the Polish-American experience, feminism, or the American working class.

Mary Erdman's book is a wonderful read for both the academic and the non-academic alike. Her unique form of using oral history to examine a very understudied but nevertheless vital part of American history, allows women from all backgrounds to find truth in the story of the Grasinski Girls. A great addition to the library of any woman.