Page - 123 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 1/2015

In 1936, the Polish Social-Economic Institute advertised a prize for the best memoirs from Poles living in the US, canada, france, and South America. Polish migrants were asked to write their individual migration stories, which were to include not only their contemporary living conditions in the diaspora, but also their reasons for leaving as well as all aspects of the migration process. The contest was very successful; during a short period of time, the institute received a great number of memoirs. A number of them were later published in four volumes. Each volume includes a selection of memoirs from a single destination country or region. This paper focuses on only one of the four memoir volumes: the one about South America. Pamiet- niki Emigrantów: Ameryka poludniowa (Emigrants’ Diaries: South America) is an important source for Polish emigration patterns and emigration experiences. In addition, these memoirs are significant historical testimonies to the mobility of peasants and manual laborers, a kind of migration that has left few written sources. By the late nineteenth century, both Brazil and Argentina had become popular destina- tions for migrants from eastern Europe. Poles predominated, but Ruthenians and Jews also contributed to the rapid growth of large-scale migration in the early 1870s. for many, these countries offered the prospect of better working and living conditions. In many cases, social and economic pressure forced people to go, so that migration to the New World was their last resort. These two countries adopted very immigration-friendly policies in order to colonize the yet-undeveloped areas of their vast territories. In the 1850s, the Argentine political theorist and diplomat Juan Bautista Alberdi (1853) introduced the principle gobernar es poblar (“to govern is to populate”), which became important for future Argentine immigration policies. Their aim was to populate the hinterlands and to build up a strong economy. The Brazilian government followed a similar policy and tried to attract migrants with cheap land and, in many cases, free passage. Both countries wanted to advance and expand their economic positions with the help of the various migrants. Before the dreams and hopes of both Polish migrants and South American governments could come true, the migrants had to endure a long and exhausting journey. Some of them traveled for many weeks before they reached their final destinations: the port cities in Brazil or Argentina. however, the journey led through various European cities, so that the migrants had to cross several borders and pass several health checkpoints. One could say that the migration from eastern Europe was a journey in stages. Mobile culture Studies. The Journal, Vol. 1 2015, 123-124 Double blind reviewed article Open Access: content is licensed under cc BY 3.0 Sea travel experiences of Polish migrants on the way to South America, 1870–1930 Extended Summary Elisabeth Janik