Return

Return is a visual research project within the Polish communities in Chicago-the traditional capital of the Polish diaspora in the United States, also referred to as New Poland - that documents the overlapping issues of gentrification, globalization, Whiteness, individualization and returning migration. Return attempts to interpret how the interplay between ethnicity and social status mobility is sustained through Whiteness. Through photography, oral history and research, I explore who gets to be American. Why is there a desire to unlearn and forget? To take on an identity that adheres to the capitalist public sphere? The foundation of Return’s narrative is shaped by places, individual stories of immigration/return migration, from and to Poland, and my own personal experience as a Polish immigrant.