State Gets Its Own Version of Polish Solidarity Movement

Less than three weeks before Pope John Paul II arrives in Southern California, representatives of Solidarity ( Solidarnosc ) from around California gathered Saturday to form a statewide chapter of the outlawed Polish workers’ movement at a Yorba Linda center that bears the pontiff’s name.

About 40 representatives of the group from San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento and other cities met at the Pope John Paul II Polish Center, beneath red and white Solidarity banners and a poster of Lech Walesa, the group’s founder, to establish bylaws and elect officers. Walesa has been invited to join the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, but it is uncertain whether the Polish government will permit the visit.

More than 5,000 recent Polish emigres from around the state were represented at the gathering, according to Michael Dutkowski, newly elected president of Solidarity California and a member of the center’s parish council. There are about 50 affiliates of the organization outside of Poland, he said.

“We are mostly a support organization” for Solidarity members still in Poland, “for them and their democratic movement,” said Dutkowski, 40, of Orange.

All of the proceedings, which also marked the seventh anniversary of Solidarity’s founding in the city of Gdansk, were conducted in Polish. As part of the observance, a luncheon, followed by a lecture and poetry reading, folk songs and dances are scheduled for today.

The Yorba Linda center, with its adjoining church, is considered one of the focal points of Polish life in Southern California, along with Our Lady of the Bright Mount Church in downtown Los Angeles and the St. Maximilian Kolbe Mission in San Diego.

Less than a year old, the center has a mailing list of 1,800 area families, according to Dutkowski, who also is active in the Polish-American Congress. At the church, three masses are celebrated each Sunday, one in Polish, one in English and one in Polish and English, all conducted by Father Joseph A. Karp, a Polish-American priest originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., who has spent the past two decades in Orange County.

On Saturdays, classes are held in Polish language, history and culture for children of the newcomers, as well as for interested Polish-Americans who have been in the United States for several generations, Dutkowski said. The center has also scheduled a harvest festival Sept. 12-13.

In Warsaw, Dutkowski was vice president of a 1,000-member Solidarity chapter at the elevator factory where he worked as an accountant. With the help of Catholic Charities, he came to Orange County four years ago, after a 15-month stay in West Germany. Dutkowski, who had no friends or family here, said the choice of Orange County was “destiny.”

Plans for establishing the center were initially approved by the late Bishop William A. Johnson, who also arranged for a loan from the Diocese of Orange to buy the land and begin construction, Dutkowski said.

Polish immigrants, like other newcomers from Eastern Bloc countries where job assignments and most social services are provided by the government, suffer a certain amount of culture shock when they arrive in the United States, Dutkowski said.

“The United States is a great country,” he said, “but you have to be smart and strong here.”

Like many in the Polish community, Dutkowski is excited about the Pope’s visit. The center was allocated only 25 tickets to the Sept. 15 Mass at the Los Angeles Coliseum, but Karp was able to locate a few more. For his part, Dutkowski plans to attend Masses to be celebrated by the Pope in San Francisco and Monterey, as well as at the Coliseum.