As indicated in Chapter Two, the Polish population in Bradford has a substantial history going back to the end of the Second World War. In the context of the cumulative argument being developed in this book, this chapter seeks to provide a fulsome account of the contemporary social dynamics within this population, framed within their particular history and trajectories of migration. Some of the background data about this community could easily have been presented in Chapter Two, where the history of diversity in Bradford was sketched, but it has been retained for presentation here in order that this chapter may have its own internal coherence. The story that emerges here provides a powerful comparative account of the internal diversity within communities that is a significant element of the account of the Bradfordian Pakistani communities. It speaks of the power of collective constructions of a past history in shaping current attitudes towards fellow community members, and again reveals the relevance of intersectional identities shaping both individuals’ experience of their environment, and their response to it.

Despite the attention given to the recent arrival of Poles in Britain following Poland's entry into the European Union (EU) in 2004, Polish migration into Britain has an extensive history, with significant immigration in the 19th century followed by another flow after the First World War. Contemporary understandings of the presence of Poles in Britain are shaped by the extensive entry of Poles following the end of the Second World War, by a further influx in the 1980s following the suppression of the Solidarity Movement and by the recent arrival of young economic migrants following the opening of the British labour market to citizens of the new EU member states. Garapich (2008b) indicates that within the Polish population, this historical patterning of migration flows is echoed in popular narratives of settlement that make distinctions between these three cohorts in terms of their shared identity and characteristics. These narratives, in turn, have implications for the ways in which members of these different migration cohorts have related to life in Britain, and to each other. This chapter focuses on the trajectories of inter-and intra-group dynamics and the process of identity formation with regard to two cohorts: the settled post-war community and recent, post-2004 Polish migrants.