The reappearance in 1918 of an independent Polish state on Europe's map fulfilled the dreams of generations of Poles both in the homeland and in the Diaspora. Unexpectedly, however, the existence of a sovereign Poland compelled the Diaspora to confront questions about its future. Was one to return to Poland, or to remain abroad in a foreign country? Political émigrés active in homeland politics, and who believed that they would not have emigrated had Poland not been partitioned, now faced a decision about returning to the homeland. So did those who had left for economic reasons. Some 96,000 American Poles did re-emigrate between 1920 and 1925, but many returned because the new Poland proved to be “somehow not quite like we want her to be, like we understood her and imagined her.” Disillusioned with Polish politics, daunted by lost economic investments, and feeling appreciated only for their dollars, Polish-American re-emigrants came to realize that their future was in America. The five Polish emigration congresses held between 1918 and 1925, in a broadly symbolic way, reflected this mental shift. In the 1918 Congress at Detroit, the American Poles enthusiastically greeted the new Poland. While asserting their loyalty to America, they asserted, “we do not have the right to forget about the Fatherland.” However, at the fifth Congress in 1925, the delegates gathered under the banner of “the immigration for the immigration.”

A number of factors prompted the Poles in America to give priority now to their own needs and to their future in America. The vast majority in fact decided to remain in America, and once they decided, they became more involved in community life and ethnic organizations. The second and third generations were coming of age, but in an environment of rapidly advancing Americanization. Would the children and grandchildren of the original immigrants retain their ancestral language and customs, and continue to support the organizations and institutions established by the first generation? Advancing Americanization was but one part of a dilemma about the survival of the Polish-American community and its organizational infrastructure. Racist immigration legislation adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1921 and 1924 severely restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe and ended the age of mass European migration to the United States.