To be an immigrant in Poland - An analysis of the experiences of immigrants from non-EU countries

This article analyses the experience of immigrants who have migrated to Poland from the point of view of the major social dimensions of this experience: the organisational dimension which involves the immigrant's relations with various formal public and civic institutions, the economical dimension which determines the immigrant's material standard of living, the socio-cultural dimension which involves the immigrant's relations with members of the receiving society and the identity dimension which involves the immigrant's empowerment and self-identification. The emergent reconstruction of immigrants' vision of social reality uncovers many subjective meanings, positive and negative emotions, heterogeneous experiences and individual strategies of coping with the status of "being an immigrant." This analysis is based on the assumption that differences in immigrants' focus on the different social dimensions and the resulting hierarchy of importance of the dimensions are a very powerful indicator of an immigrant's conditions of life in a given country.