Feature / At the border / Ba Lan by Rafal Milach

The Vietnamese are one of the biggest national minorities in Poland. The majority of Poland’s 30 000 Vietnamese live in Warsaw, where they earn their living mostly by selling clothes and running bars and restaurants. Almost 80% of them are illegal immigrants. The language barrier, Polish intolerance, rigid working and resident laws are the reasons why they have created a closed society, hardly ever letting strangers in. However, young Vietnamese are already third-generation immigrants. Poles know very little about their life and culture. They work, study and have fun almost exclusively with other Vietnamese.