In their strive to assimilate with white American society, Poles have a long history of anglicization, translation, transformation, and laceration of their last names.  The use of artifacts from Polish Americans working class past to remove the suffix of their name that defines them as Polish explores the divide that Polish americans struggled with in their idealistic pursuits of “whiteness” and the reality of their working class stature.  The action of deliberately changing something as powerful as a name speaks to the struggle Poles faced in their persecution by Americans as dim witted and the use of various derogatory terms against them.