@article {569,
	title = {{\textquoteleft}White Dress, Guests and Presents{\textquoteright}: Polish Migrant Families{\textquoteright} Practice of First Communion and Negotiation of Catholic Identities in Wales},
	journal = {Central and Eastern European Migration Review},
	volume = {7},
	year = {2018},
	pages = {165-83},
	chapter = {165},
	abstract = {<p>This article examines how migration to Wales modifies Polish Catholic families\&rsquo; religious practices. It focuses on how the First Communion ceremony is performed. Within the Polish migrant community I witnessed three distinct ways of arranging this. Some families travelled to Poland to their parish churches of origin. Of those who celebrated it in Wales, some did so in a Polish church, others in their children\&rsquo;s Catholic school\&rsquo;s church. These choices had different effects. Holding First Communion in Poland confirmed children\&rsquo;s Polish identity and home-country bonds. It exemplified both the fluidity of the families\&rsquo; intra-European migration experience and the strength of transnational networking. Holding it in the local Polish parish reinforced both families\&rsquo; and childrens\&rsquo; identification as Polish Catholics. In the school\&rsquo;s church, it strengthened migrant families\&rsquo; negotiations of belonging and their children\&rsquo;s integration into the Welsh locality. Mothers\&rsquo; active involvement in all settings led some to contest Polish religious customs and revealed emerging identifications related to children\&rsquo;s wellbeing and belonging. Unlike arrangements traditional in Poland, families\&rsquo; religious practices in Wales seem to have become more individual, less collective.</p>},
	keywords = {Catholic identity, First Communion ritual, mothers, Polish migrants, Wales},
	issn = {2300-1682},
	doi = {10.17467/ceemr.2018.03},
	author = {Kaczmarek-Day, Aleksandra}
}
