Polka is no joke. It is alive and well and even resides on over 26,000 web sites! Polka festivals pepper the United States like the seasoning in your grandmother's stew, and not just in rural areas. Downtown Chicago and mid-town Manhattan are among the spots where polka's sound, dance, costume, and traditions come alive.

     While polka has been slammed for what it is not, it seldom has received a good look or listen to see and hear what it really is. Nonetheless the neglected stepchild has shown amazing staying power and has an intriguing history. Over 150 years have passed since the initial polka craze swept Europe in the 1840s. Then polka was considered a scandalously suggestive dance. Imagine a man and a woman, arms around each other hopping frenetically across the floor-a far cry from the courtly minuets that preceded polka! The fad soon spread to the US producing tunes like "Jenny Lind Polka" about that 1850s singing sensation and "Rail Splitter Polka" composed for Abe Lincoln's 1860 presidential campaign.

     For the next fifty years, waves of immigrants from the polka-loving lands of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe streamed to America. The music and dance soon became an emblem of their ethnic identities. To name a few, German-, Polish-, Czech-, Slovenian-, Mexican- and Finish-American styles of polka emerged. The music and dancing styles have evolved, influenced by the diverse American musical environment, but each of the styles keeps its own recognizable sound. No matter if it's fiddles, horns or squeezeboxes, it's still a polka band, as long as that peppy rhythm propels energetic dancing couples around the floor.

     But with all the stereotypes labeling polka, why do thousands keep right on doing it? Because it is close to the hearts of polka people-polkas remind us of the struggles of immigrant grandparents. Polkas resonate with the sacrifices of hard-working people who scratched out farms in the Midwest's climatic extremes, who dug a living out of coalmines, steel mills and packinghouses, nurturing hope for a better life for their kids. They remind us of family gatherings, singing songs from the Old Country, of tasty ethnic specialties cooked with love by a mother who needs no recipe. They are imbued with our communities' deepest values: family, religion, honesty and the work ethic, the American Dream. It's who we are and who we refuse to be ashamed of being. That may sound like a heavy load for some happy music to carry, but a polka can do it without missing a beat.