In the middle of a snowstorm on a Saturday morning, members of the Polish American Club came to meet with Polish Club students and Polish language students to play a new board game, Kolejka (or "The Queue"). The game was released last year by the Instytut Pamięci Narodowy (Institute for National Remembrance), and designed to teach the younger generation, as well as remind the older generation, about everyday life in 1980s Poland. Players line up tokens representing members of their family in lines in front of shops; when the delivery trucks finally come, there are not enough items to fill the shelves; only the first few people in line receive goods, and the rest go to the black market to barter and trade for what they need to get by. The game is quite complex, and takes place in several stages. It is the brainchild of Karol Madaj, who has been designing games for IPN about a variety of historical subjects.

The idea behind the game is twofold: on the one hand, it serves as a marker of cultural memory, and playing the game often evokes stories from those who have lived through such times. On the other hand, its lighthearted nature and retro design details keep the practice of remembering fun. For families living in emigration, raising a second generation of kids here in the U.S., the stakes of remembering and explaining Polish culture are even higher. Diaspora activities usually revolve around folk elements of Polish culture such as food, costumes, and dancing. A board game like Kolejka introduces information about Poland's recent past, a life that can feel very remote from today's market-driven democracy. 

The event on Saturday also featured Małgorzata Mazurek, who was the academic advisor on Kolejka, due to her research on consumerism in Socialist Poland. Dr. Mazurek delivered a talk on Friday, Feburary 1 on her current project, "Reconfiguring Backwardness: Polish Social Scientists and the Making of the 'Third World.'"