Identity and Integration of Indonesian to Dutch culture

Figure 1: A photo of half Dutch, half Asian kids. I met them when I visited my friends in Delft during the free weekend in Amsterdam. I felt that this  picture may depict the integration of two cultures to make some culture in between.

Today we took a long trip to Bronbeek where we met up with Humphrey Delacroix who told us the story of the Dutch-Indonesian community in the Netherlands. For lunch, we had some awesome Dutch-Indonesian food during which we got to talk to some of the Dutch-Indonesian community. The conversation we had at the dinner table was most interesting, so I guess I will focus on that for my journal today.

Unfortunately, I did not write down the name of the Indonesian who was at our table, but I definitely learned a lot from him. His parents immigrated to the Netherlands when he was young, so he grew up here without learning the Indonesian language. I was interested in knowing if he went to school as the only Indonesian in his class, and he answered yes. He felt very different growing up, but since he grew up here, he feels more Dutch than he does Indonesian, and even though he was the only Indonesian of his class, he adjusted to it and went along with his position in society. Since he is a second generation Indonesian in the Netherlands, I would expect him to have an identity crisis and not identify with the Dutch or Indonesian community. At home, he lives under the influence of his parents who identify more with the Indonesian culture. However, the moment he steps out of the boundary of his parent’s home, he lives under the influence of the Dutch community. So he is neither Dutch nor Indonesian, but somewhere in between, which is what Humphrey calls the Dutch-Indonesian community.

I learned about how the government separated the Indonesians into different districts, so they weren’t allowed to live together, which explains why our Indonesian friend was the only one of his skin color in his class. In a way, I would consider this an intelligent move by the Dutch government to force integration of Indonesians into the Dutch community, but having the Dutch adjust to Indonesian culture would make this process more mutual. Another shocking fact I learned about is that his parents were placed into an asylum and forced to eat Dutch food instead of Indonesian food as an attempt to eliminate the Indonesian culture and replace it with the Dutch culture. In the reader on page 148, it mentions how "classical integration theory argues that immigrants preserve their food habits long after they have become assimilated into their new surroundings." This implies that immigrants tend to abandon their language, culture, and music more readily than their food. So forcing Indonesians to eat Dutch food instead of familiar food may have forced the immigrants to assimilate into the new surroundings much faster than normal.

Living in the Netherlands, it makes sense that the Dutch culture would be considered the superior culture, so being more Dutch makes you a “better person”. I think it’s a bit ridiculous to define or even think that one culture is better than another culture. What about the British setting up a colony in Hong Kong? If we follow the same line of thinking, then by definition, the British culture is better than the Chinese culture. The same goes for the Spanish conquering the Philippines. Forcing Filipinos to become more Spanish would create a Filipino-Spanish community. So integration between two cultures will ultimately create a culture that is somewhere in between the two, which makes for a more diverse community, but still does not make the people completely one community since there will always be differences between all these different cultures. There’s always something that will make a person Dutch, Luxembourgian, Chinese, Filipino, Italian… etc. Will there ever come a time when all of these people will come together and integrate themselves to make some culture in between? If that day ever comes, it would make a very interesting blend between all these people and the definition of one culture being superior will be much more difficult to define.

I do happen to know of one solution to this problem of division due to cultural differences among people, and it’s found in the book of Colossians chapter 3: “… there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.” After going to many art museums on this trip, I think it’s safe to conclude that Christ is pretty famous and well known, since so many artists have depicted their opinions on what Christ means to them via their art. But in this verse, it mentions that if a person chooses Christ, then it doesn’t matter what culture you are from, what economic status you hold, where in the social hierarchy you fall in. I learned that the Indonesians in the Netherlands are still one community because they all shared the same experiences of suffering under the Dutch government, but what if people don’t share those same experiences?  There would still be a dividing line between two communities. However, because Christ is available to everyone, and because Christ abolished all those differences, everyone can be made one community through Christ.