NEWS

Chinese have lived in Indonesian archipelago before the Dutch colonial era, and almost all of them are now already Indonesian citizens legally. However, the existence of Chinese has been constructed politically and socially, and the differences with other ethnic groups have been emphasized, and sometimes they have become the target of attack. For instance, in the May Riot in Jakarta 1998, so many Chinese shops were attacked by mobs, and this incident left a scar in Indonesian society.

In this presentation, I will explain how this "special" feature of Chinese has been formed historically in Indonesia. In this process, “the assimilation of Chinese” became a key concept, in other words, the process where people without a sense of belonging to Indonesia became "Indonesian".

At the same time, I will emphasize Chinese people who chose another way, that is, although they were born in Indonesia, they quit living there, and decided to live in China, Taiwan and other states. Their story is another one adhered behind the story of Chinese becoming Indonesian. By way of recognizing the story of who left Indonesia, it will be possible to do the relativization of “national history”.