Recalling the Indies: Colonial Culture & Postcolonial IdentitiesJoost Coté, Loes Westerbeek Recalling the Indies reflects on a 'migrant story', the stories of the journeys of the Indisch Dutch from the days of their childhood in the Dutch East Indies, through their grim experiences of war-time imprisonment and the Indonesian revolution, to their eventual settlement in Australia. Almost half a million people of Dutch and Dutch-Indonesian descent were forced to leave their homeland when Indonesia claimed its independence from the Netherlands. Where would they go? To the Netherlands, whose language they spoke but from whose culture and climate they had become alienated? This was their first landing but here they were met with hostility. On to Australia? But there 'people of colour' were confronted by the infamous White Australia Policy. Eventually approximately 10,000 Indisch Dutch people settled in Australia; many more settled in North America, others in New Zealand. In this volume Joost Cote and Loes Westerbeek have brought together a broad range of contributors to tell the story of the Australian Indisch Dutch for the first time. Contributions range from the personal stories of the migrants themselves, to essays by Dutch and Australian scholars working in the field. |
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