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Foreword
Aimee Dawis’ The Chinese of Indonesia and Their Search for Identity: The Relationship Between Collective Memory and the Media captures a precarious moment in Indonesia’s history—when Suharto’s New Order enforced its assimilationist policy on Chinese Indonesians. Emerging out of the 1965–1966 Communist cleansing bloodbath, the New Order government issued a ban on the use of Chinese languages, traditions, and arts in public in its effort to cut any links with Communist China. Chinese schools were closed, and Chinese Indonesians were urged to change their Chinese names. The book brings into the spotlight a generation who was born, raised, and came to age within this climate of repression.
The climate of repression gave way when the “Reformasi” movement against authoritarianism forced President Suharto to step down from power on May 21, 1998. This transition to openness was sadly marked by a dark moment: One week before