Watch the video version here. The full transcription is available below.
Teta (U.S.) moderates this discussion. Ariel Santikarma (U.S.), Latisha Horstink (Saudi Arabia), and Ardi Kuhn (U.S.) — who are all Indonesian and white, and live outside of Indonesia — are in conversation with each other.
Read their past Buah zine interviews:
[INTRO MUSIC]
Teta:
Welcome to a Buah zine conversation between three very special guests. They are all past Buah zine interviewees who will be talking about complicating the thinking and the perceptions around their multi-heritage backgrounds, specifically around whiteness and Indonesian heritage.
Responding from Saudi Arabia is Latisha Horstink, who is a part-Dutch, part-Indonesian artist and illustrator born and raised in Riyadh. They graduated from interactive media design at The Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague in the Netherlands in 2019.
Responding from the U.S. is Ardi Kuhn, who is an American and Indonesian graduate student at the Asien-Afrika-Institut, University of Hamburg. His current research interest is in postcolonial queer Southeast Asian studies.
And also from the U.S. is Ariel Santikarma, who is a mixed Balinese-American writer, artist, and student of anthropology at The George Washington University. She is based in so-called Virginia, land of the Massawomack and Manahoac, and Washington, D.C., land of the Nacotchtank and Piscataway nations. Her research interest lies in the enduring presence of past violence, with a particular attention to the legacy of 1965 in Bali, Indonesia. This work informs her broader interest in questions of power, state violence, gender, sexuality, and race.
And I’m your moderator, Teta, the founder and editor-in-chief of Buah zine, an online and printed zine about Indonesian heritage in diaspora that launched in 2018.
Welcome everyone! Thank you Latisha, Ariel and Ardi for taking the time to have this first of many conversations! I’m very excited to see where this goes. Let’s get started. Just to note, Ariel can’t stay with us long today, so we could see this conversation continue further at another time. So, for my first question, since all three of you were interviewed by Buah zine in the past, you were all asked, “What does your Indonesian heritage mean to you?” Has your answer changed since that interview? How has it changed, or how has it stayed the same? If we want to start with Ariel?
Ariel:
I don’t think it has changed, at all, which is kind of interesting because I think part of how I qualify and characterize this experience of being mixed is that it’s never really static. It’s always something that’s dynamic and fluid, depending on the geographic locality that I’m in, or the people that I’m around. And so, it’s funny for me to notice, for you to ask me this question, for me to notice that the answer has stayed the same. And I think the answer has stayed the same because I think it’s rooted in the part of my heritage that is about survival. And I think that the values that arise from that experience are so core to who I am. And I think that, you know, my family’s experience surviving 1965 and the work that we do to remember puts into mind for me the kind of responsibility and creative urgency of survival. And so, I think for me, my Indonesian heritage is, and has always, and probably will always be about the responsibility of survival and orienting me towards social justice in whatever realm I occupy in a particular moment. So it emits all of that dynamism and fluidity; I feel like that’s the thing that really grounds me. So it has stayed the same.
Teta:
Latisha, if you want to go next?
Latisha:
Yeah. I also read everyone else’s interviews before this and, actually, Ariel’s statement also really resonated with me. For my own, I think also it stayed pretty much the same as well in the way that it is as a text. But I know at the moment I was still a bit naive to it, and I was more romanticizing the idea of this being Indonesian. And I think when I made that statement, I said it with a lot of pride and a lot of nationalism and really kind of an ego as well. And I think over the past few years, I’ve been more critical of what is actually going on and actually delving myself more into current politics and structures that are there. I think previously I was more focused on the history, and I mean, it’s a timeline, so you gotta work your way up. So I was quite focused on the history of it all, which was really interesting to understand in your own way and place yourself within that, too. So yeah, I think now I’m less pride–I’m still very prideful of it, of course, naturally, but I’m more…I’m not afraid to be embarrassed of something Indonesian politics says or does. And I think I can be more critical instead of doing, I guess, what the Dutch people do and kind of just shoving the bad parts under the rug. I’m more aware, trying to be more aware of it.
Teta:
And Ardi?
Ardi:
Yeah. I think in my interview I said my Indonesian heritage means everything to me. So that’s still true. When you interviewed me, I was in Jogja, still living there, and I hadn’t been there for six years. And since then, I’ve left. So I was in Europe getting my master’s degree, which involves studying a lot about Indonesian history and language and culture, and that’s only made me more aware of the Western privilege that I had when I was there and, you know, its history and its capacity for harm. It’s not changed in the sense that it means everything to me, but it’s just changed in the way that it’s just even more complex when you really get into it. But it’s not a journey that I’m going to give up. It’s always rewarding to keep getting into this further. I mean being in the Netherlands and connecting with people who were critical of the colonial history, even though their families were involved in some way, like in previous generations, that was really awesome–scholars that are continuing the public discussion there. It’s all really cool. And I love that my Indonesian heritage is what allowed me to really engage with that.
Teta:
Alright, for this next question, let’s talk about how your respective families taught you about or discussed with you about your multi-heritage backgrounds. How did your family discuss your white heritage vs. your Indonesian heritage? What lessons did you learn growing up? Let’s start with Ardi this time.
Ardi:
When I looked at Latisha’s and Ariel’s interviews, we all had really different ways of growing up, but maybe I’m a little similar to Latisha in that I was a third culture kid. So I was raised in a country that was not the U.S. and not Indonesia, and I moved around a lot, raised in a diplomatic American family. And so the world of the international schools and the international NGOs and the embassies, it was a bubble. I wouldn’t say it was an ethnically or racially uniformed bubble–it was very cosmopolitan. And the way I was raised in this culture is kind of like post-racial, “Look at us,” you know, “We are the future.” Since then, I’ve realized that it’s quite problematic; that kind of cosmopolitanism was, you know, another form of internationalism, which privileges whiteness. How it relates to the way I was thought to think about my cultures and my heritage was, you know, I never was made to feel weird for being mixed. I knew a lot of other mixed people, but I wasn’t raised Indonesian. In the international school, how you speak English is how you are received. And there was still a lot of privileging of the American side of me, which my mother, who’s Indonesian, I mean, she was all too happy to be a part of that culture. It’s only when I got to the States at age 15 was where I was racialized. And my dad was like, when I was applying to colleges, my dad was like, “You should check Asian because you’re Asian.” And this is the first time that I was made to understand myself in this way, in my own family. I wasn’t raised using terms like blasteran or campuran and even Indo, all of that came so much later because the way I was raised was in this multi-heritage, third culture kid–it somehow didn’t really matter. And it only started to matter when I actually got to the States. And that’s when it got really hard for me, ironically, because the whole international school system is like, we’re preparing these kids to go back home or to be successful in the West. But it didn’t prepare me for the real ways you get racialized.
Teta:
Ariel, if you’d like to share your answer next?
Ariel:
Yeah. So that’s really interesting. I lived in Bali for the formative kind of years of my life. And then obviously, that experience, there was a sense of being “different,” but I didn’t really have the language to articulate that or understand exactly why. And then I think it was moving to the United States, and just feeling so marked. Just the sensation of being marked before you even open your mouth. And that was something that obviously lived with me throughout growing up in Virginia–it’s a really intense racial environment. So I think that is an extreme kind of environment to live and grow up in, and so for a long time, I was really focused again on survival, and survival for me meant assimilation and let me not do anything that will make me seem more “other.” And I think my dad really early on saw the effects of that on his children. And I remember growing up with him constantly wanting to say, you know, “Don’t forget where you come from. You’re still Balinese.” And just constantly, constantly, constantly making sure that I remember where I’m coming from. And so that was an interesting experience.
And I think the way that I kind of coped with it going into high school, and I would say middle school, high school, early college, is raising my consciousness about structural violence and race, and gaining a lexicon of why this was happening to me and to my father. And I think, you know, we kind of make fun–I know Teta and I kind of make fun of it now of the stereotypical like, uwu, mixed tears, “I’m so different.” And I think that actually was a really sacred stage of that time of figuring myself out and just sitting in that for a little bit. And then I think I moved towards recognizing my proximity to whiteness and feeling such an intense responsibility to really reckon with that, because as I was growing up, I also recognized–I think there was a point in high school where I realized, like, I feel so much safer when I’m able to go out into the world with my white mother, “but I have a white mother,” you know, and when I’m going through college applications, or when I’m going through, like I was on the debate team in high school, I had a white mother who could take me, and there was this social value that I implicitly and sometimes explicitly recognized from the experience of being so proximate to whiteness. So I think in excavating that experience out of also my experience of being racialized, like learning to hold those two was really difficult. And I felt like, you know, the few resources there were to kind of talk about mixedness, I just didn’t feel like they really held those two things with honesty, and honesty about the difficult things about that guilt and, you know, just the really heavy material responsibility of that. Like, there’s a stake for me in that, in figuring out that duality. So there were just no resources to think through that. And then I think, entering college and meeting you, Teta, my friends of radical other Indo people, and realizing that I actually get to decide like the narrative around my identity. And I think that in thinking about that, I’ve learned to, I don’t know, enter kind of a new phase, I think from what I was doing growing up, which is, I think imagining more creatively and with like liberation at kind of the center of it, about my identity and deciding actually I don’t need to try to mold myself into particular predestined categories that were decided for me by colonialism or white supremacy or whatever. I get to decide that for myself.
I think one big aspect of that for me has been really delving into my own queerness. And I think that in high school, being marked as other racially meant that I could not even think about publicly marking myself as queer, and so repressing that as much as possible and repressing so many other aspects of my identity in order to fit this idea of whiteness, like good girl kind of stereotype, right. So I think, yeah, now I’m at the space where I’m trying to be really free and to imagine myself beyond these confines and to imagine myself as whole already, you know. So I think that’s kind of what I was up to growing up.
Teta:
Excellent. Thank you so much. Latisha?
Latisha:
So, I really relate to both stories as well. Growing up in my family, we honestly did not talk about it much. It was kind of, I mean, when you’re growing up, it becomes your norm because it is the life you’re living. So you don’t really have a choice to think about it, ’cause it’s just your standard of living and yeah. As well going to international school, there’s a lot of other mixed kids, there’s such a variation of nationalities and races and everything. Like Ardi said, you know, it’s also this thing like, “We are the future.” I think once I started realizing it or started actually talking about being multi-heritage was when I started going to uni in the Netherlands. And I honestly felt such a shock because people were asking me like, “Oh, like where are you from?” Like with such a big spectacle behind it as if like, it’s something they want to piece together and figure out. And they just can’t tell where I am or where I’m from. And then also, being in art school, it kind of influenced my work a lot. And I started making a lot of these artworks of being multi-heritage and this duality and “where do I fit in?” And I think every mixed kid or even third culture kid goes through this thing of like, “Who am I? Where do I fit in? Where do I belong?” And I think throughout my years in uni, I really abused it in a way, and my audience, which was mostly white people, ate it up. So for me, that was a good satisfaction, like, Oh, if I make this they’re going to, I know they like this stuff, so I’m going to make this. And the reactions were always really interesting and I don’t know why, but they always pitied me in a way. And I kind of fed off of that at the time.
I think now I can definitely look back and be like, Oh, that’s kind of cringe. Or I totally did this for a white audience. I know in the back of my head, I was aiming like, Oh, this is meant for other mixed kids or other people who are still trying to figure out what home means to them and what this sense of home actually means. And not just the physicality of it all, but within themselves and their own identity. That was always in the back of my head, but then with the teacher’s feedback, it always turned into something else being like, Oh, I’m mixed, I don’t know where I belong, help me. It’s kind of cringe to look back on. But yeah, I think it’s really interesting to see this development from also not speaking about it at home to suddenly having four years where I only spoke of that.
And then with my graduation project, I called it Kacang Lupa Kulit, which is “forgetting where you’re from,” which is what Ariel talked about. And that’s also something my mom implemented into me since a young age, “Don’t forget you are Indonesian.” And I think that stuck more than my dad because my dad didn’t, I mean, there’s not much Dutch culture, per se, so he didn’t really have much to implement in me, but my mom of course, with the food, I went to Indonesia every summer to visit grandparents. And so there’s a lot of that on my side. And I think I kind of absorbed it in personally, but my parents didn’t really know what to do with it until my graduation project and my mom after–it’s like a seven-minute long video, and she watched it and cried at the end. And she’s like, I didn’t know, you felt this way. Or like, I didn’t know, you had these feelings about being mixed. Like for her, it was such a shock to see that I was actually really confused. I didn’t know where to reside in. I didn’t have any confidence at the time to claim myself as each or either identity. So I think that was what was really interesting for me.
And I think now, because of that, we’ve had more conversations about it, and we’re more open to talking about it. But funny thing is, most of the time my mom uses this multi-heritage to say like, Oh, I didn’t raise you white, you have Indonesian values in you, so whatever you’re doing. Or if I am rude to her or whatever, she’s like, that’s a white person thing. I did not raise you that way. Which is really funny–at the time, it of course hurts, ’cause I’m like, I am half-white, you realize this, right? It’s funny to look back on it now.
Ariel:
It’s so interesting, ’cause I think we’ve all–Latisha, what you just said, about going through this moment of like “I’m so different.” And I feel like that is something that we all go through and then you–it’s a moment that you pass through and then you look back and you’re like, Oh, that’s so cringe or whatever. But I’ve been thinking about having also compassion for that part and moment of myself because like, I think sitting in the pain of it is also really important. And I think it also shows us what is at stake in terms of the structure, the structures of all of us that make us feel this way. Right? Like, I don’t know, like racialized is what I mean by “this way.” But anyway, just a thought.
Ardi:
Well, yeah, like what you were saying about learning to hold both the truths, if you will, that like, “I’m so different,” when you bring the language to it and you come to the conclusion that, woah, there’s so many contradictory truths I have to hold in my body to feel whole in various parts of the world, without losing a sense of who I am, refusing to be fragmented. It is a task, and a lot of it is sitting with that pain, as you say. But I didn’t have the mother that was like, “Don’t forget you’re Indonesian.” For me, it was more like, “I’m Indonesian! I’m your son!” Like, it was a little bit different, but yeah.
Teta:
Hmm, yes, a lot to think about. Now, tell me more about your own experiences meeting other people who may have similar backgrounds as you, particularly other multi-heritage Indonesian folks. What sort of conversations did you have? How have conversations been fulfilling in some ways but maybe limiting in others?
Latisha:
Yeah, so actually, most of the time, I do meet somebody who is half-Indonesian, half something else, or mixed–it’s really glazed over. So it’ll just be an introduction of each other and being like, Oh, you’re from Indonesia, what part? Sick. And then we’ll talk about anything else than that. I don’t know if it’s a thing between–in my school, there was about five or six other mixed Indonesian kids. So I was kind of like every single time, without a doubt, that would happen. And actually, if I talk to other people who went to international schools or had a mixed background that wasn’t Indonesian, I think we related more in ways. It was easier for us to talk about it because I think it’s not so close to home that we didn’t have to separate ourselves from it a bit. But yeah, I found it really interesting.
And also, another thing was that if I met another Indonesian person, I could relate more. And I think I try to relate more to them. I don’t know if it’s me fearing being too white passing or being too white for people that I’m craving to seem “more Indonesian” in ways. One of the main things that I think connects me closer to other Indonesians is speaking the language, and my Indonesian isn’t the best, per se. And I also grew up–I mean, who taught me Indonesian was my mother and my cousins, and we’re in Bandung, so I learned Bahasa Sunda, and I can’t really differentiate between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Sunda. So I always mix phrases in and mix things in, so to speak.
Ariel:
Same.
Latisha:
Right? It’s really difficult. I’ve been asking my mom every single time, like, is this Indonesian or Bahasa Sunda? And she’s like, Oh, that’s Sunda. I was like, that sounds so much nicer than Bahasa Indonesia. Also, Bahasa Sunda is quite a rough way of talking and that’s how I just adapted. And so, if I meet someone who’s one of my friends–one of my classmates was half-Balinese, half-Swiss, and I would want to talk to her. And she talked to me, or like we’re just whispering in class, and I would not understand what she’s saying. And I was like, I don’t know, am I just thick in the head or my vocabulary is not there? I don’t know what it is.
Ariel:
No, it’s just that we–Balinese Indo is so kacau and different. Like I always have those interactions, too. I feel you.
Latisha:
I just could not understand them for the life of me. And so, we just gave up speaking. And we’re classmates; we had every single class every day, we spent 12 hours together, and we wouldn’t speak a word of Indonesian to each other. Also the rest of our classmates found it really odd. They’re like, why don’t you? Like, you guys should be like, best friends. You’re both Indonesian. And you both are making work about being multi-heritage and all this confusing feelings, but yet we never spoke about it to each other, which I think was really interesting to think about.
Ardi:
I’ve always wanted to connect more with others about the–I’m calling it blasteran experience. I went to Indonesia as well, and I didn’t meet that many. I was living in Jogja, and yeah, once in a while. But then, even when I meet another blasteran person, it’s, do they want to bring the same critical view to it? Do they want to even talk about it? ‘Cause, you know, that’s not something anyone has to do, and there’s no automatic affinity really, but I’m always open to those that do. So I would like for us to be more critical, you know, especially, we got to think about how our whiteness, our bule-ness plays out, and the way society is, it doesn’t really make room for kind of hybrid, kind of in-between kind of experience. So that’s our “job,” if you will, to bring our own language to it so that we can make society get used to more fluid identities. I always feel that connecting with other blasteran people would mean that we would find that language together. And it’s just nice when there’s, ’cause there’s really great mixed race resources out there. There’s conferences and everything. But I always love it when we can bring in our own little stories about Indonesia and family members, the language, and the specific things about Indonesia always just make me feel uplifted just a little bit more. I don’t think that many blasteran folks feel like they need to shine a light on it. I do think we need to think about the audience, if there is one. But just even for us, like each other, it’s something that–I’ve seen work with other diasporas, and so I’m just like, Oh, where’s the Indonesians?
Latisha:
I just want to add also from my side, I also spent a lot of energy trying to fit in with being Indonesian and being called Indonesian. So for me, it’s always hesitant when I approach another mixed Indonesian, because I’m like, do you have the same ideas as me? And do you also spend so much time of trying to actually be allowed to be Indonesian that if I asked you where you’re from and make a conversation about it, it kind of denies it and makes me feel like I’m questioning them, which is not something I want to do.
Ardi:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Latisha:
So I think that makes it difficult.
Ariel:
That is so real.
Ardi:
I mean, it’s kind of built into being blasteran that the Indonesian side is “inferior” and that’s what I actively want to just, no, that’s not my hypothesis for life. So finding other blasteran that also have that, it’s not a guaranteed thing ’cause it’s–and it’s not to blame, when you look into the history, this is how we are socialized. And when you look in the history, legacy of colonialism, and everything, it’s no wonder that people internally have this bias without being critical, but once you see it, you know, you can’t unsee it and I don’t want to love one side of me more or less than the other; I’m whole and whole cultures constitute me, and that’s that.
Ariel:
Yeah. You know, I think I really echo what Latisha and Ardi have both said. And I think this is something that Teta and I have talked about a lot with regard to just the importance of finding community and why I’m so grateful for Teta’s light beam in the world, shining the path for other people with Indo heritage who are engaging with these questions critically and thinking about it in a critical way or just wanting to kind of do that. Maybe we aren’t actively doing it, but we want to, and that’s also like the intention of it, you know? And so yeah, just because somebody is also mixed or is Indonesian doesn’t necessarily mean that I have anything in common with them, right? Because we’re not a monolith, our experiences aren’t monolithic. And so I think coming to terms with that growing up, especially with the expectation, like Latisha, I really hear what you’re saying in terms of like, why aren’t you guys friends, you’re the two mixed people, like you guys should be friends. And I think just finding kind of other folks who want to be engaging with their identity in that way and are also struggling with those questions has just meant the world to me.
And I think, Ardi, when you talk about audience, like for me, I think, I think it’s changed so much over time, and I really recognize what Latisha was saying about kind of pimping out your mixed tears for, you know, white–because they do eat it up, people love those kinds of stories, you know? And for me, it’s really shifted, I think, to thinking about why is it so easy, particularly for half-white people or mixed-white people, to just kind of not engage with these questions? Like, why is it so easy to walk through life, never thinking critically about what does it mean that I am “exotic but palatable” or something? And I think that being at the intersection of these experiences, we do have a capacity to cause a lot of harm. And maybe it’s also kind of coercive like socially in terms of we–I think mixed people get tokenized a lot in service of anti-blackness and colorism, right, to kind of put the wedge in the door to keep other folks out. Like, “This person is like, you know, ‘brown enough.’” And so, I think for me, when I think about audience, I’m thinking about other mixed people who are engaging with their identity critically and are trying to figure out what kinds of radical consciousness exists out there for me to move my body in a way that doesn’t reproduce that harm and reproduce the histories of colonialism. And because it does live in our bodies, these systems of domination, like I think about, I think it was bell hooks talks about how systems of domination live in your bodies. And Ardi said that, too; I think that’s fantastic. And like, yeah, just really kind of seeking out community and resources that can help myself and other folks in navigating that journey, which is why I think it’s so cool to see y’all doing work that’s engaging critically with that identity. And I just think there needs to be more resources, too, I mean, I remember being 16, 17 and wanting the language for it, but not having it.
Teta:
So what have you learned about navigating your experiences and identities within Indonesia and outside of Indonesia? How have you challenged expectations about proximity to whiteness, to the power that comes with American and European ties? These are really difficult conversations to have, but I know the three of you have been and continue to be very critical about how you think about whiteness and your own Indonesian heritage.
Ariel:
I think for me, obviously, I had a much more intense experience being racialized in the United States, and that obviously has its impact on my consciousness or sense of identity. And I think when I would go back to Bali as a kid, it was this thing because, I think other folks, other people who would witness me, you know, obviously had the assumption that I was white or at least mixed. And I think there is an influence of my proximity to whiteness that privileges those kinds of interactions, privileges me in those interactions. But it’s interesting because I think, at the same time, my Balinese family was always very much like, “You are Balinese. Don’t forget where you come from.” And yet sometimes when I would act or sometimes when I would remember things or just know a lot about our Balinese-ness and our family, my Balinese family would be shocked, they’d be like, “Oh yeah,” you know, and I think that was an interesting experience. And then I think for me, it was being Balinese, especially is also unique in terms of my body in Indonesia, like geographically, because there’s such a history of the tourism industry, and it’s just obvious neocolonialism, obvious to me and to my family in Bali. And so figuring out how to literally move in space, like my body in material space and how to do that in such a way so that I’m not replicating the stereotypical, you know, like Australian tourist wreaking havoc, or, you know, you see all those stupid videos, like on Instagram of them on motorbikes going crazy. So I think being there and being like, how do I not be this? Or how do I not embody that, but also, how do I recognize that I do kind of embody that in some way? And what is the responsibility of that? And I think, especially growing up in feeling like I was kind of placed in this competition I didn’t ask to be in between myself and other people who were darker skinned, and comments about me being so light and stuff like that, like how do I be an active participant in those conversations to unmask what they’re actually saying and the structures and histories behind what they’re actually saying in a single event or with a single individual, if that makes sense, like, I think has been a journey. And again, just like what Ardi said earlier, I think is perfect of just constantly living with how complicated and complex it is. And it has to be complex. Like it, can’t not be complex. We have to hold the multiple truths, and we have to do that while also holding the responsibility of being multiple things. And it’s difficult and it’s a lot of effort and a lot of kind of labor in a way, emotionally. And oftentimes I think it’s really internal, at least for me, you know, having to do that all the time. So I think that that doesn’t really change. And that’s still how I am like when I’m in Bali, but all of these interesting dynamics with regards to my mixedness.
Teta:
Ardi, if you want to go next?
Ardi:
This question really has come to define my life, really. When I got to the States at age 15 after never living in Indonesia, and then I was racialized as Asian, but didn’t really know how to bring language to my Indonesian-ness–I felt a cultural vacuum there. I didn’t really speak the language well, Indonesian, let alone Javanese, which was zero. Although I had hobbies and I would write Javanese script; I was into the aesthetic, you know, I was playing gamelan groups with white people, you know? And so there were all these ways I was trying to connect, and then like, OK, no, no, no. And I was like, I just have to go there. And, you know, I loved every trip I took, but then I always wanted to stay longer. So I finally went there and I was like, OK, time to reclaim, reaffirm this side of me. And then I got there. And then it was like so many challenging things to navigate, you know, because now I was the bule and, you know, I would share my name and I of course tell stories and then try to bring the complexity of experience to it. But, as far as society was concerned, I was always up against this like, am I really just the tourist all the time? Or am I really just tamu all the time? Like, am I a tourist to my mother’s culture, which is our culture ’cause I’m her son. Like at a certain point, I reject any suggestion that I’m an imposter to my own culture, you know? And that doesn’t mean the way that the culture plays out is visible or read in a way that is stereotypical or whatever, but like, you know, it is something that, you know, I went to Indonesia to do because, you know, my family, a huge family, is still based in Jogja and it was awesome reconnecting, but I, the whole time I was trying to bring my own, you know, ’cause I also, I also didn’t want to be the bule that was reproducing harmful dynamics. Of course, you know, I care, I was there out of love and you know, that is actually a lot of work because the way people assume it to be is like, you know, I’m there to just exploit or just consume Indonesia and that’s it. And you know, they’re like, why are you here? Like the journey of my life, you know, it was just calling me in this other way. And I resonate with Ariel, like it is an internal process. Like I wasn’t complaining and upset the whole time because this was happening. No. It was just, these were just more and more questions for me to really come to an understanding.
Ariel:
Yes. Yeah.
Ardi:
And I really was there to understand, you know, my family and the cultural context that we came from, the histories, you know, whatever direction it took me, I was happy to go. And it is very much internal work. So I don’t have a prescription for all mixed people to go and do this. You know, I think external work, solidarity and community and political work for justice, that’s a different thing than this.
Ariel:
Yes. Yes.
Ardi:
I think we mixed people have to do a lot of individual work. And then, because of the way we feel, we might be white passing or we might not be, sometimes, you know, the conversation is really different. Inner work, the cultural work is a different thing.
Ariel:
I’m so glad that you said that, Ardi. I think you’re so right. I think that so much of the work that we’re doing to question and pay attention to our feelings and give them the space–there’s just so much affective, internal work, I think to this experience of in-between-ness. And I think it actually is so important that we do separate that internal, emotional, affective work. And that’s why there’s this trope of mixed tears or whatever, because that is a really important part of our being and our reckoning with the world. And I think there’s so much skill and power that comes from that experience and that’s there and we recognize it and hold a container for it. And we also recognize the importance of the fact that we are bodies in community with other bodies, and the responsibility of that and not, and I think sometimes having boundaries between those two things and not bringing some of this into this is really important. And something that there’s not a lot of language for, I think, to talk about. I wish we could write a zine or something about all of this.
Ardi:
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Ariel:
Not that there is a prescription, like you said, like we don’t, none of us have a single prescription and we shouldn’t because we could never, because the point of this is that it’s constantly complicated, constantly fluid, constantly conflicting and whatever. But I think just holding a container for all of that to happen, like this conversation, is really, really important. So I’m very inspired by what you just said.
Teta:
And Latisha, this last question, and then we’ll move into the segment where the three of you can ask each other questions and be in more conversation with each other.
Latisha:
Yeah. So the way I interpreted this question was as how I experience being Asian in Europe and being white in Indonesia, to sum it up. That’s what it is for me, that’s how I experience it. But I also wrote down a few notes between each question, just to get myself a little bit more articulate. And for this one, I just wrote, like, I have a lot to say about this. So a lot of instances…the earliest instance I remember is every time–’cause we went every summer to Indonesia and because it was difficult for my dad to get time off work, we always had a holiday within it. So we’d go to Bali most of the times. And I vividly remember being quite young and walking down the street, depending on which family member I went with, the reactions of locals around us. So if I walked with my dad, they would offer us Viagra. And, just so you know, I’m 14 at this age. And so I can only assume that they’re assuming that I am my dad’s wife or something of this. With my mom, she wears a hijab. So they’ll always say, “Assalamualaikum” or “Apa kabar, Bu Haji,” and it’s really sweet and very respectful. And if I walked alone, I usually just get catcalled, whether I’m in Bali or in any city in Indonesia, that’s usually the case. In Bandung, we have a place called Pasar Baru and it’s just a really big market area. And there, I would get catcalled a lot. And so they would normally say behind my back, and I’m usually with family, with my aunt or my mom, and they would say it in Bahasa Sunda, and I would reply really harshly, swearing or whatever, in Bahasa Sunda. So that would really shock them and stun them for a minute. Just living off that little satisfaction was really, really enjoyable. In Europe was the shock for me is, as Ardi also said, being suddenly considered as Asian. To me, that was a big shock because I’m so used to being seen as white, every holiday, even in international school, I was at least white. But when I was in the Netherlands, they were like, Oh yeah, you’re obviously Asian. And I was like, wait, “obviously,” like what? I’m like, Oh, so thinking to myself, yeah, you can’t really say, I look Indonesian because you can’t define what Indonesian looks like, it’s so wide. I think a lot of this was trying to understand, I think now also sitting back and like looking at it retrospectively, it’s kind of understanding what it means to “look Indonesian” or what it means not to “look Indonesian.” And I think, yeah, as I said, it’s such a huge mix that for me, it was kind of, there is no certain way of looking Indonesian. So for me it was kind of that confirmation of being like, I can never “look Indonesian,” and that’s completely fine, I am still Indonesian, whether I “look” like it or not.
Ardi:
Yeah, I totally get, of course, like when you’re mixed and there isn’t so much language for society at large to read you and, you know, relate to you; you’re just the object of so many projections. It’s like, you just learn so much about people and how they think by just the way they just assume what you are or just want to just put you in that box, even after a whole spiel, you know, of how it’s not that, but yeah, even just the idea of these categories is what we are supposedly supposed to be challenging, you know.
Ariel:
I feel like I am moving through the world and I’m thinking about my body in the ways that Latisha is also thinking about, and like, you know, interacting with people who are, you know, coming up against my body and kind of projecting other ideas. And oftentimes it exposes more about other people than necessarily of me, although sometimes it does expose something about me. I think in doing that, I’ve learned to think about who, like the question of who profits and who pays in these interactions and in the moments that I’m experiencing. And I think increasingly as I come up against benefiting from colorism, I’m thinking about who pays. And I realize that the people who pay are people who look like my father, who look like my friends, who look like people I love, and even if I didn’t love them, they would still matter. And so I guess I’ve just been really trying to think about what is actually at stake. And I think that that kind of questioning–and I don’t want to say other mixed people have to do it, but I do think there is a responsibility in inheriting whiteness. I think there’s a moral kind of responsibility of contending with that because there’s always someone who pays. So I think–that’s not a specific answer about how I deal with benefiting from colorism, but that’s something like my kind of consciousness, as I move through that question. And it’s hard, and I wish that there were more language and resources for it, but I think something that has actually really helped me and who I think people who I think have been thinking about this experience of in-between-ness so radically is like, I’m really inspired by Black queer thinkers, specifically lesbian feminism and Audre Lorde, and really grounding myself in a lineage of something larger than me has been so, so critical. And I think especially for other young folks who are floating through the world, also with the sense of dynamism and fluidity, it’s really important to think about the history and lineage to what you’re experiencing. I think that’s been really important. And I think centering not just my own perspective of race and critical race studies, but listening to folks who are really at the center of this work and have been for a really long time has been super important to me.
Latisha:
Yeah. I really agree with what you said and just want to add that it’s also really easy for mixed-white people to create a distance between their “person of color side,” so to say. And it’s really, I think, it’s just really interesting how we are able to put ourselves and it’s really such a privilege to put ourselves at this distance and it’s as harmful as it is like helping for mental health. And it’s kind of this–also for me, what I experienced a lot was survivor guilt and kind of, especially after reading on the history of Indonesia being like, Holy shit, my grandmother, my grandmother’s parents went through this and I can’t do anything to help it. Or like, I know that they bear such a heavy weight and I want to take some of it on or want to help them in some way but I don’t know how. And also as a white person, I’m really trying to avoid doing this savior complex and trying to “save them” and be there for them, but finding this balance of being there for them, but in a way that respects them and gives them the autonomy and gives them the platform instead of me.
Ardi:
Yeah. That’s, it’s really hard to talk about this in particular because like, I, you know, one of the main stereotypes is when you, you know, you say you’re mixed in Indonesia, it’s like, Oh, well you should go to Jakarta and be a model or be on sinetron.
Ariel:
Like no, I don’t want to do that.
Ardi:
Is that literally the only thing that I can do? OK. And like why wouldn’t you, why wouldn’t you go be on sinetron? Sinetron is kind of amazing too sometimes, but yeah. Did you see the TikTok one where the mother is in a coma and the girl does a TikTok, and that’s what makes her come out of a coma. [Laughter]. Um but yeah, I don’t know. I mean, like you said, it’s a whole industry, like, I don’t know how to pick that apart, you know, in the conversations I have, I try to point it out. Unfortunately, it’s very shallow, the way it’s become an industry. I think individual lives are not necessarily so. It’s not an easy, tidy conversation to have, you know, and very, very ingrained, very ingrained.
Ariel:
These questions are really manifesting for me at the level of the body. And so I think when I’m thinking about, you know, how do I intervene in these moments? Like, I return again to the body and like, how do I use my body, put my body, move it in ways that are outside of the expectations that are prescribed to me of, again, being a “token” and how do I not just not do that, but then learn and live “generatively” so as to imagine new, like a new muscle memory for it. So that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. And I think, and I would love to continue, maybe we can have a part two, but like, I would love to know more of, you know, what does it feel like in your bodies? Like when you feel whole and what are the things that–what kind of practices do you have that allow you to feel whole? Because I think like earlier, when we were talking about this disconnect between the internal and the external, I think that’s so big, like for people with this experience. And I think it’s funny because when I say, you know, keeping the emotional affective part of it out of the social justice work, I think internally, we all know that we can’t extrapolate those two. Like internally, we know that they’re together, they’re always together. But there’s a kind of performance of the body externally so as to navigate that in a particular way, you know what I mean? So there’s just so much interesting stuff here, I think, and I would love to continue further. It was great to talk to you all, and thank you so much. And I, really, for real–
Latisha:
This is really great.
Ariel:
Like if y’all wanna do anything again in the future, please, let’s do it.
Ardi:
Let’s do it. Ayo!
Ariel:
Yeah, Let’s do it.
[OUTRO MUSIC]
Teta:
Thank you for listening to this Buah zine conversation with Latisha Horstink, Ariel Santikarma and Ardi Kuhn. We’ve only scratched the surface about this larger discussion on whiteness and multi-Indonesian heritage. Read their Buah zine interviews on http://www.buahzine.wordpress.com. And follow Buah zine on Instagram @buahzine, that’s b-u-a-h-z-i-n-e. Thanks again for listening!
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