Mary F. Somers

Peranakan Chinese Politics In Indonesia Mary F. Somers

This report is the latest of the studies of the Chinese minority in Indonesia to be published by the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project. The Project has a long-term interest in this subject, and earlier studies which it has published include Giok-Lan Tan's The Chinese of Sukabumi and Donald E. Willmott's The National Status of the Chinese in Indonesia 1900-1958. In the present Interim Report Mary F. Somers undertakes to view the overseas Chinese question as part of the politics of Indonesia, concentrating on the persons of Chinese descent who are Indonesian citizens. She devotes particular attention to the peranakan Chinese organization, Baperkip and the role it has played, both in Indonesia's Chinese community and generally on the Indonesian political scene. She is also concerned with the reaction of the peranakan Chinese to the possibility of cultural assimilation into Indonesian society and the willingness of the Indonesians to accept them. After gaining her B. A. in History and Chinese Language at Trinity College in Washington, D. C., Miss Somers entered Cornell University in 1958 as a Ph. D. candidate in the Department of Government and Southeast Asia Program. Following an initial period of research at Cornell and an intensive study of the Chinese (Mandarin) and Indonesian languages, she carried out research in Indonesia from December 1961 to May 1963 under a Foreign Area Training Fellowship. While there she interviewed prominent Chinese widely - both in Java and in Sumatra (Palembang, Medan, Padang), in Sulawesi (Makassar) and in Kalimantan (Bandjarmasin, Pontianak, Singkawang). Miss Somers wishes to emphasize that the conclusions she has reached in the report are tentative; and she hopes to develop them further in a forthcoming publication. She would, therefore, welcome any comments on or criticisms of her study. - George McT. Kahin, March 16, 1964