My mother resolved in her mind to emigrate out of Indonesia in 1965. It was after six generals were kidnapped and assassinated in a failed coup d’état that was quickly blamed on the Indonesian communist party. This resulted in riots, from which my mother escaped and at least 500,000 people getting killed, most of whom were of Chinese descent. Around this time, the ethnic Chinese were being “encouraged” to change their names to more Indonesian sounding names. An example of this application is used in my diorama. Soon after, Chinese schools were closed, the Chinese names was barred from being used in businesses, the language were forbidden from being spoken, read, taught and used in the media…. except in medicine!
It took my mother almost 20 years to materialize what she resolved to do all those years ago, but she did it with my father.
