In Indonesia.
No Really.
In the three years (and some change) since my last post I've moved to the Bay Area, started a PhD program in Performance Studies (not puppets) at Berkeley, survived course work, advanced to candidacy, officially gained the title of ABD, and begun my field work.
Which brings me back to Indonesia.
I've been here for about five months ( with an all too brief five week hiatus back to the states) and I'll ostensibly be here until July, pending visa issues. Over the first few months I struggled over if, or how, I would write about my experience. Should I reboot the old blog with all of it's embarrassments? Should I start a Tumblr ( that's what the kids are into these days)? Is Tumblr still cool? Should I micro blog? Should I write about the day-to-day stuff or just the research? Am I ready to write about the research? Will I ever fulfill my dreams of becoming a soap star in Southeast Asia?
I've decided to stop worrying and simply write what I feel like writing when I feel like writing.
Today that's the difference between the questions "dari mana?" and " anda berasal dari mana".
I'm by no means an Indonesian grammar expert (although I'm officially working on it for 12 hours a week here). But from my understanding (and my experience with the type of questions thrown my way), these are two of the most common ways to ask someone where they're from. Dari mana mostly implies "where are you from" in terms of nationality and berasal implies more a of a sense of origin or ethnicity. My Indonesian is crazy formal, my accent is weird and I look different, so I get asked the first question a lot. I usually respond with "the United States". This inevitably brings about looks of confusion, a slightly harder stare at my face, and some version of " anda berasal dari mana?". What this implicitly says, and what is sometimes explicitly stated) is that I don't look like an American so there must be more to the story. 3.5 years ago this is the point where I would try to explain the Atlantic slave trade, why I claim Alabama as my ancestral, how I should be able to claim American without question or consequence. More than anything, these questions highlight the desperation with which I find myself struggling to claim Americanness. To drape myself in what that means here and avoid looking into the void that is "asal" or origin.
So what do you do when you're in a space where your Blackness has no context?
And what do you do when you must face the fact, institutionally, sometimes interpersonally, that America doesn't want to claim you? It doesn't want your nails digging in to hold it close?
A few days after I arrived in Surabaya in August Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was gunned down in Ferguson, MI by a police officer. Because of the time difference I happened to be on Twitter the moment the news started to spread and shake some last feelings of complacency loose. Over the next few weeks, and to this day, I've been glued to Twitter in the mornings as protestors hit the streets at night, and glued to Twitter late into the night as actions and outcomes are processed. And I've been thinking about what it means to be Black here, where the bigness of my hair or the juicer than averageness of my booty may cause stares, but I mostly get to be a care-free Black girl loosed from the (ever-present but not quite as heavy) mantles of White supremacy and anti-Blackness as they take shape in this space.
No Really.
In the three years (and some change) since my last post I've moved to the Bay Area, started a PhD program in Performance Studies (not puppets) at Berkeley, survived course work, advanced to candidacy, officially gained the title of ABD, and begun my field work.
Which brings me back to Indonesia.
I've been here for about five months ( with an all too brief five week hiatus back to the states) and I'll ostensibly be here until July, pending visa issues. Over the first few months I struggled over if, or how, I would write about my experience. Should I reboot the old blog with all of it's embarrassments? Should I start a Tumblr ( that's what the kids are into these days)? Is Tumblr still cool? Should I micro blog? Should I write about the day-to-day stuff or just the research? Am I ready to write about the research? Will I ever fulfill my dreams of becoming a soap star in Southeast Asia?
I've decided to stop worrying and simply write what I feel like writing when I feel like writing.
Today that's the difference between the questions "dari mana?" and " anda berasal dari mana".
I'm by no means an Indonesian grammar expert (although I'm officially working on it for 12 hours a week here). But from my understanding (and my experience with the type of questions thrown my way), these are two of the most common ways to ask someone where they're from. Dari mana mostly implies "where are you from" in terms of nationality and berasal implies more a of a sense of origin or ethnicity. My Indonesian is crazy formal, my accent is weird and I look different, so I get asked the first question a lot. I usually respond with "the United States". This inevitably brings about looks of confusion, a slightly harder stare at my face, and some version of " anda berasal dari mana?". What this implicitly says, and what is sometimes explicitly stated) is that I don't look like an American so there must be more to the story. 3.5 years ago this is the point where I would try to explain the Atlantic slave trade, why I claim Alabama as my ancestral, how I should be able to claim American without question or consequence. More than anything, these questions highlight the desperation with which I find myself struggling to claim Americanness. To drape myself in what that means here and avoid looking into the void that is "asal" or origin.
So what do you do when you're in a space where your Blackness has no context?
And what do you do when you must face the fact, institutionally, sometimes interpersonally, that America doesn't want to claim you? It doesn't want your nails digging in to hold it close?
A few days after I arrived in Surabaya in August Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was gunned down in Ferguson, MI by a police officer. Because of the time difference I happened to be on Twitter the moment the news started to spread and shake some last feelings of complacency loose. Over the next few weeks, and to this day, I've been glued to Twitter in the mornings as protestors hit the streets at night, and glued to Twitter late into the night as actions and outcomes are processed. And I've been thinking about what it means to be Black here, where the bigness of my hair or the juicer than averageness of my booty may cause stares, but I mostly get to be a care-free Black girl loosed from the (ever-present but not quite as heavy) mantles of White supremacy and anti-Blackness as they take shape in this space.
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