How Indonesian am I?
A question I have asked myself is, how Indonesian are we actually? Both in terms of appearance and genes as well as culturally. At first I thought that we had gotten all our Indonesian blood from Christina Reijgers. Christina probably had a Dutch mother and a mixed father. That would make Christina 25%, or 1/4. The children of Christina and Johannes (the generation of Pieter Christiaan, Willem etc.) 1/8, the grandchildren (the generation of Herman et al.) 1/16, the generation of Piet only 1/32 and the generation of Robbert, Paul et al. 1/64. That doesn’t sound like much. And if you look at photos from the past, many of our ancestors look quite mixed.
Upon further study of the family history and general Indo history, it can be seen that the families that the De Quanten married into were also partly Indo. Herman’s wife, Jetje du Bois, descended in part from Seti, a daughter of a Sultan in South Sumatra (this name is still honored in the Du Bois family). Paul did a DNA test and it showed about 3% South East Asian (if you have an account on Myheritage.com check out the De Quant page). That corresponds to 1/32nd. His father Piet therefore had about 6% Indonesian descent and he had inherited that from both his father and his mother, who were each probably also 6% Indonesian.
On the one hand, the Indonesian descent was seen as something beautifull that was kept in honour with kompoelans (family gatherings). I know that Herman and Jetje and their children held family gatherings in the Netherlands after the Second World War, where Indonesian food was served while they watched iceskating in front of the television, a real mix of cultures. On the other hand, people wanted to be as white as possible. In the 1970’s one relative, upon seeing his first granchild, was glad it was whiter then he was. Another relative told me that in the 1960’s she was regarded less Indonesian because she was paler than the inlaws she lived with. Therefore they wouldn’t talk Indonesian (Malay) to her, but only Dutch. She wanted to belong so she would sit in the sun to get a tan. Then she was told to quickly go into the shade or she would get darker and that was bad.
In short the mixed descent was something that people both celebrated and struggle with from time to time.