Becoming Chinese in Indonesia: A Study on Ethnic & Nation Identities in Tangerang, Banten

Studies of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia tend to look at in an objective, general and static perspective. Imagining that all members have the same characteristics,  they voluntarily acknowledge as a single community of Chinese people. The following study conducted over a number of people in South Tangerang, Banten, shows a different situation: there are many sub-groups in what collectively known as "Chinese people." Each individual member has the freedom to identify her/himself as a member of the community. They initially refused to be known as "the Chinese," preferred to identify themselves as "orang keturunan (descendants).”  A term that draws her/him to the neighborhood of "orang pribumi (natives)" i.e., Betawi and Sundanese. With the physical and socio-cultural characteristics more like Indonesian people in general, what they do are just convert themselves from Confucianism and or a Buddhist to a Muslim, automatically they are recognized by the surrounding community as full members. But in its development, along with their geographic mobility to Jakarta, Chinese migration from other parts of Indonesia and settled in their traditional settlement, as well as the change of Indonesian government policies that tend to be more pro-Chinese, they do the necessary efforts  ranging from religious conversion (converted to Christianity), learning languages (Hokkien dialects and Mandarin), change the mentality (trying to be more diligent at work), changing profession (from peasants to traders), to improve their economic statuses (getting rich) and whiten skin color  (from brown to a lighter one). All was done so that they can claim and recognize as "Orang Cina Udik (uphill Chinese)" and, even better , "Cina Benteng” (“Chinese of the fort” a term that despite distinguish themselves with other Chinese people in Indonesia (Chinese of Medan, Bangka, Pontianak etc.), but confirms them as one single community: "Chinese people".