I recently revisited my application for this Fellowship to check in with myself, if I was indeed doing what I said I wanted to do. Sometimes it was easy to lose my bearings as I was knee deep in finding …
Coming out of our Silence
Imagining and Filling in Lost Narratives
There have been a lot of times when this research process has been incredibly frustrating. I haven’t found what I wanted to find in the archives. I have been worried that what I’m finding did not fit the narrative that …
When Will We See Another Citizenship Act?
Reflections
On my visit to Temple’s Special Collections Research Center, I was hoping to find evidence of Indonesian immigration to Philadelphia in the Nationalities Services Center (NSC) archives, but instead I found the immigration stories of our colonizers.
This whole …
What I Wish I Could Find in the Archives
Looking into the archives, I continually had to steel myself about what I may find or may not find.
I went to the Temple Special Collections Research Center in the new Charles Library on Temple University’s campus to look …
Imagining Alternative Immigration Realities
As I research Indonesian immigration and the evolution of the concept of citizenship in the United States, I am looking at three time periods for my research: Pre-1965, 1965, and 1998 to today.
Early on, I knew that I wanted …
Remembering the Spirit of the Bandung Conference
On April 18-24, 1955, delegates from 29 nations from Asia and Africa came together in Bandung, Indonesia for the Konferensi Asia-Afrika. This conference was a gathering of independent nations to discuss issues of sovereignty, racism and colonialism, and became known …
The American Dream
Most of the women were immigrants. The stories in the news were about them leaving their countries in search of better opportunities for their children. The classic immigrant story.
Their children talked about mothers who spent all their time working, …