CENTER OF YOUNG SCIENTISTS – TEAM 2

TITLE: Potential Racism Towards Chinese-Indonesian Students in Indonesian Public Schools

SPEAKERS: Florencia Naomi Tanuwijaya, Vallerie Jolie Tjondronegoro, Abigail Fiona Suwanto

ABSTRACT:
China is the oldest existent civilization in the world and its population constitutes one-quarter of humanity. Chinese people are spread out around the world and we can definitely find Chinese people in most countries. Indonesia is one of the many countries where many Chinese people reside. In Indonesia, there are a lot of ethnicities and cultures that are different between one and another. The majority of people in Indonesia are Melayu people, with Chinese-Indonesian people as the minority. During the New Order, a lot of people, especially the government, established certain limitations and stereotypes on the Chinese-Indonesian. Chinese schools were banned, and even the Chinese-Indonesian were not allowed to speak Chinese. The import of Chinese publications and medicines was also prohibited. However, the attitude of the Indonesian government towards the Chinese-Indonesian have changed from time to time. These days, the Chinese-Indonesian can be more expressive regarding their cultural trait. For example, they can be a public figure easily, they can perform the barongsai show during Chinese New Year, etc. Therefore, as the researcher complimenting the natural assimilation that arguably has taken place between Chinese-Indonesian and the non-Chinese after reformation in Indonesia, there were some disheartening news on papers that mentioned about racism happened to some Chinese-Indonesian in public spaces. Therefore, this research is aimed to investigate whether racism or discrimination towards the Chinese-Indonesian students in Indonesian Public School is still happening or not. The research question, therefore, is how has Indonesia progressed to be a multicultural country where the Chinese-Indonesian and Indonesian people have assimilated over the years? The data will be collected through mix of quantitative and qualitative method, such as by interviews, observations, and also questionnaire given to the Chinese-Indonesian students in Indonesian public schools from several areas in Indonesia.