Indonesians finds home away from home at UC Berkeley<\/p>\n
By Dewi Anggraeni<\/p>\n
BERKELEY, California (JP): Mention University of California
\nBerkeley to an Indonesian who grew up in the 1970s or even in the
\nlate 1960s, you will most likely be told of Professor Widjojo
\nNitisastro's think tank, also known as the \"Berkeley Mafia\".<\/p>\n
The Berkeley Mafia was the first batch of technocrats whose
\ncollective expertise was utilized by the New Order government to
\nrevamp Indonesia's dire economic situation at the time.<\/p>\n
While the New Order government itself may have outlasted its
\nusefulness in Indonesia, the core of the Berkeley Mafia, such as
\nProfessors Ali Wardhana, Emil Salim and Subroto, still hold
\nconsiderable standing among economic experts.<\/p>\n
Curiously, if we then associate UC Berkeley with free market
\neconomy or hard-nosed economic rationalism in its Southeast Asian
\nStudies Program, the current courses offered do not reinforce
\nthat supposition. Instead, listed are culturally oriented courses
\nsuch as Orality and Literacy in Insular Southeast Asia; the
\nPoetry of Indonesia and Malaysia in Translation; Articulations of
\nthe Female in Indonesia, and specifically in the Malay\/Indonesian
\nfield, language courses. Offered as well are seminars and
\nreadings in Malay letters and oral traditions, and in modern and
\ntraditional Indonesian and Malay Literature.<\/p>\n
Has the university changed direction? The short answer is No.
\nAlong with other universities in the Western world, UC Berkeley
\nis still in the forefront of social, political, technological as
\nwell as cultural and literary research and studies. What the
\nBerkeley Mafia has revealed is only one facet. While compared to
\nVietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, Indonesia does not loom
\nhigh in the Southeast Asian Studies Program, it is the quality
\nthat counts. An Indonesia component may be present in various
\ncourses, from Economic Development, Political Science,
\nInternational Economics, Law, Geography, History, to Civil and
\nEnvironmental Engineering. In fact, Dr. Eric Crystal, now heading
\nSoutheast Asian Studies, is a self-confessed Indonesianist.<\/p>\n
The Southeast Asian Studies Program at UC Berkeley was
\ninaugurated in 1954 to meet a national need and the extensive
\ninterest in the region. Eric Crystal also pointed out that during
\nWorld War II, UC Berkeley became a language training center,
\nassisting the increasing role of the U.S. in the war. Apart from
\nIndonesian and Malay, the other languages taught were Thai,
\nVietnamese and Malayo-Polynesian linguistics. And after the big
\nwar, the U.S. gradually became a haven for many Southeast Asians.
\nCalifornia seems to have been their favorite destination for a
\nsecond home. It is now the home of, for instance, 75,000 Hmongs,
\n25,000 Miens, 100,000 Cambodians and 100,000 ethnic Laos.<\/p>\n
North Asia is still the biggest contributor to California's
\nethnic Asian population. It is understandable, since the Chinese
\nhad been there since the gold rush era of the 1850s. The Japanese
\ncame shortly after the war. By the 1990s, there were 300,000
\nChinese and over 100,000 Japanese living in California.<\/p>\n
It is not clear what came first. The more recent growth of
\nCalifornia's Asian population may have stemmed from UC Berkeley's
\npioneering language training center. However, UC Berkeley's
\nstrength in Asian and Southeast Asian Studies may well owe its
\ndrive from California's ethnic Asian population. The state
\nespecially has a fair representation of Asians, 11 percent out of
\nthe total 33 million. San Francisco, across the bay from
\nBerkeley, has the biggest Chinatown outside China.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, student population at UC Berkeley is dominated
\nby Asian-Americans, 38 percent. Caucasian-Americans, while being
\nthe majority 52 percent in the state, only represent 35 percent
\nof the university's student population. This has caused some
\nresentment on the part of the Caucasian-Americans.<\/p>\n
\"In other states, the tension is usually between the whites
\nand the blacks, but in California, it is very much between the
\nwhites and the Asians,\" explained Eric Crystal.<\/p>\n
In 1960 the Center for Southeast Asian Studies was established
\nto develop research, teaching and training facilities on the
\nregion. It has since become a very busy and active department,
\nsponsoring annual Southeast Asian studies conferences, lectures
\nand workshops during academic year and providing numerous
\nopportunities to visiting faculty and scholars from Southeast
\nAsia and other parts of the world to work with Berkeley faculty.
\nThus, interdisciplinary research and interaction in the region of
\nSoutheast Asian studies are promoted.<\/p>\n
The university's Southeast Asia library collections are known
\nto be one of the finest collections in the U.S., along with Yale
\nand Cornell universities library collections. Its strength lies
\nespecially in social sciences and humanities, available in
\nWestern as well as the countries' own languages, covering both
\nprewar and postwar periods of Southeast Asia. There is, for
\ninstance, a wide range of Dutch colonial literature on Indonesia,
\nincluding all the major newspapers and other publications. In
\nfact, according to Professor Ling-chi Wang, chair of the Ethnic
\nStudies Program, the library's Indonesia component is one of the
\nmost comprehensive Southeast Asia collections in the U.S.<\/p>\n
The Berkeley township grows around the university. It even
\ngives the impression of being an extension of UC Berkeley. The
\nstreets, the shops, the book rooms, are full of young people who,
\nfrom their mannerisms and their clothes, could only be students.
\nEven the older people around are unmistakably academics or
\nacademic support staff. The whole town oozes of learning and
\nacademia.<\/p>\n
In the thick of this atmosphere, even though you are
\ncontinents away from Indonesia, it does not seem strange speaking
\nthe language here.<\/p>",
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