Citizenship, inheritance, and the indigenizing of "Orang Chinese" in Indonesia

The national motto of Indonesia is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, roughly translatable as "Unity in Diversity," but the segment of the Indonesian population composed of "Chinese" is often excluded from the moral community of the nation because of their supposed absences of "roots" on Indonesian soil. Sharing formal citizenship status and many cultural practices with other Indonesians, the Chinese are nonetheless ideologically constructed as aliens and often used as scapegoats. The events of 1998 brought to the fore the highly problematic position of Chinese persons in relation to the Indonesian nation. This article seeks to understand the history that has indigenized and concomitantly alienated the Chinese in Indonesia by retracing the trails of the controvertible word Cina, the interminable forks on the citizenship road, and the seeming dead ends on the lifespan of wealth and capital accumulation