Abstract
To be forced to make a choice of nationality following a revolutionary upheaval is a trying experience. It becomes traumatic when one is, or feels oneself to be, part of the “privileged class” in a plural society in which the “natives” are about to achieve supreme political power. The Eurasians of Indonesia are a group of mixed descent closely tied to the land of their birth, but culturally and politically oriented to a society thousands of miles away along the shores of the North Sea. F. H. de Hoog, charismatic chairman of the powerful Eurasian League from 1928 to 1939, referred to the Eurasians as the “vanguard” of the Dutch population in the Netherlands. He emphasized that Eurasians were imbued with Dutch culture and would stand or fall with Dutch rule.1 In 1949, the “vanguard” was cut off.
