Professor Strassler wanted to make a point of how chinese indonesians, like, photography, both have a sense of foreignness and are not accepted genuinely. This is one way for Indonesians to create, and reaffirm their national identity by rejecting immigrants. It goes back to Saussure's concept of "parole", when words gain meaning from one another. Indonesians are indonesians because they are not chinese indonesians. Photography is foreign because it represents the modern world, even though it has become an important tool for documentation in Indonesia. Students have played an important role in the political culture of photography. They have been able to record and propagate the changes happening in the New Order State with tools such as photography and much more recently the internet. It is only through education that students from any part of the world can make themselves heard.
A similar approach has been used by Tibetan students in China who have been lately battling against the government to stop the nationalization of mandarin in Tibet (meaning it would give the power to the Han community in Tibet to be much easily assimilated and Tibetan culture would dissapear because schools will teach in mandarin.) Thanks to the (limited though) power of internet in China and the use of photography and writing to document and communicate with the world, these students have been able to show the world what is really happening there, and why we should be concerned. One would think China should be proud of their cultural diversity but instead they keep committing cultural intolerant acts against them. These students feel threatened, their identity is at risk.
Venezuelan students have taken the initiative to fight the current policies of the government of Hugo Chavez. They have organized protests, froze school, and recorded photographs and videos of the mistreatment they have sometimes received from the police for tying to make themselves heard. They, too, are defending their identities, on a political level.
Whether for cultural or political reasons (even though both are always intertwined), there is always a powerful group who decides what language, what nationality, what country you should be. this group decides who is a "natural", as Strassler mentioned, and who is not. You are Indonesian because you speak malay and look a particular way. So if you happen to speak a "minority" language from Java, or you recently migrated from Hong Kong, then you'll never be Indonesian. This population is left to decide whether to be or feel oppressed by the "bulies", or give in to assimilation.
Even I have been told i am not really "Latin American" because my father is originally from Lebanon, and my skin is white, though i was born and partly raised in Venezuela, spanish is my native language, and all i know about lebanese culture is the food my grandma cooked for me. Just like Chinese Indonesians, I am foreignness when they want to feel nationalistic, or I am diversity when they want to "celebrate" culture.
Inspired by my Anthropology Professor Strassler who have done fieldwork in Indonesia:
Strassler, Karen. Refracted Visions: Popular photography and National Modernity in Java". 2010DukeUPress.
the article about tibet: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/a
