I only discovered about 10 years ago that my parents came to the United States as refugees. Until then, I hadn’t thought much about how or why they came to America in 1959—I just knew they had left the Netherlands for a new life. It wasn’t until later that I discovered they immigrated under a law called the Pastore–Walter Act, a piece of Cold War-era legislation that opened a narrow door for families like mine.
That question—the story behind their journey—sat quietly in the back of my mind until a recent visit to the Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam. In the heart of Amsterdam-Oost, a diverse and lively district where the streets hum with languages from around the world, I wandered into an exhibit titled “Our Colonial Inheritance.” It explores the Netherlands’ colonial past in places like the Dutch East Indies. In the same place, my family’s Indo story began.
The exhibit was as thought-provoking as it was uncomfortable. It forced me to reflect not just on what colonialism meant for the people who lived under it but also on what it meant for descendants like me—people shaped by that complicated legacy in ways we don’t always recognize.
Assimilation: Dutch-Indos and Surinamese Communities
During that trip, I had a conversation about assimilation in the Netherlands, which brought me face-to-face with a topic I hadn’t previously considered: assimilation.
From what I’ve read and learned so far, Dutch-Indos (Indo-Europeans) who arrived in the 1950s were expected to blend in completely. Most spoke Dutch, held Dutch citizenship, and in some cases, their mixed European and Asian heritage allowed them to pass as “Dutch enough” in a largely homogeneous society. Assimilation wasn’t optional; it was a condition of belonging.
By the 1970s, when Suriname gained independence, the situation had shifted. Tens of thousands of Surinamese migrants—many of African, South Asian, and Javanese heritage—came to the Netherlands. While they also spoke Dutch and were citizens, their visible differences and cultural diversity made their presence more noticeable. Dutch society was beginning to grapple with multiculturalism, and there was more public debate—and sometimes resistance—about whether newcomers should be allowed to maintain distinct cultural identities.
That conversation made me wonder: did Indos assimilate so fully because they wanted to—or because they felt they had no choice?
Coming to America: The Pastore–Walter Act
In the aftermath of decolonization in the Dutch East Indies, many families sought a place to rebuild their lives—a home of their own choosing. The Pastore–Walter Act of 1958 allowed Dutch-Indonesian refugees—people like my father—to immigrate outside the existing restrictive quota system.
At the time, U.S. immigration laws still reflected a racial hierarchy. For Dutch-Indonesian families leaving the former Dutch East Indies, the standard immigration rules required applicants to be at least 75% European by ancestry to qualify for a quota visa. That racial requirement effectively barred many Indos of mixed heritage from immigrating. The Pastore–Walter Act waived this restriction for refugees from Indonesia, granting them non‑quota immigrant visas and opening the door for thousands of families.
The Netherlands wasn’t a homeland for my father. Born and raised in the Dutch East Indies, he had no real ties to that distant country—and from what I’ve heard, he thought it was freezing. For someone who grew up in the tropics, the gray skies and cold winds of Holland weren’t exactly inviting. America, by contrast, seemed like a chance to start fresh in a place that felt warmer in more ways than one.
My mother’s journey was different. Born and raised in the Netherlands, she had no pressing reason to leave. But as a young wife, she followed my father across an ocean. Because they were married, she was also granted non-quota immigrant status under the Pastore–Walter Act. In that sense, her journey to America was tied as much to love and partnership as it was to politics or policy.
They arrived in Denver, Colorado, where sponsors and friends—some they had known in Maastricht—helped them settle. I don’t yet know which church sponsored them, but I imagine the comfort of seeing familiar faces in a new land made those early years a little easier.
Someday soon, I plan to search for their visa applications to learn more about how they navigated the immigration process. Those records are held by the U.S. National Archives and the USCIS Genealogy Program, and I’m eager to see what they might reveal.
Assimilation in America: What Was Lost
My parents raised my sister and me as Americans. While most of their friends in Denver were Dutch or Indo, at home, they chose not to emphasize their heritage. They spoke Dutch to me until I was about three years old, and even now, I can understand much of the language. However, my speaking ability is remedial at best. They never spoke Dutch to my younger sister, and it wasn’t until we were adults that I realized she hadn’t understood most of what was said in those early years.
Our family’s experience in the Dutch East Indies centered around the KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger, or Royal Netherlands East Indies Army). It was the KNIL that had shaped so many of the friendships and connections my parents carried with them across the ocean. Beyond that, the only remnants of our Indo heritage were quiet ones: “Indonesian” food (which I now know was actually Dutch-Indo food) and a few batiks on the walls. Ours was, in many ways, a model assimilation story.
But because of that assimilation, something was lost. Much of the culture, including stories and traditions, didn’t survive the journey to America. My father’s mother, a native of the Dutch East Indies, was an orphan. To this day, I haven’t been able to connect her to any family there. Perhaps that’s why our Dutch-Indo identity slipped away so quickly. There were no grandparents or relatives to keep it alive.
Ours is a one-generation Indo family (two if you count my cousins, who were born in the Dutch East Indies but didn’t stay there long). The Indo chapter of our family’s history began in 1921 when my Opa joined the KNIL. It ended, in many ways, when my parents stepped off the train in Denver.
Reclaiming Pieces of the Past
For a long time, I didn’t realize anything was missing. It wasn’t until I began digging into genealogy and reading the stories of other Dutch-Indo families that I started to see the contours of a culture I had only glimpsed growing up. The food, the gatherings, and the quiet ways people kept memories of the Dutch East Indies alive—it all added so much depth to my understanding of where my family came from. Of course, that culture wasn’t perfect. It existed in the shadow of colonialism, and there’s a lot to reckon with there. But it existed—and it’s part of my story.
I’m grateful to the groups and individuals who are working to preserve this heritage and educate people like me about it. They’ve helped me begin reclaiming pieces of history I didn’t even realize had been missing.