Posted on by dyahanggraini

Truth is, I am scared and angry all the time

This TED Talk discusses about unconscious biases, and it made me think about my own unconscious biases, especially towards people with different racial background. Most people when asked explicitly about immigrants in their country would say that they have positive impact on the society.

But this bit on TED Talk mentioned:

“… it appears that when things get funky and a little troublesome, a little risky….”

“Who is your default? Who do you trust? Who are you afraid of? Who do you implicitly feel connected to? Who do you run away from?”

“The implicit association test which measures unconscious bias… Five million people have taken it. Turns out, our default is white. We like white people. We prefer white… When people are shown images of black men and white men, we are more quickly able to associate that picture with a positive word… than we are when we are trying to associate positive with a black face, and vice versa. When we see a black face, it is easier for us to connect black with negative than it is white with negative. Seventy percent of white people taking that test prefer white. Fifty percent of black people taking that test prefer white.”

“… biases are the stories we make up about people before we know who they actually are. But how are we going to know who they are when we’ve been told to avoid and be afraid of them?”

(Myers, 2014, 4:16)

When push comes to shove, I feel judged, not deserving to be here. I feel like I was not perceived as a human being, but a commodity that will be deported as soon as I cease delivering my function or dare to make a mistake.

Some people would say that I was different, that I am not one of those immigrants, they would say that they were referring to other immigrants. But they constantly put a blanket statement over all immigrants as soon as one individual cross the line. Suddenly all immigrants are suspects. All immigrants are deemed as evil, liars, drug dealers, murderers, and all sorts, or at the very least potential suspects by default.

I do not feel at home. I do not feel like an outsider. I feel like a convict on probation.

I feel like I must be on my toes at all times, pressured to excel, no room for mistakes or failures, because my brown skin, my foreign name, and my country-of-origin dictate that I must constantly prove that I deserve to live here.

Posted on by dyahanggraini

My name is Dyah

I have always loved my name.

When I started middle school, a classmate exclaimed how pretty my name was when I introduced myself on the first day of school. I still remember that after all these years. That is how vain I am with my own name.

When I moved to the UK, I needed to spell out my name and its pronunciation. Every. Single. Time.

“It’s D-Y-A-H, and it’s pronounced Dee-Yah, or [diːjɑː], not Die-Yah.”

“It’s D-Y-A-H. Delta Yankee Alfa Hotel. No, it’s pronounced Dee-Yah, not Die-Yah.”

Now I live in Iceland, the conversation regarding my name has not changed much, only this time in Icelandic.

“D-Y-A-H. D eins og Davíð, ypsílon, A, H. Nei, það er Dee-Yah, ekki Die-Yah.”

Most of the times, I just find it amusing, as I roll my eyes when I spell out my 4-letter name for the hundredth billionth time.

But on difficult days, I just feel tired and dejected. Someone once suggested that I should change my name, having it written Día instead of Dyah. It will have the same pronunciation and it might be easier for the locals here to write and say it properly. Someone also told me if my name looks and sounds more Icelandic, it will give me a chance to land a better job with better pay, etc. How horrible I felt when I was told that warrants a whole other post, I think.

This morning, I was talking to a representative of a company that we work with, and she asked me how to spell my name, I was about to give her our email alias for our department to avoid spelling out my troublesome foreign name, but she said no, she just wanted to know how my name was spelled.

After I spelled out my name, she asked me if she was pronouncing it correctly. When I said yes that she was spelling and saying my name correctly, she said:

“I think I’ve got it now, what a beautiful name. May I ask where you’re from?”

I was pleasantly surprised. Apparently, when people genuinely express interest on how my name came to be and ask how to pronounce it properly, it makes me happy.

It is a little thing that means a lot to me. When living in a land when telling people my own name is often a struggle, it stopped being a novelty, and it becomes downright infuriating, this small comment just made my day.

Posted on by dyahanggraini

Icelandonesia or Indoniceland?

There are not many Indonesian people living in Iceland. I’ve known about 30 of them, I think, even though data from the Indonesian Embassy in Oslo shows that there are over 60 of us currently living here.

Those 30 Indonesian people that I know, we meet regularly. Most of the times we just have informal gatherings where we stuff delicious Indonesian food into our mouth. Recently, we decided to make a formal organisation for us.

We registered our group through RSK (Directorate of Internal Revenue), set up a website, and voted board members. It was all very formal and I have been enjoying the whole process so far.

In the beginning

When I moved to Iceland in 2008, I was told not to be like most foreigners who live in Iceland, who would just hang out with people from the same country, not speaking Icelandic, not integrating to the community, and so on.

It was hard to move to a new country located thousands of kilometers away from my home, and to top it off I was instantly greeted by warnings on what NOT to do.

So, in the early days, I tried my best to integrate into the Icelandic society. I joined a short course on Icelandic language, met several new friends from different countries, ended up taking a full time study at the university, and got myself a part time job.

All the while I kept thinking, have I integrated into the Icelandic society? Am I still considered a foreigner? Can I hang out more with my Indonesian friends? Will society judge me for not integrating enough if I spend time with Indonesian people here?

After a few years

Even now I still wonder, am I a part of the Icelandic society? The only difference is, I care less about what other people think of me in terms of who I hang out with, and who my friends are.

I have children who go to Icelandic schools, speak Icelandic with everybody, and are exposed to everything that is Icelandic around them, i.e. custom, culture, and holidays.

On a daily basis, the only Indonesian exposure they get is when I speak or read to them. Occasionally, my parents would talk to them in Indonesian through Skype. Once a year we visit them and the boys will get their yearly dose of cultural immersion in Indonesia, by staying at their grandparents for 1 month and being surrounded by their relatives who speak mainly Indonesian and Javanese.

For the other 11 months of the year, it is up to me to make sure my children are not losing their Indonesian heritage. I take my children whenever I meet up with my Indonesian friends;

  • So they would hear other people speaking their mother tongue.
  • So they can see that their mum is not the only one in Iceland who speaks Indonesian.
  • So they can improve their skills in listening and speaking Indonesian.
  • So they can see that sometimes, we are not the minority.
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Kindergarten

When my kids were born, I contemplated whether to put them in kindergarten or not. The kindergartens in Iceland operate during weekdays and working hours, i.e. Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. This is a tad different from the kindergarten I went to when I grew up in Indonesia.

In Indonesia, children from the age of 4 to 6 years will attend kindergarten that opens on weekdays, from 8 to 10 in the morning. Usually they alternate between days, i.e. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

In Iceland, children as young as 12 months old can be admitted to kindergarten. They can stay there all 5 days of the week, all day.

My mum suggested that I hire a full-time live-in nanny to take care of my sons at home, instead of sending them off to kindergarten. It is a pretty common practice in Jakarta to hire a full-time nanny who lives at your home. In contrast, it is not common at all here in Iceland.

With such opposing common practices between my two home countries, it took me quite a while to find out what fits our family best.

Why I love kindergarten

However, based on my experiences with the kindergarten here since 2013, I love sending my kids there, because:

  1. There is no way that I could keep them off TV/iPads/computers from 8 AM to 5 PM.
  2. I am really bad at keeping up daily routines.
  3. Sometimes, I need a break from the kids. I love them, but being in constant interaction with them really takes a toll on me.
  4. I will not be able to focus on them 100% all day, there will always be laundry, cooking, and sticky floors that distract me.
  5. I am not creative at all in arts, crafts or other kids’ stuffs.
  6. I believe it takes a village in raising kids. In this case, it takes a whole kindergarten and other relevant parties in raising mine:
  • Great highly qualified teachers that my kids absolutely adore.
  • Super talented chef and kitchen assistants who cook varieties of healthy food for the children every day.
  • Around 90 children ranging from 12 months to 6 year olds who provide social skills and be best friends to my sons.
  • Regulated environment that adheres to state’s rules, county’s rules, and Department of Education’s rules.

Why I DON’T love kindergarten

As soon as my kids start kindergarten, they get sick, and it happens so often! There were times when they would go to kindergarten for 1 day, then got sick for two weeks.

Be it common flu, RS virus, chicken pox, hand and mouth disease, stomach bug, tapeworm, and lice, my kids have got them at one time or another.

It is infuriating at times, especially when they catch something that is contagious and it ends up infecting everyone at our house.

Is kindergarten the right choice?

Once my kids got older, the sickness became less frequent. Though I still get emails every now and then whenever there is a lice breakout. I am seriously considering shaving their head bald now.

Bottom line is, both my kids love their kindergarten. I love their kindergarten and all the people there. Even though my kids will definitely get their share of the sniffles when the flu season starts, they learn so much from their kindergarten and its environment that I will never be able to replicate if they are just to stay home with me all day. So, in our family, kindergarten was the right choice.