Overview

The earliest Indonesian immigrants to the United States were Dutch Indonesian or "Indos" who settled in Southern California in the 1950s as refugees following the Indonesian National Revolution against Dutch colonists.^[6] Indonesian international students came to the United States in significant numbers as early as the mid-1950s, beginning with a 1953 International Cooperation Administration (now U.S. Agency for International Development) program to allow University of Indonesia medical faculty to pursue higher studies at the University of California, Berkeley.^[2] Permanent settlement in the U.S. began to grow in 1965, due to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which opened the door to Asian immigration, and the violent and chaotic Transition to the New Order in Indonesia, which spurred emigration from that country.^[7] Due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis,^[6] between 1980 and 1990, the number of Indonesians in the United States tripled, reaching 30,085.^[8] A large proportion live in Southern California: 29,710 respondents to the 2000 census who listed "Indonesian" as one of their ethnicities lived there.^[7] Indonesia was one of 25 other countries that participated in a special registration program for its emigrants which started in 2002 as a response to the September 11 attacks against the US.^[6] Following the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, there was another surge of immigrants to the East Coast of the US which included many Indonesians.^[6]

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of census respondents identifying themselves as Indonesian (either alone or in combination with other responses) grew by 51% from 63,073 to 95,270.^[3][4] Come 2015, this number has augmented again to 113,000 persons according to the Pew Research Center.^[9]

Chinese Indonesian asylum seekers

Active lobbying of politicians by Chinese American groups contributed to an unusually high number of successful Chinese Indonesian applicants for political asylum to the United States in 1998 as an impact of the May 1998 riots in Indonesia. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 7,359 applicants were granted asylee status and 5,848 were denied in the decade up to 2007. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly difficult for applicants to prove to immigration officials that they would face targeted violence if returned to Indonesia.^[10]

In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in Sael v. Ashcroft that a Chinese Indonesian couple was eligible for political asylum after citing the existence of anti-Chinese violence and of laws that prohibit Chinese schools and institutions.^[11][12] The same court in the following year granted Marjorie Lolong eligibility for asylum after finding that she is "a member of [women and Christian] sub-groups that are at a substantially greater risk of persecution than the [ethnic Chinese] group as a whole."^[13] However, the court reversed its findings through an en banc decision and stated that it understood the Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA) "decision to preclude a general grant of asylum to Indonesian Chinese Christians." The dissenting opinion criticized the BIA's rejection of testimony regarding the Indonesian government's inability to control persecution despite its intentions.^[14]

Ethnicity

Indonesian Americans are members of various ethnic subcategories such as Malays, Minangkabau,^[16] Minahasans, Javanese, Batak, or Tionghoa.^[6] The first Indonesians to move to Southern California were Indos (Indonesians of mixed Native Indonesian and European descent).^[17] However, the majority of Indonesians who came in the 1960s were of Chinese descent.^[18] Unofficial estimates suggest that as many as 60% of the Indonesians in Southern California are of Chinese descent.^[19] Interracial marriage is not uncommon, especially among the young, though the elderly often prefer that their children marry other Indonesian or Chinese.^[20]

Many second-generation Indonesian Americans still feel a connection to their Indonesian identity through their ancestry despite often not having a complete grasp on the Indonesian language.^[21]

Religion

Indonesian Americans belong to many faiths including Protestantism, Catholicism, Sunni Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, although the first three are the most common.^[6]

While Islam gains its popularity among Indonesian Americans due to Indonesia being one of the largest Islamic countries in the world, Christianity is the mostly rapidly growing religious tradition among these communities.^[22] The first Indonesian church in the U.S. was a Seventh-day Adventist Church established in Glendale, California in 1972 with a predominantly Indo congregation (now located in Azusa, CA); however, as more pribumi migrants joined the church, racial tensions arose, and the Indos withdrew to other churches. The second Indonesian church to be founded in the U.S. was a Baptist church, started by an ethnic Chinese pastor and with a predominantly ethnic Chinese congregation.^[23] By 1988, there were 14 Indonesian Protestant congregations; ten years later, that number had grown to 41, with two Indonesian Catholic congregations as well.^[24] Catholicism is most present within Indonesian American communities in states like California, Georgia, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania where mass is offered weekly or monthly in the Indonesian language.^[6] Many of the Chinese-Indonesian immigrants of the late 1990s were Christian, and chose to flee their mainland due to fear of persecution.^[22]

Indonesian Muslims constituted around 15% of the Indonesian American population in the 1990s.^[25] The first Indonesian Mosque in the US was the Al-Hikmah Mosque founded in Astoria, New York, which is currently headed by Shamsi Ali.^[26][27] In 2017, the Indonesian Muslim community in Los Angeles purchased a former church at 1200 Kenmore Avenue and converted it into At-Thohir Mosque.^[28][29] There is also an Indonesian mosque in Silver Spring, Maryland named the IMAAM Center.^[30] This mosque is very active today through its regular services and community outreach, as it is an important hub for Indonesian Muslim life in America.^[25] Many upper class Indonesians have chosen to assimilate more into American culture due to economic and cultural comforts. From the perspective of those within this community, this can be seen as a divergence from the Indonesian Muslim identity.^[25]

Workforce

Roughly one of every eight Indonesian Americans worked as a cook, waiter, or waitress.^[31] Restaurants owned by Indonesian Americans are sites for cultural unity over shared meals and traditions.^[6]

According to Pew Research in 2019, households headed by an Indonesian immigrant had a median income of $80,000, compared to $64,000 and $66,000 for all immigrant and U.S.-born households, respectively.^[32]

Arts and entertainment

• Devi Dja, actress, dancer, and singer
• Agnez Mo, singer-songwriter, dancer
• Joey Alexander, pianist
• Lulu Antariksa, actress and singer
• Carmit Bachar, member of The Pussycat Dolls, singer, dancer, and actress
• Raja Gemini, drag performer
• Michelle Branch, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter
• Mark-Paul Gosselaar, actor, mother is Dutch-Indonesian
• Cynthia Gouw, actress, TV news anchor and host who was named Miss Chinatown USA 1984
• Tania Gunadi, Indonesian-born Hollywood actress^[34]
• Steven Ho, martial artist and actor
• Coco Lee, international artist, Hong Kong-based singer-songwriter, actress, (father was an ethnic Chinese from Indonesia while mother was from Hong Kong, China)
• Rory Leidelmeyer, bodybuilder and stuntman
• Innosanto Nagara, author, illustrator
• Irma Pane, pop singer^[34]
• Jodi Ann Paterson, model^[34]
• Rich Brian, rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer
• Niki, singer-songwriter
• Yoshi Sudarso, actor, stuntman
• Alex Van Halen, member of rock group Van Halen, mother was Dutch-Indonesian^[35]
• Eddie Van Halen, member of rock group Van Halen, mother was Dutch-Indonesian^[36]
• Wolfgang Van Halen
• Armand van Helden, American DJ, record producer, remixer and songwriter
• Stephanie Poetri, singer-songwriter
• Dallas Liu, actor
• Warren Hue, rapper
• Samantha Win, actress, martial artist, stunt woman and wushu taolu athlete

Business and technology

• Henk Rogers, founder of Bullet Proof software and The Tetris Company (half Dutch)
• Julia S. Gouw, President of East West Bancorp
• Theresia Gouw, Investor/Venture Capitalist
• Leo Koguan, Chairman and co-founder, SHI International
• Sehat Sutardja, Co-Founder of Marvell Technology Group

Criminal

• Rudy Kurniawan, criminal and perpetrator of wine fraud.

Literature and media

• Li-Young Lee, American poet; of ethnic Chinese origin, born in Indonesia
• Rahadyan Sastrowardoyo, writer, editor, and photographer
• Shamsi Ali, prominent Indonesian Muslim Scholar

Politics

• Maya Soetoro-Ng, half-sister of former United States president Barack Obama
• Joyce L. Kennard, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California

Science

• Willem Jacob Luyten, astronomer

Sports

• Arki Dikania Wisnu, basketball player
• Rudy Gunawan, world champion badminton player
• Tony Gunawan, world champion, Olympic gold medalist, and badminton player
• Halim Haryanto, All England, world champion badminton player
• John Juanda, professional poker player
• Chris Limahelu, American football player
• Kyle Winter, rugby union player
• Gavin Kwan Adsit, footballer