📖 Course: Rotterdam Stories from the (post-)colonial diverse city
📚 Programme: Cultural History
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By reporting on a recent interview, Cultural History student Floris Plak reflects on how making visible the experiences of (sons and daughters of) immigrants through oral history projects is also a way to make visible their role in Rotterdam’s history.
For me, Rotterdam today means a multicultural city with many different people, where you can learn a lot from each other and where everyone has something to offer. I think it is a beautiful community where people with different backgrounds can live together. Rotterdam also has its beautiful buildings and the soccer club Feyenoord. It is a nice city with nice, direct people. Rotterdam is the city where I feel at home. But also, safe. (Interviews for the module Rotterdamse Verhalen: Erasmus University Rotterdam and Stadsarchief Rotterdam, 2021).
Here speaks Z, the thirty-three-year-old son of a Moroccan gastarbeider[1]. In the 1960s, his father chose to leave his family and build up a future in Rotterdam. The words of Z reflect the postmodern port city in which residents of different cultures work together on a project that is never finished. A porous city absorbs, in the words of the German cultural philosopher Walter Benjamin, new cultures like a sponge absorbs water. At the same time, it says goodbye to cultures that leave the city. Minorities leave the city, but the city does not leave them. In the city's fibers, the traces of the different cultures that lived there remain visible. The life story of Z also reflects the significance of the city for second-generation migrants who, thanks to the oral history transmission, finally get a voice in the history of Rotterdam. The academic approach towards urban history and migration history, as well as my personal experiences in oral history, form the starting point of this article.
DUTCH MIGRATION HISTORY
Historical research on early modern migration flows in the Dutch Republic has, as Amsterdam cultural historian Geert Jansen argues, been limited to studies of the social composition of migrant groups and their economic position on the labor market. Nevertheless, the Republic held an exemplary position as an early modern society whose economic effectiveness and tolerant culture was largely shaped by a diverse group of migrants. As a country born in freedom by defeating Spanish domination, it opened its borders to migrants who had to flee for religious beliefs. Prominent regent families like Hooft, De Graeff and Huydekoper had to do so themselves. By the end of the sixteenth century, during the Duke of Alva's persecution of heretics, they were forced to find a way out to German cities like Wesel and Emden or English cities like London and Norwich. Returning to the brand-new Republic, they witnessed in the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth century, a large influx of refugees. Jews and Protestants from Flanders, Germany, Portugal and Scandinavia did not feel safe in their own country due to the Thirty Years' War and chose to build a future in the Republic. It led to the founding of a literary discourse in which the Protestant exile was compared to the Biblical Exodus of Israel's inhabitants to the Promised Land. Seventeenth-century writers with the status of first- or second-generation refugees legitimized their stay in the Republic by outlining the Dutch Revolt as a freedom struggle of Protestants against Catholics. Among them was the Flemish author Gerrit van Goedesburg, who in his famous work Olyf-Krans der Vreede argued that after political freedom, the Dutch Republic should work hard for total freedom of faith and conscience. That was before his writing in 1649, a matter handed down to the regions between which the degree of tolerance could differ[2]. The Leiden city clerk Pieter van der Morsch went one step further. He argued in his 1603 Piero's Pocketbook that religious tolerance and the inclusion of refugees were inherently part of Dutch culture[3].
Recent quantitative studies of Rotterdam's migration history from the seventeenth century onward, including those by Rotterdam city historian Paul van de Laar, confirm Jansen's thesis. The four fault lines in Rotterdam's migration flows that Van de Laar identifies show that the city was already characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity in the seventeenth century. Van de Laar uses the concept of superdiversity, which he defines as the study of local long-term developments in the demographic composition of the population in terms of ethnicity, gender, education, social status, religion and mobility. Between 1576 and 1614, over twenty thousand people with a migration background married in Rotterdam, of whom twenty percent came from abroad and eighty percent from other parts of the Dutch Republic. After a slight decline in the second half of the eighteenth century, the number of migrants revived in the nineteenth century. According to the poortersboeken (civil registry) and the register of admissions of the municipality of Rotterdam, two-thirds of the total number of migrants came from the Republic. These figures contrast with the pre-war migration between 1850 and 1940, where the number of new arrivals and the number of emigrants leaving the city were almost in balance (van de Laar & van Schoor, 2019). Prewar migration patterns, as Leiden cultural historian Leo Lucassen argues, were characterized by large groups of lower-class workers. Among these were many Germans and Italians. Although it was often assumed that these migrant workers belonged to the landless proletariat and caused nuisance in the city, they managed to build a good future. The group of migrants was often better educated than native-born Rotterdammers, so they were regularly employed as clerks or store assistants. Marriage registers from the 1870s to 1879 showed, as Lucassen argues, a high degree of exogamy. For example, sixty-five percent of German men during that period married a woman of another origin, compared to thirty-five percent of men who married a German woman (Lucassen 2006).
For a long time, historical research has perpetuated the image that migrant workers from the nineteenth century had difficulty integrating into the metropolis. Accustomed to the quiet life in the countryside, they had difficulty acclimatizing to the city, according to the 1952 thesis of the cultural sociologists P.J. Bouman and W.H. Bouman. The city was characterized by high buildings, railroads, steamboats and endless lines in front of department stores. It brought about a split in society in which the two districts of Rotterdam, south and north of the Maas, became segregated into apparent opposites. Whereas the elite city dwellers lived in the historic northern part of the city, the migrant workers were assigned homes in the significantly poorer and southern part of the city (Bouman & Bouman, 1952). Bouman and Bouman's thesis was heavily influenced by methodologies of the Chicago School of Sociology, which aimed to conduct studies of nationalities and ethnic minorities of immigrant groups in the city (Lucassen, 2006). This approach in sociological studies about the subject, influenced government policies of Western European countries by the idea that migrants assimilated directly into ethnic minority cultures after arriving in the city. Migrants were encouraged to preserve their own culture and could apply for all kinds of subsidies for culture-specific initiatives that would lead to the strengthening of the roots of diverse minority groups in the segregated society. The policy fitted seamlessly into pre-war migration flows that were mostly characterized by migrants with the same culture or nationality, for example from former colonies. Post-war migration flows, on the other hand, do not allow themselves to be captured in a clear-cut number of cultures, especially for harbor newcomers from the 1990s onward, whose culture had no roots in the already established minority cultures (Vertovec, 2007).
ORAL HISTORY TRANSMISSION
The migration process is more than the migrant's physical border crossing into the new homeland. New technologies, from the 1990s onward, enabled by the invention of the Internet and the popularization of telephones, make contact between two different countries easier. As Vertovec argues, transnational contact influences migrants' individual perceptions of identity through contact with family members left behind. Identity is traditionally studied as the way a group of people defines itself in relation to other groups, as well as the way a group is characterized by outsiders. The identity of an individual is the result of negotiation between the individual and the immediate environment, with the assumption that the social identity of a person develops when staying in a different environment for a long period of time. The transnational contact of the migrant thus creates a tension with the identity formation. On the one hand, transnational contacts are built out of the awareness and common perception of a shared cultural identity, while on the other hand the socio-cultural identity of the migrant changes - willingly and unwillingly - as a result of the stay in the new homeland. Beyond the consequences for migrants' self-consciousness, transnational contact can also have consequences for the socioeconomic position of the family members left behind and the territory of origin of the migrant. For example, with the efforts of migrants, the area can develop into a tourist attraction by making local investments, while the socioeconomic position of the family may improve with the channeling of money and goods. Also, migrants holding dual passports can claim citizenship and participate economically as well as politically in both the new homeland and the country of origin (Vertovec 2001).
A gradual turning point in migration history research was reached in the 1980s when the cultural upheaval within the field of history put an end to the socio-economic and political historiography of the past. Life stories and experiences translated into personal source material were therein discarded as subjective representations of reality that could contain an erroneous representation of facts. Egodocuments in which authors enjoyed the literary freedom to distort reality did not, as the Rotterdam cultural historian Rudolf Dekker argues, fit within the prevailing views of the sociological historiography of the Annales School. Led by the French social historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, this historical movement advocated studies of quantifiable long-term developments (Dekker 2002, Le Roy Ladurie 1996). However, oral history transmission and material from personal sources offered, as Australian cultural historian Alistair Thomson argues, the possibility of refuting socioeconomic theories. An example of such a study is that of British oral historian Gina Harkell on the conditions of migrant workers in the coal mines of the English city of Kent. Harkell argues that it was not the wretched working conditions in the mines that were the reason for leaving, but local hostilities against the migrant families and the lack of supportive networks for the wives of migrant workers. In doing so, she demonstrated the inadequacy of previous studies conducted by the British Department of Employment (Thomson, 1999; see also: Harkell, 1978).
Besides providing a counterargument to socioeconomic theories, oral history and egodocuments can also provide a vehicle for the sociocultural and political participation of minorities. An early forerunner of oral history transmission first attempted to do so in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth. Life stories and experiences of migrants were then used in the struggle against apartheid regimes and restrictions on civil rights against the black population. The experiences of discrimination and racism against this group, mobilized a part of the population to end the humiliation and acknowledge the fate of minority cultures. Starting in the 1970s, oral history was also used for activist purposes by action committees and pressure groups. They were demanding not only recognition but also participation. Recorded experiences and life stories contribute in this way not only to scientific knowledge, but also to the social position of migrants. Existing stereotypes are debunked in memoirs of people who suddenly get a recognizable face for the readership of this type of egodocuments. The sharing of traumatic experiences and the recognition of the fate of marginalized groups in local communities, can thus have a therapeutic effect for individuals who would otherwise not be heard (Thomson 1999).
The way in which oral interviews can contribute to historical knowledge is, as Italian cultural historian Alessandro Portelli argues, subject to different views. Traditionally, it was assumed that oral interviews provided direct access to empirical knowledge about the migrant's past that was itself considered representative of the minority group to which they belonged. In this view, the interview was conceived as a monologue by the respondent, in which the interviewer played only a minor role. The latter was supposed to ask only the questions that would help the respondent to organize their thoughts. Although the interview does provide access to knowledge about the past, the interview in itself is a historical event in which two people from different backgrounds engage in dialogue about the history of the respondent. The content and scope of the dialogue constitutes the narrative space shaped by the social frames of reference of the respondent and the interviewer. After all, both participants have an expectation of the person with whom the dialogue is entered into, as well as an expectation of the image that the other has of their interlocutor. The content and scope of the dialogue constitutes the narrative space shaped by the social frames of reference of the respondent and the interviewer. After all, both participants have an expectation of the person with whom the dialogue is entered into, as well as an expectation of the image that the other has of their interlocutor. Both the respondent and the interviewer try to reach consensus based on of geographical and cultural similarities, which raises the possibility that the respondent might answer the questions with socially desirable answers that fit the imagined mind frame of the interviewer. More than a monologue of empirical knowledge, the oral source is, according to Portelli's view, a social construction of a dialogue between two historical actors. The interview tells not only something about the past, but also about the way in which different individuals - from the same temporal mind frames - give meaning to the respondent's past (Portelli, 2018).
As an interviewer, it is therefore, as American oral historian Valerie Yow argues, to create conditions in which the respondent and the interviewer can achieve the best possible outcome. The difference between biography and history lies in the critical approach to the past on the part of the respondent, who thereby steps out of their own safe environment. This creates a friendly bond: respondents can experience it as pleasant that they are listened to and can contribute with their own life story to the knowledge of the past of a local community. A safe environment requires a close negotiation between distance, proximity and trust. Friendly ties lead to uncritical interviews in which the answers remain superficial and do not contain the desired depth. Conversely, an overly critical approach can lead to the respondent feeling uncomfortable and therefore withholding sensitive information. Agreeing together on the content, purpose and follow-up of the interview can be crucial to building a balanced relationship of trust (Yow, 1995).
The importance of a balanced relationship of trust in oral history projects within a local community, is also studied by American oral historian Linda Shopes. Shopes warns that shared authority over the interview, where both the respondent and the interviewer bear responsibility for the final product, can easily deteriorate into uncritical interviews. These contentless interviews occur when the interviewer retreats too much during the interview and does not adequately ask about the respondent's views on the past. Especially in oral history projects within the same local community, there is a danger that interviews will not provide enough new information. The term community is used to designate a group of people who live within the same geographical area or belong to the same social class and therefore often adhere to the same norms and values. In a group with the same shared norms and values, as Shopes' view goes, there is a danger that respondents will cling to a form of populist nostalgia. In these cases, the past is viewed with insufficient distance, making it seem that old cultural patterns are still inherently part of the present. Respondents may demonstrate a reconciliation with the past by adhering to the prevailing views of the time or covering up injustices with the cloak of affection. For example, the respondent may tell a version of their story that appears to fit seamlessly within the zeitgeist of the period in which it is set, while concealing or glossing over important details (Shopes, 2015).
SECOND-GENERATION MIGRANTS
The gastarbeiders’ sons and daughters who were born in the Netherlands carry no living memory of life in their parents' country of origin. This generation of migrants will be less inclined to regard the family's migration past with the same populist nostalgia as their parents did but face different issues. The contact with family members left behind feels to them like the negotiation between two cultures. They are expected to subscribe to the values and norms of their parents' traditional culture, but at school, the Dutch culture is often the starting point for them in their dealings with peers. The way in which second-generation migrants deal with their parents' memories and life between two cultures has been underexplored in migration history studies of the past decades. These mostly focus on the experiences of migrants from former colonies, as evidenced by the studies of the Amsterdam-based cultural sociologist Marlene de Vries (de Vries, 2009). In her oral history project about second and third generation Indische Nederlanders[4], De Vries observes an Indisch heritage and an ethnic identification in the daily lives of her respondents. Whereas the Indisch heritage shows clear traces of dilution, the ethnic identification shows numerous variants. Indisch heritage is defined by the culture in which the respondent lives. A respondent whose parents were both born in the Dutch East Indies, as well as families whose grandparents were born in the Netherlands, has close contact with a large number of Indisch relatives. They are aware of their Indisch heritage. Respondents with one parent from the Dutch East Indies have largely adapted to contemporary conditions, causing dilution with the Indisch culture. All, on the other hand, show themselves to be well aware of the colonial past of their Indisch ancestors. The interviewees of De Vries indicate a negative qualification of Dutch characteristics such as bluntness among parents or grandparents. Parents then often prefer an Indisch partner for their children over a Dutch partner. For third generation migrants, on the other hand, the mental decolonization is largely completed and there is no prejudice against the Dutch[5].
Apart from a handful of quantitative studies on the assimilation process of Turkish and Moroccan second-generation migrants, no research has been done in the Netherlands into the dynamics of their memories[6]. Unlike De Vries' thesis above about migrants from the Dutch East Indies, they have much less to do with the colonial legacy of their ancestors. Moroccan and Turkish gastarbeiders were welcomed with open arms, as evidenced by the memory that Z preserves about his parents' first period in the Netherlands:
My parents' first phase. My father immediately threw himself into working. He was literally approached upon arrival at the station in Rotterdam, which allowed him to start working immediately without speaking Dutch. By communicating with hands, he got his first job. He then went to work in a soft drink factory as a packer. At that time, my father had one goal in mind: to work and earn money for his family and his parents. My mother had to get used to The Netherlands. She had to take care of four children, my three brothers and my sister. They were born in Morocco and came to the Netherlands when they were young. My mother focused mainly on that and made sure that there was food on the table when my father came home from work. Eventually she took part in a language course that was offered voluntarily at the time. There she also met first generation female migrants, with whom she had similarities. This way she also got to know friends and my mother also started to feel at home in the Netherlands. (Plak, ''Z'' Answer to the question: how did your parents' first phase of life in the Netherlands look like?).
Z is the son of a Moroccan gastarbeider who left Morocco for the Netherlands in 1966 to find work as a gastarbeider. His father's departure from Morocco was supposed to be temporary: after a while he would return to his wife who took care of her parents-in-law in the absence of her husband. Things turned out differently. He found work in a soft drinks factory, the cheese sector and finally as a carpenter. During his time as a migrant gastarbeider he had four children with his wife: the three brothers and sister of Z. As part of family reunification, Z’s mother followed her husband to the city of Rotterdam in 1984. She remembers her arrival well. Like her husband, she had not seen a city larger than Rotterdam. For her, the Willemsbrug, built in 1981 and invariably referred to by her as the Red Bridge, was a symbol of the city into which she found herself. Hospitable welcomed, but unfamiliar to her. Her husband, on the other hand, remembers most of all Station Rotterdam Centraal, which had been in operation for almost a decade at that point:
My parents' first arrival in Rotterdam. My father came here in 1966. He literally got off the train at the station in Rotterdam, there he was immediately approached by someone, but he did not speak the Dutch language. They started communicating with hands and later my father understood that the person who addressed him was offering him a job. My father's first impression of Rotterdam was actually the hospitality: that someone approached him while he was getting off the train. A nice job interview at the Rotterdam station, where he also started working right away. My mother came here in 1984. The first thing that has stayed with her is - how she calls it - the Red Bridge, or Willemsbrug. That's the first thing that came to her mind. (Plak, ''Z,'' Answer to the question: How did both your parents experience the arrival in Rotterdam?).
The bridge and the station, as symbols of the city of Rotterdam, form an important part of first-generation migrants' memories of their first period of life in the city. City space as a part of social experiences, on the other hand, is, as van de Laar argues, a new chapter in urban history. For a long time, geographic city space was dismissed in city history studies as an unimportant piece of scenery that had no role within the urban culture and the socio-cultural encounters that took place in the city. In the 1980s, thanks to the cultural and linguistic transformations, urban history reinvented itself. New fields of research were explored with multidisciplinary methods, borrowed from sociology and anthropology. One of these was the ethnographic method, which was employed to study the behavior of social groups over a long period of time. Urban space was an inherent part of this, and had a dual function as a setting of social production and cultural construction. The social production of urban space includes all the social, economic, technological and ideological factors through which urban space is created. The cultural construction is expressed through the use of the city space and the meaning associated with it (van de Laar, 2006).
The social production of the city, that is, all the factors that contribute to the creation of the urban scenery, is reflected in the dynamics of the postcolonial city. Postcolonial cities, as Van de Laar states, are characterized by initiatives and projects from all layers of the population and all cultures (van de Laar, 2013). Super-diversity has penetrated right through to the capillaries of Rotterdam, Z also observes. Rotterdam, as the quotation in the introduction to this article shows, is for him characterized by the coexistence of different cultures and the welcoming of newcomers. In contrast to the Indisch heritage that De Vries perceives in second and third generation migrants from the Dutch East Indies, the memory of Z and his parents is not characterized by colonialism, but by the hospitable reception of gastarbeiders[7]. Z and his parents also experience contact with the neighbourhood as positive. This is in contrast to the respondents of De Vries, who indicated that many older Indische Nederlanders felt anxiety and discomfort in relation to native Dutch people. They indicated that friendly contact with native Dutch people was made difficult because both Dutch and Indisch people were not used to dealing with each other in an informal and relaxed manner. Dutch neighbours complained about food smells, for example, and colleagues made comments that were perceived as derogatory (Ibid., 243-269.). For Z and his parents, the neighbourhood meant a lot:
What I remember very much is that in elementary school I had a teacher who tutored Dutch language to the children in the class with a migrant background. She taught us about Dutch norms and values. The teacher was genuinely interested in us and wanted to know if things were going well at home. That was not only the case with me, but also with my Turkish and Bosnian classmates. I was able to learn a lot from her. We also had nice Dutch neighbours, a man and a woman who often visited us. They knew that my parents were behind in the Dutch language and they tried to help us with the necessary. They would come over for a cup of tea, but they also assessed what was needed within the family. From them I learned that you can and should help everyone, and not look at where someone comes from or what their background is. (Plak, ''Z'' Answer to question: In your life, you learn from different people. It could be family members, but it could also be at school. Can you explain who you learned from?).
Both formally and informally, the family could count on support from the elementary school and the neighborhood in which they lived. This contributed to the family's rapid integration into Rotterdam and Z's remarkably positive description of his childhood and life in the city. Yet, Z is also critical. As a self-employed person without staff, he is involved in mental health care. After his college studies, he started working as a residential care supervisor for a mental health institution. Four years ago, he decided to register himself at the Chamber of Commerce and to join a website for self-employed people in the mental health sector. Since then, Z has been working in locations throughout the Netherlands. He has never had any problems with racism or discrimination with clients. Z believes it is important, within the mental health sector, that the care matches the client's wishes, which —according to him—makes him quickly liked by clients and he gives his card at the relevant institution. With colleagues, Z has experienced occasional problems in the city:
Fortunately, I don't work at one fixed location: I travel all over the country when it comes to projects. I also notice differences in the way people treat each other. I can remember that during a job in Rotterdam they didn't give me a warm welcome. I had to get used to that. I found it strange. Eventually I understood from my colleague, also a self-employed person without personnel, that she had experienced it in the same way, so I could let go and thought: it's not my fault, it's not me. But I do go to other parts of the country for other jobs and I notice that they give me a warmer welcome; in Brabant, for example, they are more approachable. Not here, I found that strange. (Plak, "Z". Answer to the question: Have you ever experienced difficulties during your work because of your background?).
Although Z emphasizes Rotterdam's hospitality when it comes to welcoming his parents and his private life, he is critical of the city's work atmosphere. For him, it is characterized by the unpleasant experience he had when arriving at a healthcare facility, while in other parts of the country he was warmly welcomed. Yet he would rather not talk about this experience. To the question, ''How have you experienced the contact with the city and your clients as a starting entrepreneur and have you noticed any changes in it over the years?'', Z initially answered that not based on his background as migrant but on the recent social issues concerning the coronavirus (The original question read: Can you notice any differences in your contact with your clients then compared to now?). After the interviewer continued to ask about the experiences from his personal background, he only briefly recounted the unpleasant experience. This shows that Z preferred not to talk about it. Unlike the respondents of De Vries, who spoke openly about the colonial legacy of their ancestors, this seemed to be a case of populist nostalgia in which the respondent tries to condone or cover up abuses (de Vries, 2009; Shopes, 2015). How second-generation migrants from gastarbeiders families deal with discrimination and racism in the workplace is a topic for further historical and anthropological research.
REFLECTION AND CONCLUSION
The interview with Z was the result of a personal negotiation between knowledge of the Dutch migration past and oral history projects within the community. In the first two sections of this paper, I attempted to provide insight into the Dutch migration past and the striking positive appreciation of the concept of freedom from the seventeenth century onward. Oral history and the rise of egodocuments in historical research has expanded the arsenal of scholarly studies surrounding the Dutch migration past to include a broader understanding. No longer is migration seen as the migrant's physical move from the country of origin to the new homeland, but as a holistic understanding of all the experiences and contacts the migrant makes during this process in both countries. With this interview, I have not only attempted to contribute to the integration of urban history and migration history, but also tried to demonstrate the gaps in historical research on second generation migrants. Whereas the first stream of gastarbeiders has now been living in the Netherlands for over sixty years and has, by now, children and grandchildren, the study of the memory of second- and third-generation migrants remains limited to the experiences of migrant families from former colonies. This fails to do justice to the post-war migration flows that no longer allow themselves to be categorized by ethnicity and nationality. Postwar migration flows, after all, are characterized by migrants of many different nationalities and cultures that do not fit into pre-established minority cultures. For migration historians arguing against the limited field of vision of the Chicago School of Sociology, here lies the challenge.
Throughout the interview, I noted the importance of distance and proximity between the interviewer and the respondent on several occasions. ''Do I like them too much?'', Yow asked herself in her study (Yow 1995). I have known Z for several years: I had the opportunity to interview him twice. This had the effect that both the respondent and the interviewer knew each other, and also had a specific expectation of each other. Z knew from other interviews how I worked, that at the start of the dialogue I have a thorough preparation behind me and wanted to deliver a good final product after the event. At the same time, I know that Z is a man who is positive in life and out of his enthusiasm looks for the valuable qualities in every person. It brings his two backgrounds, as a member of the Moroccan Muslim community in the Netherlands and his career as a social worker in mental health care, together to create the character he has. Both were aware of the social frames of thought and the expectations of the other that outlined the narrative space, so the interview went smoothly and quickly. Therein also lies a pitfall: as a person, I knew Z longer and already knew the necessary things about his background, so I could consider his experiences as an entrepreneur with insufficient distance. He preferred not to talk about that.
The history scholarship has taught me to be sensitive to the possibilities and impossibilities of the historical source. The egodocument cannot be forced. I, too, was guided by the information the source gave me during the writing of this reflection paper. This felt uncomfortable: the shared authority of oral history projects offer the impression that the interviewer can determine the content of the interview. After all, the questions that emerge are answered by the respondent. As an interviewer, you can frame the questions in a way that pushes the respondent in a certain direction. I chose not to do that. Out of the realization that the positivity and life experiences of Z and his parents are worth writing down, I have been largely led by the answers Z gave me. Here and there I continued to ask questions, asking for explanations and clarifications where I felt they were needed. Above all, as an oral historian, I felt like a servant. I sat there not for my own agenda and my own research, but with the assumption that the story of second-generation migrants is worthy of finally being documented for a larger group. Although the source, Z, gave me access to his life as an entrepreneur to a lesser extent, it gave me a wealth of information about the cultures of memory and populist nostalgia that I outlined in the article.
[1] ‘Gastarbeider’: The literal translation from Dutch would be 'guest worker'. Gastarbeiders were foreign or migrant workers who had moved to The Netherlands seeking work as part of a formal guest worker program (Gastarbeider program)
[2] For a discussion about Olyf-Krans der Vreede, see: Marijke Spies, ‘’De vrijheid in de Olyf-Krans der Vreede, (1649),’’ De Zeventiende Eeuw 13 (1997), 201-207.
[3] For a discussion about the Zakboekje van Piero, see: Geert Jansen, ‘’The Republic of Refugees,’’ 233-252.
[4] Indisch/e: Historical term derived from colonial times. The adjective derived from the Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia) and refers to anyone with links to the Dutch East Indies now residing in The Netherlands (De Vries, 2009).
[5] De Vries, ‘Indisch is een gevoel’, 317-337.
[6] See, for example, the introductions of: Liza Mügge, Beyond Dutch Borders: Transnational politics among colonial migrants, guest workers and the second generation (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), 21-46; Elif Kesniker, Youth transitions among descendants of Turkish immigrants in Amsterdam and Strasbourg: a generation in transition (Cham: Springer Open, 2019), 1-26.
[7] De Vries, ‘Indisch is een gevoel’, 317-337.
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