Description
Book SynopsisDorothy Fujita-Rony’s The Memorykeepers: Gendered Knowledges, Empires, and Indonesian American History examines the importance of women's memorykeeping for two Toba Batak women whose twentieth-century histories span Indonesia and the United States, H.L.Tobing and Minar T. Rony. This book addresses the meanings of family stories and artifacts within a gendered and interimperial context, and demonstrates how these knowledges can produce alternate cartographies of memory and belonging within the diaspora. It thus explores how women’s memorykeeping forges integrative possibility, not only physically across islands, oceans, and continents, but also temporally, across decades, empires, and generations. Thirty-five years in the making, The Memorykeepers is the first book on Indonesian Americans written within the fields of US history, American Studies, and Asian American Studies.
Trade Review“This book makes significant contributions to Asian American studies, studies of empire and colonialism, US Cold War history, women’s history, and gender studies. Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony marshals a wealth of evidence from personal narratives and material culture to reveal how women’s “memorykeeping” constitutes a practice of resistance and critique. Her study illuminates the workings of multiple empires in the everyday life of two Toba Batak women, H.L. Tobing and Minar T. Rony, making visible the intertwined forces of gender and empire." - Valerie Matsumoto, University of California, Los Angeles "Dr. Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony’s book, The Memorykeepers: Gendered Knowledges, Empires, and Indonesian American History, is an original and pioneering manuscript in the field of Indonesian American Studies. Particularly valuable is how the scholarship highlights women’s memorykeeping across time and space. A work of this importance is long overdue." - Shirley Lim, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Illustrations Note on Orthography and Names Introduction: Daughter of a Daughter: the Labor of Memorykeeping 1 Questions 2 The ‘Indonesian American’ Context 3 ‘Return’ and ‘Belonging’ Part 1: Empire and Gender 1 Empires:Interimperialism, Migration, and the United States 1 Introduction 2 When Empires Came to You: the Toba Batak 3 Multilingualism and Interimperial Temporality 4 The United States Cold War 5 Conclusion 2 Gendered Knowledges:Patriarchies and the Politics of Belonging 1 Introduction 2 The Toba Batak Culture as Political Location 3 Colonial Domesticity 4 Converging Gender Hierarchies 5 Negotiation and Challenge 6 Conclusion Part 2: Curating Time 3 Stories and Silences: Telling the Past 1 Introduction 2 Searching for Archives 3 What Is Said 4 What Is Not Said 5 Two Pictures 6 Conclusion 4 Artifacts and Memories: Representing Meaning 1 Introduction 2 Knowledge as Legacy 3 Memorykeeping as Response to Precarity 4 The Labor of Artifacts 5 Conclusion Part 3: Memorykeeping Prologue to Part 3: A Journey and a Path 5 Across Empires: The Narrative of H.L. Tobing 1 Raja Pontas 2 The Old Times 3 Family 4 The Adat 5 Christianity 6 Tarutung 7 Living in the Village 8 Dutch Rule 9 Elementary School 10 Salatiga 11 Early Marriage 12 Semarang 13 Magetan 14 Pearaja 15 Bengkalis 16 Japanese Occupation and World War II 17 Kisaran 18 Medan 19 Progress 20 Opportunities 21 United States 22 Homecoming 6 For Those Who Follow: The Autobiography of Minar T. Rony 1 Beginnings 2 Bengkalis 3 Siantar 4 Return to Bengkalis 5 Bukit Batu 6 Pearaja 7 Jakarta 8 Return to Siantar 9 Medan 10 Teacher and Guide 11 The United States Conclusion: The Urgency of Time Timeline Glossary Bibliography Index
