INTRODUCTION: BAWEAN AND THE CULTURAL REPRODUCTION OF MALAY ETHNICITY

The Baweanese, popularly referred to as Orang Boyan, are a little–known people from the tiny island of Bawean, located in the Java Sea. The island has a population of only 65,000 but a diaspora at least ten times larger spanning the Asia–Pacific region, particularly Malaysia and Singapore, where they form an important component of the Malay community (Ali 1996, p. 3). Malaysia and Singapore are so well known on the isolated island that two roads on it are named after their ex–prime ministers Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Mr Goh Chok Tong (Abd Rahman and Omar 2007). Baweanese immigration, a small but unique stream of the broader Indonesian flow into Malaysia, is important in terms of its long history, sustainability, and its acculturation and assimilation strategies.

According to one scholar, in the mid–1990s Malaysia had an estimated 500,000 and Singapore between 50,000 and 80,000 “Malays” of Baweanese descent, whose forefathers had entered during colonial times (Ali 1996, p. 2). A smaller cohort of about 4,000 Baweanese entered Malaysia in 1975–85, arriving initially as single, male, temporary foreign workers, followed by full family formations. By 2010 these post–colonial immigrants, together with their children and grandchildren, were estimated to total 50,000 and were among the largest and most settled of the new Indonesian communities in squatter settlements in the Peninsula's west coast towns of Johor Bahru, Seremban, Kuala Lumpur, Klang, Rawang and Ipoh (Group Discussion, Baweanese Community Leaders, Gombak, 14 July 2010).

Unlike the other ethnic minorities described in this book who arrived and evolved as communities before the British colonial period, most Baweanese — like most Chinese and Indians — entered and settled during the British period. Despite being relatively recent immigrants, the Baweanese have not merely acculturated but have assimilated into the Malay community. The scholar Wang Gungwu refers to Malays of Indonesian ancestry and recent Indonesian foreign workers as “migrants of similarity”, who share a common religion, language (Malay) and customs with Malays. This is in contrast to Chinese and Indians whom he refers to as “migrants of difference”, with different cultural backgrounds (verbal comments, quoted in Miyazaki 2000, p. 77).

Given their similarities with Malays, the Baweanese experience of acculturation is different from that of non–Muslim ethnic minorities.