Perhaps few people in Indonesia know that there is a large community of people of Indonesian descent living in the north of the continent of South America. Over 70,000 ‘Javanese’ live in Suriname, a former Dutch colony and vibrant multicultural country located north of Brazil on the Caribbean coast.
Although they have been there for several generations, many of them still identify as Javanese, even though very few have ever visited the island of Java or maintain family connections there. But they speak a creolised version of the Javanese language, Javanese names crop up at all levels of society and elements of Javanese culture (such as cuisine) have influenced this Caribbean nation’s culture.
