An interrogator of identity: Interview with professor Leo Suryadinata

Abstract

Leo Suryadinata’s academic journey is in fact a journey of identity search, with his ethnic background as Indonesian Chinese growing up in the 1960s when the country was caught in political turmoil caused by ideological and ethnical confrontations. Leo Suryadinata has been using, questioning, examining, researching, and recording the meaning and question of Chinese identity in his academic life. He explores the issue with very diversified approaches, ranging from literature, history, political science, and international relations studies, etc. In this interview, he narrates this decades-long searching experience.