The Baweans of Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

This paper is part of my PhD research at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. It focuses on the third and fourth generation of descendants of a group of immigrants that left the Bawean Island in the Java Sea for the French Colony Indochina around 1900. This paper introduces this group of Muslims currently living in the Center of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. The members of this religious community are transnationally active and see themselves, at one and the same time, as “orang Bawean” or Bawean people, and as Vietnamese or even Cham, and as good Muslims. They live around one of the first mosques built in Ho Chi Minh City informally called the “thanh duong Malai” or Malay temple. Some 60 of its members did not have any citizenship since they day they were born in what is currently known as Vietnam. In 2003 these people suddenly applied for Vietnamese citizenship. This presentation looks into the reasons for this decision and the implications it had for the Vietnamese state officials. It deals with questions of assimilation, influences of transnational religious contacts and the interaction between these “Baweans” and the state officials in a country that is hardly known for its pro-active approach when it comes to matters of citizenship or religion.