Interview: Khairani Barokka

I grew up — at different points in my life — in Ithaca, New York, in Melbourne, Australia, and in Jakarta. But I think it’s always really important for me to say that I’m from Jakarta. I was born there, I spent almost half my life there, I have a Jakarta-related tattoo — I feel a very strong sense of being from Jakarta. But at the same time, there have definitely been moments that I felt alienated living here [in Jakarta] because I lived in all these different places, and then there’s the assumption that people have that strangely sort of ties into this weird, neocolonial, like “Western countries are better” thing. I remember when I was in Australia, I had a chance to be “popular” because I had lived in America for some time — that was considered cool. As opposed to me just being from Indonesia. Or, the assumption that I’m a bazillionaire because I lived abroad, which isn’t necessarily true.