Other: Reclaiming the Canvas of Identity

by Sjoekje F. Sas(a)bone, LCSW, EMHA – 

Reclaiming the Canvas of Identity

Recently, I completed a painting titled Other. I began painting in acrylics at age 48, entirely self-taught. For me, painting is not a hobby or a project. It is something that presses on me until it finds its way onto a canvas. Like many of my paintings, Other began with something I could not ignore. It started as a memory, then a question, and eventually became an image.

Inspired by Dutch tulips and Indonesian batik patterns, the painting grew into a reflection of identity, belonging, and a lifelong experience of being asked to fit into categories that never fully described who I was.

Dreading the Demographic Form

For many people, the word “other” is simply a category on a form. For me, it was a source of anxiety throughout much of my childhood.

From first through eighth grade, one event at school reliably filled me with dread: census forms and demographic questionnaires. Every year, I was asked to identify my ethnicity, and every year I was told I needed to choose only one.

The problem was that I was exactly two.

My Friesian mother immigrated from Holland to America in 1956 at the age of 21. My Moluccan father moved from Indonesia to Holland in 1958, then sailed from France to New York in 1960 at the age of 36.

My parents eventually met at Avio, the Dutch Club in Anaheim, where many Dutch immigrants gathered to celebrate their language, customs, food, and shared heritage.

There was no uncertainty in my mind about who I was. I was Dutch and Indonesian (Indo). Yet the forms rarely reflected that reality. Instead, I was often encouraged—or required—to reduce myself to a single category.

As a child, that felt impossible. How could I choose one parent over the other?

A Lesson in the Fourth Grade

From first through eighth grade, whenever we completed census or demographic forms, our teachers had us go around the room one by one and announce our ethnicity out loud in front of the entire class. Every year I dreaded it.

My answer was always the same. “I am half Dutch and I’m half Indonesian.”

Just as consistently, I was often told that I needed to choose one.

My response was always the same. “But I’m exactly two.”

One memory remains especially vivid from fourth grade.

When it was my turn, I gave the same answer I always gave: “I am half Dutch and I’m half Indonesian.”

My teacher pressed further and explained that I needed to choose one.

I responded, “But I’m exactly two.”

My teacher then asked, “What is your father?”

I told her. That is what she marked.

I remember feeling that a decision had been made about me rather than by me. The complexity of who I was had been reduced to a single answer.

Years later, I learned that researchers consider ethnic and racial identity development to be an important part of childhood and adolescence. Umaña-Taylor and colleagues (2014) describe these years as a period when young people work to understand and integrate their ethnic and racial backgrounds into a coherent sense of self. Looking back, I realize that my discomfort was never about a census form. It was about being asked to separate parts of myself that I already understood as belonging together.

The Standoff

Years later, when I was eleven years old, my mother took me to obtain my Social Security card. What should have been a routine appointment became a three-hour lesson in identity and perseverance.

When the employee asked for my ethnicity, I answered exactly as I always had: “Dutch and Indonesian.”

The employee insisted that I choose one ethnicity.

I refused.

My mother stood beside me the entire time and supported me completely. Again and again, both my mother and I explained that I was both.

My mother explained that I was half Dutch and half Indonesian. Then she said: “I am her mother. I am Dutch. Her father is Indonesian.”

I explained that I was half Dutch and half Indonesian.

We kept repeating the same thing because it was simply the truth.

Hours passed.

Eventually I became exhausted. I was on the verge of giving in simply because I was tired of arguing. I remember thinking that perhaps it would be easier just to provide the answer they wanted.

Then something changed.

The employee consulted a supervisor and returned with a different answer. I could list both.

At eleven years old, I learned two lessons that have stayed with me for the rest of my life: never surrender your identity to make someone else comfortable, and never give up too soon. I learned that sometimes the breakthrough comes right when you feel like giving up.

Looking back as an adult, I realize that what felt so important to me at age eleven was not simply a disagreement over paperwork. It was about identity. The American Psychological Association’s Race and Ethnicity Guidelines in Psychology recognizes that race and ethnicity are complex social and cultural constructs and emphasizes the importance of understanding how individuals define and experience their own identities (American Psychological Association, 2019).

The Incompleteness of “Other”

When the category “Other” first appeared on forms, I remember feeling relieved. At last there was an option that acknowledged I was not simply one thing. Yet even that category felt incomplete. “Other” recognized that I existed, but it did not describe who I was. It could not tell the story of a Dutch mother and an Indonesian father. It could not capture the traditions, histories, and experiences that shaped me.

Research examining ethnic classification methods found that the way institutions categorize ethnicity can significantly affect how people are represented and understood. Yao and colleagues (2022) found that broad ethnic classifications can obscure important differences and lived experiences, particularly among multi-ethnic individuals. Reading this research decades later, I recognized something familiar. As a child, I was repeatedly told to choose one identity, as though being Dutch and Indonesian was somehow too complicated for a form to accommodate. Yet my identity was never complicated to me. It was simply the truth.

Layering Tulips and Batik

The painting did not emerge all at once. It developed layer by layer, much like identity itself. I began with photographs of tulips, a symbol closely tied to my Dutch heritage. My dad’s youngest brother, Karel Sasabone, gifted me this batik in 2005, bringing it to me from our island in the Moluccan Islands. I repeatedly used the pattern from this particular batik, the one gifted to me by my uncle and pictured here, in my artwork. By total coincidence, it’s fun to realize that I share a birthday with the famous Dutch painter Rembrandt.

Looking back through the process photos, I realize the painting was expressing something I had known since childhood. The same conviction that led me to challenge a form at age eleven was finding its way onto the canvas decades later. I was never one or the other. I was both.

The irony is that “Other” was once the only category that seemed to acknowledge my existence. Yet it never truly described me. I am not “Other.” I am Dutch and Indonesian. I am my mother’s heritage and my father’s heritage.

A Truth to Honor

This painting became my way of reclaiming that word.

Each tulip carries influences from both sides of my family story, Dutch flowers layered with Indonesian-inspired patterns. The painting may be called Other, but its true subject is belonging. It is a reminder that identity is not something to be reduced, simplified, or divided. It is something to be lived, honored, and carried forward.

Today, when I look at the painting that now hangs before me, I no longer think about a checkbox on a form.

I think about an eleven-year-old girl who refused to erase half of herself.

And I think about the lesson she learned: Being both was never a problem to solve. It was always a truth to honor.

References

American Psychological Association. (2019). Race and ethnicity guidelines in psychology: Promoting responsiveness and equity. American Psychological Association. 

Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Quintana, S. M., Lee, R. M., Cross, W. E., Jr., Rivas-Drake, D., Schwartz, S. J., Syed, M., Yip, T., & Seaton, E. (2014). Ethnic and racial identity during adolescence and into young adulthood: An integrated conceptualization. Child Development, 85(1), 21–39.

Yao, E. S., Bullen, P., Meissel, K., Tiatia, J., Fleming, T., & Clark, T. C. (2022). Effects of ethnic classification on substantive findings in adolescent mental health outcomes. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 51(8), 1581–1596. 

About the Author

Sjoekje Sas(a)bone, LCSW, EMHA, is a Trauma-Informed Care Program Director with the California Department of State Hospitals and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice. She earned an Executive Master of Health Administration from the University of Southern California and is a Certified Interpersonal Neurobiology Clinician. A first-generation Dutch-Indonesian (Indo) American, she writes about identity, culture, family history, trauma, and belonging. She began painting in acrylics at age 48 as a self-taught artist and views her artwork as a visual extension of the stories she carries.

The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use of the information and content of this article.