I’m  Kaila Uli, a third generation Indo. I was born and raised in Southern Ca with my 5 siblings.

I don’t know much about my family’s history before immigrating. It’s not something we talked about very often.  I know Oma and Opa had to leave Indonesia for The Netherlands prior to coming to the U.S. My Oma, Yvonne Bogaardt, and Opa, Ronald Dumas, immigrated to the U.S. separately. They met and married here. We were raised knowing we were Dutch-Indonesian, but not understanding what that meant. I had no idea there were more Indos. I always assumed Oma and Opa’s stories were exclusive to them. My Great Opa, who we called ‘little Opa’ would tell the story of being in a war camp and stealing grease from the train axles to cook rice cakes and sell back to the guards. He used the money buy peanuts to feed the elephants.

I’m so grateful and proud to be part of this group working to preserve our history and keep the stories alive for future generations.