Published Friday, March 14, 2003.
Adrian Budiman, an Ohio University telecommunications graduate student, lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, before moving to Athens with his wife and two children. Every year he is in the United States he must go to Columbus to register with Immigration and Naturalization Services.
Adrian Budiman, a telecommunications graduate student at Ohio University, feels like he is on parole. Two weeks ago, he drove to Columbus, where he was fingerprinted, interviewed and videotaped. But Budiman has not committed any crimes, he is an international student from Jakarta, Indonesia, who must register with Immigration and Naturalization Services every year he is in the United States.
We have to disclose everything without questioning it, Budiman said. INS officials can ask for almost any kind of personal information about the people who register Budiman said they can even ask for bank account numbers and balances. The INS has targeted males from specific foreign countries, such as Indonesia, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, for special registration.
It is potentially a problem, said Alan Boyd, OU director of International Student and Faculty Services. He accompanies OU students and faculty to Columbus for the special registration process. Budiman said Boyd’s attendance is helpful because INS officials reserve time for the OU group.
The university has been extremely helpful, Budiman said. He said when the OU group arrived at the INS offices in Columbus they went to the front of the line for registration, despite the fact that people were waiting.
For Budiman, the ordeal seems especially trying. He lived in the United States for nine years, from age 3 to age 12, when he was growing up. His father was a doctoral student at Harvard, and Budiman said some people think his own life has paralleled his dad’s. Like his father, Budiman has transplanted his family, a wife and two children, from Indonesia to the United States.
I welcome the change, Budiman said. Before moving to Athens, Budiman lived in Jakarta, a city with a population of more than eight million people. He likes being in a small town for a change. But Budiman said the hardest thing is going from Athens back to his country.
You have to release some of the conveniences you have here, he said. His sister lives in Columbus, so a return to Indonesia takes him farther from some of his family.
But one of the things he misses most about Indonesia is the food. He misses buying food from street vendors and eating out of banana leaves in the city. But, he tries to substitute some of those products by shopping at New Market, 726 E. State St., an international market in Athens.
We try to simulate what we can. It’s just not the same, he said.
Budiman said he wants to take what he learns at OU back to his home country. He said he is looking at ways for new technological developments to advance democracy in Indonesia, where most of the technological development is concentrated in big cities.
Drew McDaniel, director of communications and development studies, is Budiman’s adviser. He said OU has educated some of Indonesia’s leading intellectuals, which led to a group playfully known as the “Ohio University Mafia” in Jakarta. He said he believes Budiman will help shape the media and intellectual life in Indonesia.
But what stands out to McDaniel is the way Budiman can shift between cultures. He’s extremely culturally adept. He could almost pass as an American. He can easily move between worlds, he said. Budiman, although comfortable in Athens, said he does not quite feel like he fits in. When I was here as a child, I just felt the same as everyone else, he said. Now I feel different. I’m very aware that I’m visiting here.
Source: http://thepost.baker.ohiou.edu/Articles/Culture/2003/03/14/3783/
