‘Amerikaku’ Shows the Stories of Indonesian Students in the USA

Jakarta Globe, Armando Siahaan

"Amerikaku" tells the tales of Indonesian students and their new friends and families in the US. (Photo courtesy of the US Embassy.)

Indonesian students are increasingly traveling to the United States to expand their educational horizons, often as part of exchange programs or to attain a college degree, and camera crews are now accompanying them of the voyage.

Running exclusively on O Channel as a six-part series, “Amerikaku” (“My America”) documents the story of four Indonesian high school students, selected from among thousands of applicants, who are studying in the US as part of the US State Department’s Youth Exchange and Study program.

Established in 2002, with about 100 Indonesian participants every year, the scholarship program is awarded to students in “countries with significant Muslim populations to spend up to one academic year in the US,” said Tristram Perry, who, as the public diplomacy officer at the US Embassy in Indonesia, is in charge of the program.

“Students live with host families, attend high school, engage in activities to learn about American society and values, acquire leadership skills and help educate Americans about their countries and cultures,” he said.

In “Amerikaku,” the students all come from different backgrounds and are sent to live with families in four different US cities.

The first episode, which aired on Sunday, introduces the audience to the students and their American host families.

It begins with a scene in the US Embassy in Jakarta, where the batik-wearing student applicants are waiting for the visa interview.

The students appear nervous but after the interview is over, some of them say the interviews “were not that hard,” and one is surprised that the American interviewer conducted the whole process in Indonesian.

Flying all the way from Banda Aceh to Ballston Spa in New York is Miftah Sugesti, a student who’s friends desribe her as “sometimes mature, but sometimes childish,” and “intellectual [with] a sense of leadership and very active.”

Miftah is deciding whether her career goal should be to aim to be minister for the environment, a communications expert or an anthropologist. She lives with a family of five, the Browers, who have two adopted children from Taiwan.

Nindy Silvie, also from Banda Aceh, describes herself saying, “I can be serious, but can be funny too.” She says she has “something big in mind” to make a change in social and political arenas.

During her temporary stay in Uncle Sam’s country, Nindy stays with a family of keen Barack Obama supporters. In this first episode, the chatty student gives a tour of the exotically decorated house where she lives, showing her backyard, the study and her bedroom.

Anisa Devi is a petite, headscarf-wearing vivacious girl from Jepara, a small city in the northeast of Semarang, Central Java. Her mother said that initially she wasn’t keen on her daughter traveling to the US. But her father said that despite her pint-sized body, she is “outgoing” and “brave.”

Anisa goes to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to live with the Blakes. Her host dad calls her “very fun,” and says she “likes to get involved with activities, and while her host brother testifies, “she’s crazy.”

Bespectacled Waskito Jati comes from Yogyakarta, and he is sent to Charlotte, North Carolina. There, he lives with a family of three, with a Hispanic mother.

In the first episode, Waskito tries Mexican food for the first time — tortilla and pimento.

He then scrutinizes the house’s refrigerator, which contains beer, zucchini, peanut butter and jelly — things that he describes as “American.”

Based on the first episode, the value of this show predominantly comes from the cross-cultural aspect that it presents. The host families come from a variety of backgrounds, which shows the US as a diverse country.

It is exciting to see Indonesian students learning about differing cultures, but so far the show lacks the entertainment element that might make televised cultural learning more enjoyable.

The stories are at times flat, while the characters are not as engaging and lively as they could be.

But according to Perry, Hollywood-style entertainment is not the main selling point of the show.

“People who want to see the real America will be very interested in the program, because it is not a Hollywood version of what life is like in America,” he said.

“It deals with their everyday lives and you can see that both [the students] and their host families are real people with lots in common,” Perry said.

“It’s not like anything else you’ll see on television.”

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