I was one of eight Indonesian academics who spent two years on Fulbright grants at the University of California at Berkeley. Our mission was to create a basic social sciences curriculum for Indonesia. I graduated with an M.A. in Southeast Asian Studies in 1970.

Of course, this was a particularly exciting time to be in Berkeley. There were widespread student protests against U.S. incursions into Cambodia and I well remember being caught in a campus building with tear gas in the air and police prodding activists with billyclubs. The whole controversy helped me to focus my own attention on the Indonesian position with respect to U.S. involvement in Asia.

America has always been a matter of ambiguity among Third World intellectuals — the old cliche about both loving and hating America. But in a larger sense, the U.S. retains this fascination for us despite the widely perceived decline of American power and influence.

I had been in the U.S. in 1963 for a brief period, again under USIS sponsorship as a member of a student leaders group. I had a homestay experience with a family in Los Angeles and happened to be in the U.S. on the very day that President Kennedy was assassinated. That shocked and moved me, of course. And so did being asked for a dime by a poor person on the street in Washington, D.C.

When I traveled through certain neighborhoods in Oakland, near Berkeley, I remembered a comment made by my father after his own first visit to the U.S. in the forties. He told me, ‘When you go to America, you will feel how unjust the world is, because you’ll see so much affluence and yet many other aspects that Americans themselves admit need improving.’

Being there also made me realize how lucky Indonesian Fulbrighters are, not only compared to other Indonesians but also to Americans doing university study who often have a tough time making ends meet. So when one of them heard that I was a Fulbrighter there was not only a bit of prestige but also a sense of envy that I had this special financial advantage which made life a lot easier for me!