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Creoles and Hindustanis. Patterns of Social Mobility in Two Surinamese Immigrant Groups in the Netherlands

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Book cover Immigrants, Schooling and Social Mobility

Abstract

In 1992 a Dutch weekly magazine published a cover story on the ostensible success of Hindustani immigrants in the Netherlands.1 A comparison was readily made between this East Indian group, migrants from the former Dutch colony of Surinam and Asian immigrants to the United States. The Hindustanis themselves have promoted a similar public image now and then, referring to ‘the Asian success’. This has in turn been contrasted with the image of the Afro-Surinamese immigrants, the Creoles.2 The latter have been portrayed as a socially disadvantaged group and, especially in the 1970s and early 1980s, depicted in the media as ‘problematic’. Popular thinking on the two groups, both in the Netherlands and in Surinam, strongly assumes a relationship between their ethnic culture and their economic success.

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Authors
  1. Mies van Niekerk
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Hans Vermeulen (Professor and Co-Director of Research) (Professor and Co-Director of Research)

  2. Jerome Levy Economics Institute, Bard College, USA

    Joel Perlmann (Senior Scholar and Research Professor) (Senior Scholar and Research Professor)

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© 2000 Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies

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Niekerk, M.v. (2000). Creoles and Hindustanis. Patterns of Social Mobility in Two Surinamese Immigrant Groups in the Netherlands. In: Vermeulen, H., Perlmann, J. (eds) Immigrants, Schooling and Social Mobility. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985502_9

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