The time I feel both totally immersed in Dutch culture and totally alien to it is when riding my bicycle through Amsterdam. Moving with the flow of the city while sporting the same mode of transit as the locals has a way of making me think I know how they do things here while simultaneously making me feel out of place because of my (rather obvious) newbie cyclist mistakes, ignorance of traffic laws, and the big “Student Hotel” sticker on my bike. And yet exploring the city by bike has been the source of my fondest memories while abroad. Midway through my program, I bike to Bloemgracht to visit the first fluorescent light art museum, Electric Ladyland. Directions are not my strong suit, and I end up walking my bike much of the way there so that I could pay attention to the map I was following. As luck would have it, I make it to the museum, but it isn’t light art that greets me. A small throng gathers outside of the front door, and while waiting to be let in, the group strikes up conversation. It turns out that all six of us hail from the Pacific Northwest. Eric and Cedar are a couple traveling from Seattle; Carlos, Corine, and Peter are friends traveling from Vancouver, B.C; and I’m at school in Seattle.
When it becomes clear that the museum owner is not going to answer the door, the six of us decide to go for dinner and drinks instead. Our conversation quickly grows candid and intimate, making hours feel like years. They ask many questions about my program, and in a laundry list of information, I mention Zwarte Piet. Pete chuckles at this, and tells me that he performed as Black Pete for three years of Christmas performances. He tells me, “the best part was scaring the shit out of those little white kids.” His positive reflection on the experience strikes me.
I first learned of Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, during my program’s pre-departure seminar in a shocking video depicting Saint Nick’s number one sporting blackface. A Dutch schoolteacher created this caricature in 1850, giving rise to Sinterklaas’s soot-faced helper. The narrative reflects the Netherlands’s deep involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, and the story served as an explanation of the Black-Dutch presence in Holland to children. In the time that followed, Black Pete has become a staple of the Dutch Christmas tradition. Adults dress up in blackface for parades and to gift presents to children. However, in recent years, this tradition has elicited intense and understandable backlash. While the Netherlands defends this character as a harmless and fun tradition, Dutch people of color face prejudice in the form of Zwarte Piet.
Simone is a Comparative History of Ideas major and a member of the interdisciplinary honors program at the UW. Simone has a passion for reading, writing, and environmental and social justice.
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