Commenting on the forgotten Chinese-Indonesian hero The Sin Nio, SMU Assistant Professor of Humanities (Education) Charlotte Setijadi said the making of national heroes is largely driven by state-led narrative. Chinese-Indonesians are often left out from the conversation, particularly during President Soeharto’s New Order period. “Chinese Indonesians were so foreign and so ideologically and politically regarded to be ‘unclean’ that they had to be assimilated almost immediately after the New Order regime came into power. To include these people who needed to be assimilated as part of the national revolutionary narrative doesn’t quite fit. This is why Chinese-Indonesians are largely excluded from the narrative about independence,” Asst Prof Setijadi explained.