[19] In the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia), these families formed "a racially, culturally and socially homogeneous community between the Totoks (European newcomers) and the indigenous population".

Portuguese explorers discovered two trade routes to Asia, sailing around the south of Africa or the Americas to create a commercial monopoly.

In the early 16th century, the Portuguese established important trade posts in South East Asia, which was a diverse collection of many rival kingdoms, sultanates and tribes spread over a huge territory of peninsulas and islands.

As a result, a number of single women were sent and an orphanage was established in Batavia to raise Dutch orphan girls to become East India brides.

[5] Around 1650, the number of mixed marriages, frequent in the early years of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), declined sharply.

[13] Given the small population of their country, the Dutch had to fill out their recruitment for Asia by looking for overseas emigration candidates in the underprivileged regions of north-western Europe.

[2][41][42][43] Europeans living in Batavia also included Norwegians, Italians, Maltese, Poles, Irish, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Swedes.

The Indo lifestyle (e.g. language and dress code) only came under pressure to westernise in the following centuries of formal Dutch colonization.

[54][55] There is evidence of considerable care by officers of the Dutch East India Company for their illegitimate Eurasian children: boys were sometimes sent to the Netherlands to be educated, and sometimes never returned to Indonesia.

[56] Using the evidence of centuries old Portuguese family names many Indos carried matriarchal kinship relations within Eurasian communities, it has been argued by Tjalie Robinson that the origin of the Indo was less of a thin facade laid over a Dutch foundation, but sprang from an ancient mestizo culture going back all the way to the beginning of the European involvement in Asia.

[57] In 1720, Batavia's population consisted of 2,000 Europeans, mainly Dutch merchants (2.2 percent of the total population), 1,100 Eurasians, 11,700 Chinese, 9,000 non-Indonesian Asians of Portuguese culture (mardijkers), 600 Indo-Arab Muslims, 5,600 immigrants from a dozen islands, 3,500 Malays, 27,600 Javanese and Balinese, and 29,000 slaves of varying ethnic origins including Africans.

[59] Indo influence on the nature of colonial society waned following World War I and the opening of the Suez Canal, when there was a substantial influx of white Dutch families.

Many Indos who left for the Netherlands often continued the journey of their diaspora to warmer places, such as California and Florida in the United States.

[95] The original post-war refugee legislation of 1948, already adhering to a strict 'affidavit of support' policy, was still maintaining a color bar making it difficult for Indos to emigrate to the US.

The yearly quota for Indonesia was limited to 100 visas, even though Dutch foreign affairs attempted to profile Indos as refugees from the alleged pro-communist Sukarno administration.

Partly influenced by the anti-western rhetoric and policies of the Sukarno administration, anti-communist US Representative Francis E. Walter pleaded for a second term of the Refugee Relief Act in 1957 and an additional slot of 15,000 visas in 1958.

Some experts expect that within the lifespan of the second and third-generation descendants, the community will be assimilated and disappear completely into American multicultural society.

[108] The great leap in technological innovation of the 20th and 21st centuries, in the areas of communication and media, is mitigating the geographical dispersion and diversity of American Indos.

With regard to mixed-race Eurasians, who were called NPEO (Non Pure European Origine) by the Australian Ministries, subjective decision-making became the norm of the policy until the 1970s.

[95] In the early 1950s, Australian immigration officials based in the Netherlands screened potential Indo migrants on skin color and western orientation.

Eventually, the key question posed by Australian officials was: "Would they be noticed, if they walked down the streets of Canberra or Melbourne or Sydney, as being European or non-European?

[95] Indos in the Netherlands are considered an ethnic minority, and most of them are of mixed European-Indonesian origin bearing European family names.

A 2005 CBS study, among foreign-born citizens and their children living in the Netherlands, shows that on average, Indos own the largest number of independent enterprises.

[123][124] Louis Couperus' Of Old People, the Things that Pass (Van oude mensen, de dingen die voorbij gaan, 1906) is a well-known example of an older Indies narrative.

Marion Bloem's postmemory work evolves around an artistic exploration of Indo identity and culture, which puts her in the tradition of Tjalie Robinson.

[129] Exactly as was the case in the old colony the necessity to blend in with dominant Dutch culture remained paramount for social and professional advancement.

Although third- and fourth-generation Indos[132] are part of a fairly large minority community in the Netherlands, the path of assimilation ventured by their parents and grandparents has left them with little knowledge of their actual roots and history, even to the point that they find it hard to recognise their own cultural features.

A considerable number of Indos integrated into their respective local indigenous societies and have never been officially registered as either European or Eurasian sub-group.

[143] Recently after the Aceh region in Sumatra became more widely accessible, following post-tsunami relief work, the media also discovered a closed Indo Eurasian community of devout Muslims in the Lamno area, mostly of Portuguese origin.

[144][145][146][147][148][149] During the Suharto era, like the Chinese minority in Indonesia also most Indos have changed their family names and some have converted to Islam to blend into the Pribumi-dominated society and prevent discrimination.