Migration and Karo Ethnic Identity in the Coastal of Serdang Bedagai, North Sumatra

This paper discusses the migration of Karo people to the village of Kuala Lama which is located on the coast of Serdang Bedagai Regency, North Sumatra, and their efforts to shape their self-image as a separate ethnic group and different from the Malay tribe as the host community. This study concluded that the migration of Karo people to Kuala Lama was driven by political conflict in the form of arrests and massacres of inland communities involved in the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) in the late 1960s. Although it has long-lived in the middle of the Malay tribe, the Karo migrants still maintain their ethnic identity. The identity resilience can be seen from the use of the names of the Karo merga (clan) and the implementation of Karo customs as a source of norms in their daily lives. The survival of ethnic identity in Karo migrants can occur because the Malay tribe as the host does not have the power to force Karo migrants to blend in Malay culture. Malays are indeed the majority in Kuala Lama, but they are not a dominant cultural group because they do not have political superiority and their cultural practices are not seen as the prevailing norm in the village.