Ma Pansa (c. 1700 – 1775/1780), is the ancestral mother of the Saamaka, a Marron community in Suriname. She was born on plantation Hebron in Suriname and was enslaved. Around 1739 she escaped into the rainforest with rice seeds braided in her hair, bringing sustenance and agricultural knowledge to the Saamaka. Ma Pansa ensured the survival and freedom of her community and the many generations that came after her.

​

Petronella de Moor (1753 – 1833) was from Paramaribo, Suriname. She was enslaved by Abraham Lemmers who took her to the Netherlands in 1766 when she was twelve or thirteen years old. In 1773 she was taken to the Netherlands again by Dorothea Maria Kulenkamp, widow of Nicolaas Lemmers, aunt of Abraham Lemmers and lived the rest of her life in Haarlem where she passed away on 20 July 1833. The name Petronella de Moor was given to her when she was baptized, her own name is undocumented.

​

Ivy Clark (1925 – 1980), grandmother of Jomecia Oosterwolde, choreographer, dancer and storyteller in Forget to Remember. Ivy Clark was one of the first immigrants from Suriname after independence in 1975. She arrived in Rotterdam with 10 members of her family. They received a cold and unwelcome reception from the neighborhood, Black people were not welcome. On Oleanderstraat, there were many old houses, neglected and in dire need of renovation. The buildings were small and had wooden staircases. Entire families were crammed into these houses. This was also the case at Oleanderstraat 14. Three generations of the Oosterwolde family lived in a wooden two-room apartment. On the night of January 2, 1980, a passerby threw a burning cigarette butt through a broken window. The entire building caught fire. The fire department arrived within three minutes, but they were too late. No one of the Oosterwolde family survived. The man who threw the cigarette was charged with a hate crime, but acquitted after eight months because he proved that a cigarette butt couldn't have caused a fire of such proportions. Ivy Clark and her family were buried in the Netherlands because there was no money to repatriate their bodies home to Suriname. Her son, Jomecia’s father, came from Suriname to the Netherlands to bury his mother, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, and he stayed on to live in the Netherlands. Ivy Clark’s story is an early example of how immigrants were, and often still are, treated in the Netherlands.

 

Pamella Balakrishnan (1968), mother of Nina Ashley Bach, participant in the workshop A Conversation with the Past for the Future. She was born in Malaysia, a Kadazan Dusun, Tamil Malaysian woman and is a true giver. If she sees that someone is struggling but doesn't want to say it, she will find ways to provide for them without feeling shame. Like buying extra bags of rice and saying it was a miscount, taking care of women and their newborns in our home for the first few months to get them on their feet so they don’t have to do it alone. Never asking for anything in return and always putting others before herself. She deserves to take up space and simply be.

​

Villen Bado Binti Hanggau (1945 – 1996) grandmother of Nina Ashley Bach, participant in the workshop A Conversation with the Past for the Future. She was a proud Kadazan Dusun woman who kept her indigenous wisdom in the little things she did. She could make a meal out of barely any ingredients, and could,  despite hard times, turn the narrative. She was always ready to welcome anyone into the family and make space for them. Her grandmother was the village's healer, everyone would come to her for remedies from her garden to fix their ailment. Villen Bado Binti Hanggau did the same but through nutrition, never letting anyone go hungry and gather communities on the basis of food and connection.