Did Europeans born in colonies ever experience culture shock when returning to their "mother countries"?

by ZekOssian

For example, if a person was born in the Dutch East Indies and lived their whole childhood there, but then was sent back to the Netherlands for boarding school/university are there documented cases or works of literature which describe feeling foreign in their countries of citizenship?

SickHobbit

Hi! Dutch historian of political culture and national identity here. I really want to answer your question extensively (and aim to do so tomorrow when the friday blues are past), so if I'm allowed to I'll give you a preface.

In short the answer to your question is yes, yes, very much so. The profound impact that the settler communities in/from the Indies had on literature during much of the early 20th century is already somewhat foreshadowing of it, but when in 1949 the whole white community from the Indies was forcibly repatriated as part of the decolonisation and formalisation of the Republic of Indonesia it became extremely clear that Indischgangers were a distinct cultural entity within the Dutch nation. With the follow-up to this I will try to give you some titles and some names to look into if you want to read about the experiences of this group, and I will also try to expand on this a little bit more.

Another, more difficult and illustrative, case is the Moluccans, which I'll expand on tomorrow.