SoCal Indo Wild Fire Relief Fund

LIVE VIDEO REPORT FROM OOM RUDY'S HOUSE

Oom Rudy Goutier, a 91 year old “SoCal Indo” retired Marine Machinist, was devastated when his first home he built in 1962 with his late wife on 274 W. Altadena Ave. burned down after the Altadena Fire engulfed the hillside in the City of Altadena, California on January 7, 2025.

The anguish from seeing his lifelong home he built burning down crushed him with despair. When his family found him in the house when the fire broke out, he initially did not want to leave as he had no hope and saw no point continuing to live without his home and his beloved wife who passed away in 2006. His family and neighbor had to force him to leave the house before it was too late. He has been evacuated and is in a safe place but he and others in SoCal needs our help.

SoCal Indo is a non-profit with a mission to raise awareness about Indo-Dutch heritage through involvement in socio-cultural-environmental issues like establishing school and environmental protection education, and natural disaster response effort in Indonesia. SoCal Indo is also harnessing effort to support our elderly SoCal Indo both in Indonesia and here locally like Oom Rudy and others who lost their homes or their cars.

As a Californian 501 (c) (3) Non Profit, we at SoCal indo located at 5209 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036 would love to reach out a helping hand to Oom Rudy Goutier and many others who lost their homes during these devastating SoCal Wild Fires.

Visit www.Socalindo.com

To read about Oom Rudy. Please read the below feature about him.

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Oom Rudy, a friendly nickname for Uncle Rudolf Goutier, was born in the former Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia, was born to a Dutch father and an African and Ambonese mother in 1933. He grew up during the era where the Dutch and other European settlers married into an already multicultural population where intermarriage between the local with African, Middle East, and China has been common for centuries creating a distinct ethnic group. His great grandfather was Najoersie, a known Mossi warrior, who was enslaved in Ghana. In the 1830s, the Dutch military was desperately seeking for soldiers to join the forces in West Java and recruited his great grandfather by freeing him with an advance on his army salary.

In 1942, Japan occupied Southeast Asia including the Dutch East Indies where Oom Rudy’s father was captured and enslaved as laborer at the notorious Burma Railway camp along with thousands other British, American, and Australian military men. His father died in Thailand while being a Japanese prisoner of war leaving the eight year old Oom Rudy and four young brothers fatherless.

As WWII ended, the Japanese surrendered and the Indonesian independence movement in 1945 added trauma and terror to his single mother. The end of WWII marked the beginning of a long chaotic colonial region because the Dutch relinquished all of their territories, including the Dutch East Indies.The newly formed Indonesian government forced and forcefully encouraged Dutch Indos to leave Indonesia or renounce their Dutch citizenship.

To protect his family, Oom Rudy’s mother decided to leave the island life and took the five small children and introduced them to a land they have never set foot before. She and 300,000 other Indos sailed to the cold snowy Netherlands. Before they left for the Netherlands, Oom Rudy’s mother gathered as many memories as they could collect. She sewed up a floor mat and filled it with photos and artifacts, “enough to bring back memories.” She entrusted this family treasure to the young Oom Rudy to bring it to the Netherlands.

Oom Rudy is one of the tens of thousands of Indos or Dutch Indos, the descendants of Dutch colonists who left Indonesia, who emigrated to California from the Netherlands post-WWII in search of the American dream. California’s booming economy, plentiful jobs and housing,and year-long glorious weather like Indonesia became a beacon and reasons for many Dutch Indos like him to come to California for a

better life.

Many repatriated Indos experienced lack of respect in the The Netherlands. After arriving in the Netherlands, People were suffering, had nothing and allowed only the minimum. They experienced racism, prejudice, and was treated as second class. Due to shortage of housing, Many Indos were housed in former Nazi concentration camps across the Netherlands. The Government did not inform their people about their colonialism. Many Indos failed to succeed and found the Netherlands politically depressing and unlivable physically.

After about 19 years in the Netherlands, Oom Rudy took advantage of the McCarran-Walter Act where visa for Europeans and immigration was prioritized. He emigrated to California at the age of 27 to start a better life. Oom Rudy and his wife moved to Altadina in 1962 and bought their first home after he worked hard for several years enough to pay the downpayment for the house where he built his dream, which is now also destroyed by the fires.

Although the Altadena fire may have vanished and burned his home and many memories he created, including the very floor mat his mother sewed for him to keep his childhood photos from the motherland, Oom Rudy is looking forward to rebuilding and enjoying his life with family again. Therefore him and many others need tall the assistance and help and every single $ is appreciated to get Oom Rudy and others into a car or get tickets to fly to relatives and can live temporarily until everything is back to normality.