Skilled graduates of Java craft schools rejected manual labor as beneath them

Evidence

But, as Van Deventer recalled, within a few years of the school’s opening “rumors had spread” that after completing the three- year course, opportunities were limited to menial jobs as tailors and shoe- makers. Those few graduates who had gained employment complained that so much instruction had not served them well. They were overqual- ified. Others fared worse, with jobs as the “upper class of manual la- borers” (boven klasse der handwerksleiden). In short, the school was producing skilled manual workers, but the students “lacked both the de- sire and suitability” for such jobs. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 713

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Parallel to the earlier werklust claim: the school’s own graduates exhibit the supposed ‘lack of desire’ attributed to colonized workers.

Related

• Colonial craft training failed partly because Javanese and Chinese laborers undercut wages (similarity 0.79)