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Right, I see -- from expat's blog! Has he come up with that breakthrough story he promised yet?

After extensive googling and such, here's my class report:

Irian Jaya is West Papua, or Western New Guinea. It is the western half of the same island as New Guinea. Irian Jaya is exotic, less-populated than the rest of Indonesia. About 1/20th of the population density.
It was a Dutch colony until 1961. The neighboring island country Indonesia was behind many attempts at insurrection against the Dutch in Irian Jaya. Not long the Irian's achieved a nominal sort of independence Indonesia took them over, with UN and US (McGeorge Bundy, advisor to JFK and LBJ, spent later part of life at Ford Foundation) backing. It has been Indonesian since 1963. Yet the independence movement continues and Indonesia has banned the display of the independence movement flag (the Morning Star), and considerable force has been brought to bear by the Indonesians to suppress independence movements.
Obama's official stories have the family in Jakarta -- which is the capital of Indoesia. That is some thousands of miles from Irian Jaya. Given the nation-state politics of the time and place, being from Irian Jaya may have been seen as being more alien than being from Hawaii. Or it may have been seen as a political statement about his parents. I do not know, I am just speculating feveredly from my swamp dwelling.