April 19 is Dutch-American Friendship Day, a day to celebrate the historic ties of the United States and the Netherlands.
While it is less well-known than Dutch-American Heritage Day on November 16, there are several events this week in the United States and the Netherlands .
Opening game Dayton Dutch Lions FC
The Dayton Dutch Lions FC will play their opening game of the season tonight against Charleston Battery in Bellbrook, OH, with an "All Things Dutch" kick-off event. Dayton Dutch Lions is a professional soccer club in Ohio supported by Dutch Eredivisie side FC Twente. Their jerseys are, of course, orange.
Other places that celebrate the event include the Zwaanendael Museum in Delaware and the American Business Club in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Special guest at the American Business Club will be Mrs. Fay Hartog-Levin, the US Ambassador to the Netherlands.
By proclaiming the month of May as Dutch Heritage Month, the Province of Ontario recognizes the important contributions that Dutch Canadians have made to the economic, political, social and cultural fabric of Ontario’s society.
May is a historically significant month for the Dutch Canadian community. On May 5, 1945, the Canadian forces were instrumental in the liberation of the Netherlands from occupation during World War II. The Netherlands celebrates its independence and liberty, along with the heroic efforts of the Canadian forces, with a national holiday known as Liberation Day, which takes place annually on May 5.
Today we went to the booksale of the Durham Library, always a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.
Last year I bought a beautiful edition of Rip van Winkle; this year I found another gorgeous Dutch-American book: Tales Told in Holland. Of course, with sites like Abebooks.com and Amazon you can order any book you like on-line, but there is something very satisfying about browsing big piles of books and finding a hidden gem like this.
Published in Chicago, this book is a collection of Dutch stories and nursery rhymes. Stories include Hugo de Groot's escape in a chest with books and the Lady of Stavoren, as well as many others that I didn't know. It is really fun to see Dutch children's rhymes translated into English, including Sinterklaas songs.
The introduction starts like this:
"Tales Told in Holland consists chiefly of stories with a few translations from the greatest Dutch poets and a few old Dutch nursery rhymes, naive and nonsensical as our English rhymes, and contrasting interestingly with the far more sophisticated rhymes of the French. "
My copy is a first edition from 1926 and thus over 85 years old. It is in good shape for its age and I'm really happy with it.
Last week the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) introduced a new tool for individuals in the United States to check their own employment eligibility status. This new "Self Check" application is part of the ongoing roll-out of the E-Verify program, which aims to help employers check the employment status of new employees.
This tool will become useful to verify if government records are up-to-date. This is especially important for foreign-born workers, whose employment status may change with transitions between various immigrations statuses.
Employment eligibility verification
E-Verify is an Internet-based program run by the United States government that compares information from an employee's Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 to data from U.S. government records. If the information matches, that employee is eligible to work in the United States.
The program was established in 1997 but a government mandate for all federal government agencies to use it per October 2007 significantly increased usage. E-Verify is not without controversy and concerns about privacy and data accuracy have been raised.
From the press release: "E-Verify Self Check, a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), is the first online E-Verify program offered directly to workers and job seekers. The gives users the opportunity to submit corrections of any inaccuracies in their DHS and SSA records before applying for jobs."
Initially the E-Verify Self Check service is only available to users who maintain an address and are physically located in Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Mississippi, Virginia or the District of Columbia. In the coming months USCIS will continue to expand the E-Verify Self Check service.
Our correspondent Noor Speckens visited Vandaag, a restaurant in New York City, to explore how Dutch it is; here is her report.
If you go to Restaurant Vandaag and expect to find the comfort food you remember from your childhood in the Netherlands, you will be sorely disappointed.
Vandaag, as per its website, advertises itself as a restaurant offering Northern European cuisine and "explorations focusing on Denmark and Holland."
Aside from the short list of smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches), I cannot speak for the Danish part of this equation, except that it might confuse geographically-challenged Americans even more ("So, you’re Dutch? Are you from Copenhagen?"). The Dutch part, however, was lacking in the familiar Dutch staples, such as kroketten, puree or even patat friet. I guess there was no point in trying to compete with the Belgian snackbar "Pommes Frites" a few doors up the avenue. However, there were bitterballen to be had as a starter.
A lack of true Dutch dishes
Although the restaurant professes its preference for cooking with local and seasonal ingredients from the Hudson Valley, none of the solid winter dishes that comprise the bulk of Dutch cooking were on the menu. I was hoping for stamppot, haché or even a simple gehaktbal. Pea soup (erwtensoep) was listed, although "embellished" with "ham hock (OK), octopus (really?), matignon (we’ll have to look that one up), and chili oil (why?)", it probably cannot be called snert anymore.
Come to think of it, the only vaguely Dutch dishes were the "Vandaag Burger" topped with Gouda cheese and maybe the Hete Bliksem ("crisp fingerlings, bacon, apple, stroop syrup"). The rest of the entrees seemed pretentious and contrived such as for example "Red Russian kale with green strawberries, sweet onion, caraway", or "Albacore tuna with rutabaga, pomegranate and rye berries". The portions were small and not cheap.
Good selection of drinks
As for the cocktails, beers and other beverages: there were genever cocktails and aquavit cocktails, as well as various rather obscure Dutch and Belgian beers, (Danish) mead, which isn’t to say that they were bad. I had a glass of De Schelde Hop-Ruiter ale.
The restaurant’s interior is pleasantly modern, a bit stark perhaps, with clean lines; the floor is polyurethane-coated concrete, the tables, chairs and benches are made of blond wood. There are no tablecloths, upholstery, curtains anywhere to muffle the sound, which made for a rather echo-ey, noisy space.
The servers were American, the bartendress was Danish maybe, but none of them had the slightest idea what you were saying when you asked for one of the few items on the menu with the proper Dutch pronunciation or seemed to be aware of the fact that you were speaking Dutch and they were working in a restaurant with a Dutch name. All in all, eating at Vandaag was a bit of an alienating experience for someone looking for a Dutch experience.
Vandaag is located on the North-West corner of East 6th Street and 2nd Avenue in the East Village, 103 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003. Open for lunch and dinner.
The Dutch Ambassador to the United States, Renée Jones-Bos, spoke yesterday at UNC's School of Law in Chapel Hill, NC.
A visit to the Tarheel state
The event was part of a two-day visit to North Carolina. On Monday she was in Greenville, NC at Dutch pharmaceutical company DSM, which has nearly 1,200 employees in the state. Says Jones-Bos: "Over 22,000 American jobs in North Carolina are supported by Dutch-American trade and investment. In fact, the Netherlands is the 6th largest foreign investor in the state."
Human rights and international law
The ambassador's speech was introduced by Jack Boger, Dean of the UNC School of Law: "This a great opportunity for students because it’s clear that the world is becoming more international", he said.
In her speech ambassador Jones-Bos explained the position of the Netherlands on human rights and international law. Prior to her appointment to Washington, Ms. Jones-Bos served as Ambassador-at-Large for Human Rights, and she is clearly passionate about the topic. The ambassador mentioned the historic ties between USA and the Netherlands that date back 400 years.
About 35 students and faculty attended the meeting. The UNC School of Law has an exchange program with Radboud University in Nijmegen. Several students from the Netherlands were in attendance.
In the Q&A session students asked several questions about the Netherlands and international law, for example about the experiences of the Netherlands in hosting the International Criminal Court.
After the visit to UNC Ms Jones-Bos attended a performance by the Nederlands Dans Theater at the Carolina Performing Arts Center, the only eastern United States performance of this renowned Dance Group.
About 35 students and faculty attended the session.
The ambassador spoke about human rights and international law.
Renée Jones-Bos, Dutch Ambassador to the United States, Jack Boger, Dean of the UNC School of Law, Suzanne de Groot, First Secretary Economic Affairs of the Embassy, Gerard ter Wee, honorary consul of the Netherlands to North Carolina and several students of the UNC School of Law.
In history
Dutch-American Friendship Day remembers the day in 1782 that John Adams, the second president of the United States, was received by the States General in The Hague and recognized as Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America.
It is also the day that the house John Adams purchased at Fluwelen Burgwal 18 in The Hague became the first American Embassy in the world.
Fifteen years later, in 2007, Congress made this a repeating commemoration, and on March 12, 2007 the House of Representative officially established Dutch-American Friendship Day:
"The U.S./Dutch relationship has stood the test of time and has strengthened in the crucible of conflict as the Dutch have stood beside us in times of peace and war. The Dutch supported us in our war for independence. Sixty years ago Dutch and American servicemen stood side by side during World War II and today the Dutch stand by us still in the Global War on Terror.
The debt we owe to our Dutch friends is seen not only in our people, and in the persons of such famous Dutch Americans as Presidents Martin VanBuren, and Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, but also in our experience as a Nation. Our traditions of religious freedom and tolerance as well as our system of government, all have spiritual and legal roots in our relationship with the Dutch Republic. "
Dutch-American Friendship Day is less well known than its cousin, Dutch-American Heritage Day (in November). Also, in April many Dutch clubs and organization in the States are focused on organizing their Queen's Day celebration (April 30th).
Correspondent Yolanda Gerritsen saw a preview of the U.S. premiere of Winter in Wartime (Oorlogswinter), after the book by Dutch author Jan Terlouw.
The final months of the German occupation in a small Dutch village are the backdrop to the events in the movie Winter in Wartime. A wonderful film by director Martin Koolhoven, Winter in Wartime is both a thrilling action movie and a coming-of-age story for the main character, young Michiel van Beusekom, the son of the mayor of this small village, which is located close to Zwolle in the Eastern part of the Netherlands. It’s mainly through his eyes that we see the events evolve in the course of the movie.
In the opening scene Michiel watches through an opening in the frost on his bedroom window how a burning plane leaves fiery traces in the night sky. When Michiel and his best friend find the wreckage of this British plane the next day and retrieve a few mementos, the Germans discover them. The chase through the woods is a thrilling adventure, all just fun and games for the boys, as they escape from the bad guys and make their way home.
Michiel is annoyed by how his father, the mayor, deals with the Germans. He feels his father is not tough enough and makes too many compromises with the enemy. So he looks up to his uncle Ben, a member of the underground resistance and a real hero in his eyes. Michiel would like to help the underground resistance, but his uncle Ben sternly warns him to never get involved.
When Dirk, his neighbor, asks him to deliver a letter to the blacksmith in case he shouldn’t return from an attack on a German ammunition depot, he finally feels taken seriously and is excited to be involved in something important.
But before he has a chance to deliver the letter, Michiel can only watch as the Germans drag the blacksmith from his shop and shoot him in the street. He is on his own now and it dawns on him that his adventure may be more than he bargained for.
The letter contains a map of a location in the woods. When Michiel investigates, he finds Jack, the English pilot who has survived the crash, but who is injured. A member of the resistance was to take him across the river to a contact in Zwolle. Jack swears him to secrecy and Michiel has to figure out how to keep him alive and get him to Zwolle.
In the ensuing events, Michiel learns the hard way that people around him are not what they seem and that war is not child’s play, but a deadly serious business. In the course of his heroic attempts to get Jack to safety, Michiel is confronted with unbearable personal losses that change him forever. When Jack finally manages to cross the bridge over the IJssel River to Zwolle, 14-year old Michiel has learned life lessons that have made him wise beyond his years.
Winter in Wartime is a fast-paced movie, filled with many unexpected twists and turns that keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Young Martijn Lakemeier, who had never done any serious acting before, heads an excellent cast. Director Martin Koolhoven lets the story unfold through the events as witnessed and experienced by Michiel as he valiantly tries to live up to the responsibility he inadvertently stumbled into.
The movie can now be seen in New York City and Los Angeles and in other cities from March 25th; see their website for a complete list. Highly recommended.
Amsterdam Stories USA is a road movie in the making by Dutch filmmakers Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck. The documentary is a portrayal of small-town America that follows the Dutch migratory flow through 16 North American towns, all named Amsterdam.
The filmmakers are making four visits to the States, each in a different season. They are now on their winter trip to "Amsterdams" in Montana, Idaho and California. The 4.5 hour documentary is expected to be released in mid 2012.
Visits to Amsterdam, USA
We caught up with the filmmakers while they were in Nevada. So far, they have visited about half of the 16 Amsterdams they plan to visit. They are on their way to California: "We're meeting standup comedian Sven Amsterdam there, in an Amsterdam bar", says Rombout.
Rombout: "Before we arrive, we try to find a local radio station in the town where we'll work. It gets you introduced to the city, and people start hearing your name. In general, we stick with the local media: local papers, local radios. 'Amsterdam Stories USA' a sort of passport for us. We don't have to go through the whole introduction phase when people know that we are working on this project."
"Everywhere we go, people will at first ask: 'Why film here? There is nothing to film here!' But after a few days stories always come up. We usually focus on one or two characters in each town." Van Eck: "We'll stay four or five days in every place we visit; the rest of time we're on the road. During our travels between Amsterdams we also make portraits of people we meet."
"We're now in the second part of our trip. In our first trip we visited the North East, from Upstate New York to Virginia. Now we're doing the West Coast."
Not looking for clichés
"We're not looking for Dutch clichés like tulips and wooden shoes. The movie is a road movie, with stories of Amsterdam in the USA as a connecting element", explains Rombout. "The only real nostalgic Dutch part will be the beginning of the film, which we shot in the Holland Society of New York."
"It's a trip through the lesser-known America; off the beaten track. We're looking for the interesting, the unusual. The unpredictable is interesting!"
"In this way, our film has a different perspective than a book like 'Holland, USA', which was explicitly looking for Dutch roots in the United States. Film is more emotional than a book, and we tend to focus more on individuals rather than groups. It's a radiography of the small-town America, a road trip through the unknown America."
Stories
Rombout: "The most 'Dutch' Amsterdam we have been so far was in Montana. Many of the founders there were immigrants from Friesland and Groningen. It was a closed, isolated community. The original settlers were deeply religious people.
"I've made several movies about sailing, I like to think of live these little places like on a ship: isolated and far away from everybody. The smaller a place is, the better material for a film it becomes."
Along their journey they stopped in Great Falls, Montana where they met a 19-year-old girl who was working as a barista and talked about her difficult economic situation since the crisis. They filmed her outside in the falling snow as she described her dream of going to Africa to help the people there.
"Our favorite Amsterdam? That would be Amsterdam, Ohio. Number two Montana, or perhaps the one in Idaho. We were there in the middle of the winter — very desolate."
"About 15 people live in Amsterdam, Indiana. When we interviewed the mayor, he got visibly angry about 'those people!' It turned out that he was the only one in the village who participated in the 2010 Census. The official registration of the town was thus 1 person, so now there was no funding."
"This is typical, I think. People in small villages, with a conservative-anarchistic mindset: 'we'll take care of ourselves'. Our movie starts at the East Coast, which is of course more densely populated, and where you'll find the 'human aspect' of things. It ends in the wide open landscapes of the American west."
Movie production
Rombout and Van Eck both live in Brussels, Belgium, and speak French together as Van Eck is born in Paris (from Dutch parents) and speaks better French. They've produced movies in Belgium for almost 30 years. "The Belgian TV and a French film fund are financing us. We didn't get any response from the Netherlands. Perhaps they feel it's a little embarrassing?" They travel through the States with Collin Bannon and Trevor Cohen.
The film will be broadcast on several TV stations back home and on film festivals. Says Rombout: "We're hoping that perhaps we can get the film on PBS in the United States. In addition, we hope to create five or six screenings in or around some of the community's where we've been. We hope that our movie will create some sort of connection between these places."
"The film will be ready in middle of 2012; we're now working on a trial version. We initially signed for a movie of 140 minutes, but we think we'll actually create a film of four to five hours."
The film is part of a trilogy. Rogier and Rob produced "Amsterdam via Amsterdam", to critical acclaim. After 2012, they plan "Amsterdam, Black and White", about New Amsterdam in Drenthe, the Netherlands and Amsterdam in Transvaal (South Africa).
Economic ties with the Netherlands support more than 700,000 American jobs, according to a new report by the Royal Dutch Embassy. Trade and investment between the USA and the Netherlands pay dividends in imports, exports and job creation in both countries.
The Dutch are the third largest investor ($238 billion) in the United States, after the United Kingdom and Japan. In turn, the USA is the largest foreign investor in the Netherlands, with investments of $472 billion. Using data derived from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau, the report calculates that exports to the Netherlands and investment by Dutch companies such as AkzoNobel, Heineken, ING, Philips, Randstad, Royal Dutch Shell and Unilever supported more than 704,000 jobs in the United States from 2008-2009.
A state-by-state-breakdown of Dutch investments and trade
The report provides a state-by-state breakdown of Dutch foreign direct investments and trade with the Netherlands. The three states benefiting the most from this economic relationship are Texas, California and Massachusetts. The report includes a clickable map of the United States with state specific information on Dutch investment and trade.
Dutch Ambassador Renée Jones-Bos: "The report makes clear that many American jobs are the result of trade and foreign investment. While not underestimating the importance of emerging markets, this report shows how important existing economic ties are and continue to be for growth and recovery. Our strong economic bond has been forged by four centuries of shared ideals, business values and a commitment to entrepreneurism."
A Heineken representative in the USA added, "The United States has been an important export market for Heineken since the repeal of Prohibition", stated Dan Tearno, Senior Vice President and Chief Corporate Relations Officer for Heineken USA. "The company’s United States presence is a significant part of its history, its heritage and its success".
AkzoNobel also noted its commitment to the U.S. "A strong, vibrant relationship between the Netherlands and United States has - and will continue to be - vital to the long term success of our company," said Erik Bouts - managing director of AkzoNobel's U.S. Paints Business. "As the world's largest paints and coatings company, our U.S. interests are significant in terms of revenue generation, employee base and AkzoNobel shareholders. And recent announcements like becoming the primary paint supplier to Walmart's 3,500 U.S. stores with the Glidden brand provide not only near-term job creation, but more broadly, evidence that AkzoNobel has a bright future in the U.S."
Texas, California and Massachusetts benefiting the most from Dutch-American economic ties
Economic Ties between the USA and the Netherlands reveals interesting data on the role of the Netherlands as a contributor to the economic engine of every state. For example, while New York City ranks fifth for jobs supported by Dutch industry and exports to the Netherlands, it’s in first place of the American cities that trade with the Netherlands.
In Texas, Dutch foreign direct investment and Texas' exports to the Netherlands supported 100,062 jobs from 2008-2009. The more than 60,000 jobs supported in California are part of the Dutch foreign direct investments in the state that account for $5.8 billion or 5.3% of total FDI to California. The Netherlands are the fifth largest investor in California. Dutch ties support 51,410 jobs in Massachusetts, which is equal to 8% of the population of Boston. Massachusetts received $3 billion in Dutch foreign direct investments, which comprised 11.6% of total FDI to the state.
Economic Ties between the USA and the Netherlands: Allies in Open Markets for Mutual Prosperity
A report by the Royal Dutch Embassy in Washington, D.C. http://www.economicties.org
Editor's note: the book reviewed here is written by a contributor to this website.
"At the USA" is a book by Petra Glorie, who documents her experiences as a recent Dutch immigrant to North Carolina. It is the result of a blog she started just before moving to the States and covers about four years. In a humorous and down-to-earth tone the book, written in Dutch, gives an insight in some of the subtle but important differences between the Netherlands and the USA.
Dutch in North Carolina
The book starts with Petra and Ron having arrived in the States, looking for a house in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina. Petra: "I started my blog in 2005, with our preparations for moving to the States. I wanted a way to stay in touch with my friends and family at home. The book picks up from the moment we arrived in the States."
The book describes Petra's everyday life in NC and her adjustment to new habits and lifestyle. For example, when Petra and Ron decided to build a brick path in their backyard, the folks at the local Lowe's were amazed that they were doing this themselves. Petra and Ron on their end, were almost intimidated by the level of service they received in the store, from the advice to the help with loading of their car with the bricks -- "We were smiling and couldn't possibly picture this great service at the Gamma store in the Netherlands..."
A recurring and funny theme are Petra's experiences at the DMV. Somehow, Petra ends up in many hilarious situations, which makes the book very entertaining (for example, the chapter on the escaped sheep). Her two dogs Connor and Stacey are main characters in many chapters.
For Petra, one of the highlights of the book is President Obama's visit to North Carolina. Says Petra: "He came to Raleigh a few days before he became President, and we went to see him. It really struck me then that I was in the States. In the Netherlands the American President was always very far, and now we saw him in real life!"
From blog to book
Petra says that the idea to make a book really came from her readers. "They encouraged me to write a book of our experiences".
"I started working on it in August 2009. It took me 18 months to make a selection of my blog posts for the book, and to rewrite them for publication." Her husband Ron adds: "She went through all 1250 articles, and carefully selected them. Only 106 articles made it in the book; that selection took a long time."
"At the USA"
Author: Petra Glorie
ISBN: 978-90-816629-1-8
229 pages, paperback. Written in Dutch. http://www.attheusa.com
April 19 is Dutch-American Friendship Day, a day to celebrate the historic ties of the United States and the Netherlands.
Today we went to the booksale of the Durham Library, always a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.
Last week the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) introduced a new tool for individuals in the United States to check their own employment eligibility status. This new "Self Check" application is part of the ongoing roll-out of the E-Verify program, which aims to help employers check the employment status of new employees.
Our correspondent Noor Speckens visited Vandaag, a restaurant in New York City, to explore how Dutch it is; here is her report.
The Dutch Ambassador to the United States, Renée Jones-Bos, spoke yesterday at UNC's School of Law in Chapel Hill, NC.
About 35 students and faculty attended the meeting. The UNC School of Law has an exchange program with Radboud University in Nijmegen. Several students from the Netherlands were in attendance. 
April 19th is Dutch-American Friendship Day.
Correspondent Yolanda Gerritsen saw a preview of the U.S. premiere of Winter in Wartime (Oorlogswinter), after the book by Dutch author Jan Terlouw.
In the ensuing events, Michiel learns the hard way that people around him are not what they seem and that war is not child’s play, but a deadly serious business. In the course of his heroic attempts to get Jack to safety, Michiel is confronted with unbearable personal losses that change him forever. When Jack finally manages to cross the bridge over the IJssel River to Zwolle, 14-year old Michiel has learned life lessons that have made him wise beyond his years. 
Amsterdam Stories USA is a road movie in the making by Dutch filmmakers Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck. The documentary is a portrayal of small-town America that follows the Dutch migratory flow through 16 North American towns, all named Amsterdam.
"We're not looking for Dutch clichés like tulips and wooden shoes. The movie is a road movie, with stories of Amsterdam in the USA as a connecting element", explains Rombout. "The only real nostalgic Dutch part will be the beginning of the film, which we shot in the Holland Society of New York."
Rombout and Van Eck both live in Brussels, Belgium, and speak French together as Van Eck is born in Paris (from Dutch parents) and speaks better French. They've produced movies in Belgium for almost 30 years. "The Belgian TV and a French film fund are financing us. We didn't get any response from the Netherlands. Perhaps they feel it's a little embarrassing?" They travel through the States with Collin Bannon and Trevor Cohen.
Economic ties with the Netherlands support more than 700,000 American jobs, according to a new report by the Royal Dutch Embassy. Trade and investment between the USA and the Netherlands pay dividends in imports, exports and job creation in both countries.
Editor's note: the book reviewed here is written by a contributor to this website.
From blog to book