02/02/2026
๐ป๐๐
๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ต๐๐
๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ท๐๐๐๐๐.
As the daughter of a first-generation freeborn in the Aruban society, which preferred to look away from the reality and lasting effects of slavery, her life was an uphill climb. While she was born into a respected family, with a father who was a successful merchant and adored her, Nydia nevertheless learned early that love and safety could exist alongside cruelty. Among thirteen siblings, she was the darkest child, with the kinkiest hair, the most pronounced African features, and a nose that became the focus of public humiliation. When people mockingly asked her, "๐๐๐๐ง๐ ๐๐จ ๐ฎ๐ค๐ช๐ง ๐ฃ๐ค๐จ๐?" as an infant she was taught to reply: "๐ฝ๐ช๐ง๐๐๐ค ๐จ๐ค" (only holes). A child rehearsing self-erasure by a verbal chain designed to make her feel invisible; an absence where a face should be.
At home, the struggle was real. Nydiaโs mother, herself a descendant of enslaved people, had absorbed the colonial rule that lighter was better, that proximity to whiteness meant progress, and that bearing children with a Black man felt more like betrayal than love. Though Shon Annie was a gifted artisan, a tireless worker whose wedding cakes and traditional sweets were celebrated far and wide, as a young girl she had learned to doubt her own right to exist when her mother passed away. The family that adopted her and her sister married Annie off, when during one of his travels, Dundun Ecury fell in love with her and was to also take the sister along with him, if they were to accept his marriage proposal.
While her fatherโs success as a merchant provided a gilded life, it could not shield Nydia from a mother who viewed her own children through the lens of "whitewashing" as a form of survival, and in the Ecury household, the colonial "divide and conquer" strategy wasn't just political theory, but domestic reality. In that divided home, which today houses the National Archaeological Museum Aruba, Nydia learned that survival often meant proving, again, again and again, that she deserved the space she occupied.
While this marked her for life, Nydia aimed to transmute this "repetition of pain" into a brilliant career. When she moved to Curaรงao in 1959, she was initially dismissed as "crazy", a label often reserved for those who refuse to stay within the constraints of societal chains. Yet she didn't just survive; she became a titan of Papiamentu literature and a powerhouse of the stage. Her success was so undeniable that the same people that once mocked her eventually had no other choice than to relabel her: "Oh, sheโs not crazy, sheโs an artist!"
Ultimately, Nydiaโs journey reminds us that the steepest uphill climb is usually what we create for ourselves if we allow circumstances to reign rather than taking the reins and steps to overcome what may try to keep us enslaved. And while, since March 2nd 2012, Nydia no longer occupies any physical space in the world of the living, she still occupies her very own space; in the hearts of friends and family that loved her; in the example of strength that she served, in the history of our islands and the Dutch Kingdom; in the honors she celebrated and may still receive; in the steps anyone may take in "Nydia Ecury straat" and "Nydia Ecury hofje" in Amsterdam; in the laughter she still evokes when we think of her hilarious sketches or when we replay her One Woman show Luna di Papel, and also in all I hope I may still produce as her daughter and pupil, to be the living continuation of her endlessly creative generosity.
May the energy that was and is Nydia, be a joyful dance in the Heavenly Divine.
Bo simianan ta sigui bibu ma!
Caresse Isings
The photo is taken from "Luna di Papel"; the moment where she tells the "buraco so" story, with a picture of her as an infant.
