A Student Named Hijo has been recognized for depicting a new Indonesian youth culture that has adopted Western cultural and lingual facets. By contrasting traditional Javanese and Dutch cultural values, the author advocated a view that the two are incompatible. This includes love, described in the novel as something only those with a Dutch education would attempt to find; the traditional view being that marriage is to be used for social mobility. Rejected for publication by Balai Pustaka―the Dutch controlled publishing house, the work is now considered a classic.