| Summary: | Afthonul Afif 1 Faturochman2 The objectives of this research is to disclose the strategies of Muslim Tionghoa (Chinese Indonesians) settling down in Yogyakarta for establishing the positive social identity. The range of discussion covers some significant points such as; motives of embracing Islam, consequence of converting to Islam, interaction with the sociocultural matters of the indigenous people, interaction with the socio-cultural matters of the Tionghoa, patterns of social identity building, efforts to establish the positive social identity, and interpretation on the positive social identity. The Social Identity Theory was used as the theoretical framework of the research. The research is a qualitative research employing the Symbolic Interactionism approach concerned with the personal aspects of the research informants. Hence, the informants’ efforts tend to be subjective rather than objective. The research involves six informants, four of them are Tionghoa Totok and the remaining two are Tionghoa Peranakan. In addition, all the information herein was gained through observation and in-depth interview. The research findings demonstrate that: (1) the Tionghoa Totok’s choice of embracing Islam is based on the personal motive, while the Tionghoa Peranakan’s is based on the influence coming from fa mily and society; (2) both of the Tionghoa Totok and the Tionghoa Peranakan shared the same thoughts that being Muslim means being accepted by society; (3) the Tionghoa Totok’s socio-cultural interaction tends to be transactional, and the Tinghua Peranakan’s is natural; (4) the Tionghoa Totok keeps practicing and building socio-cultural interaction but Tionghoa Peranakan cuts off the relation with other Tionghoa, as a consequence of its society and family; (5) pattern of the positive social identity amongst the Tionghoa Totok is formed through a process called cross-category that tends to be hybrid than the Tionghoa Peranakan’s, which tends to be permanent as created through a process of self-categorization; (6) the Tionghoa Totok prefers individual mobility and uniqueness optimization strategies in term of establishing the positive social identity, but the Tionghoa Peranakan does conduct social creativity and not accomplish individual mobility. Keywords: Muslim Tionghoa, Tiongho a Totok, Tionghoa Peranakan, Strategy, Social Identity.
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