I'm from the island of Curacao, locally we call it a Dutch colony though of course the Dutch Kingdom is beyond it's imperial days.

Awo! Meanwhile here in Aruba we don't refer to ourselves as a "colony". Saying something like that might be seen as self-derogatory, because when someone thinks of the word "colony", its usually with a definition that dsn't really exist anymore in modern times. At least, not in our kingdom.

This might have to do with socio-economic factors and the fact that our "status aparte" in 1986 led to decades of political stability with little to no Dutch political influence.

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The Dutch have an incredible amount of cultural and political influence there, in Aruba, St. Martin, Bonaire, etc. Everybody there speaks Dutch, but depending on the island it's not the first language.

In Aruba, the Dutch have the least cultural influence. Only about 10% of the population uses Dutch at home. Papiamento, English and Spanish are all significantly more popular. If i'm not mistaken, Dutch isn't the first language on any of the 6 islands. Half of them are Papiamento speaking and the other half are English speaking. Percentage wise, the Dutch also don't reach double digits here when it comes to tourism. So, even within our kingdom, the level of cultural influence NL has varies quite a bit. I think its the strongest in Curacao, which would make sense historically speaking.