TaiwaneseAmerican.org Statement on Solidarity with Mauna Kea Protectors

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We urge Taiwanese Americans to stand in solidarity with those protecting Mauna Kea. Today, we reflect on our own island nation’s Austronesian ancestry; the many times she was confronted with imperial and colonial violence; the work of our own indigenous peoples resisting foreign and local rule. We admit that the Taiwan we know today — vibrant, progressive, technologically advanced as she is — exists in imperfect parallel with other colonized lands: historical and holy grounds turned…

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Why This Taiwanese American Helped Tell the Story of Chinese Railroad Workers

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Max Chang was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah and is considered one of the first, if not first, Taiwanese Americans born in Utah.  Max is a Board Member of the Spike 150 Foundation which oversaw the sesquicentennial celebration of the completion of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. May 10, 2019 marked the 150th year anniversary of the driving of a Golden Spike into a polished laurel tie at Promontory Summit, Utah to celebrate the completion of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. …

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From Wild Lilies to Sunflowers: Discovering Taiwan’s Democracy

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From fist fights in the parliament to protests that seem to rotate through Taipei every few months, Taiwan's democracy is oftentimes placed under intense scrutiny. “Look at how messed up Taiwan’s government is,” I’d hear often. But critics often forget this obvious precursor to democratic maturity: age. Taiwan is known as the beacon of democracy in Asia, as the only Han society to know freedom today. However, people also forget how young this fragile democracy is, or how recent…

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Addressing Anti-Blackness Within the Taiwanese American Community

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By Tiffany Diane Tso, edited by Leona Chen | original photography by Micheile Henderson Editor’s Note: I’ve been thinking a lot about (valid) accusations that Asian Americans, frankly, suck at standing up for others. And though there is no singular Taiwanese American immigration narrative, many families in our community arrived by way of H-1B visas, prestigious education, and the logical conclusion that obedience produces success. Diasporic Taiwanese of my parents’ and grandparents’…

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The 228 Inheritance: Taiwan’s Revolution Is Here

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Seventy-two years after Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s forces massacred more than twenty thousand Taiwanese in ‘the February 28th Incident’, Taiwan is in the midst of an unacknowledged revolution. You will not find the Taiwanese Revolution named in history books or identified in newspapers. Indeed, it is assumed that this revolution has yet to occur – or rather that it never will. Yet to occur, because there is no internationally-accepted Taiwanese Republic and never to occur,…

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“When I came out to my mom, she was scared for me.”

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When I came out to my mom, she was scared for me. “I want you to have an easy life,” she said, and coming out meant that my life wasn’t going to be easy. Like any other Taiwanese mother, she wanted to protect me from the dangers I would have to face as I got older. The world she’d grown up in, Taiwan in the 1980s, was dangerous for people like me, and she didn’t want me to have to face yet another form of prejudice. But she also knew that my world as a 21st century American…

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What Taiwanese Americans Can Learn From Taiwanese Politics

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One of the opportunities of sitting at the masthead of TaiwaneseAmerican.org is continually engaging with the borders and expectations of this community. What does it mean to be Taiwanese, American, and Taiwanese American? What is our role as citizens of the diaspora? And, heavily on my mind in the aftermath of the November 24th election:   Do we need an acute awareness of — or even interest in — Taiwanese politics to identify as Taiwanese American? My impulse is to…

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What ‘Bao’ and ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Meant to Me

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Traditional mama’s girls who need a support group, I am here for you. Contains tiny spoilers.  Anyone who's even vaguely heard of me knows that I'm a mama's girl. My life's work navigates a strange dichotomy between "hot pot of rice that don't need no side dish" and "most filial child #1." Like many of my Asian American friends, I am independent, opinionated, and strong-willed. But I have never believed that my life is wholly my own. So you understand why I might be frustrated by polarizing…

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Passing on the Taiwanese Language: A Personal Account

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I was born in the US and, like many second generation Taiwanese-Americans, I grew up speaking first Taiwanese (台語), and then English at home. I recall visiting Taiwan as a child and people finding it quite odd that my brother and I understood only Taiwanese—not Mandarin Chinese. Although my level of Taiwanese never reached beyond that of a kindergartner's, if I hear Taiwanese being spoken around me, I will always turn my head, unable to refrain from eavesdropping on the conversation. With…

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Balancing the Trifecta: Growing up Taiwanese, Korean, and American

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  There are 27 picture frames on the wall next to our staircase, each chronicling flashes of the life I know. Pictures of my mom and dad on a vacation to Italy while they were dating, pictures of my brother and me in Mexico, pictures of my brother as a toddler in a pumpkin patch. Pictures of my grandpa’s 60th birthday party, of my parents playing golf with their friends, of my late grandfather with my cousins, of my brother and me sitting on a swing set in Korea. My parents immigrated…

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