Dear community,
Some of my earliest work for TaiwaneseAmerican.org (indeed, ten years ago to this date!) was published in commemoration of the 228 Incident and the period of White Terror that followed. In 2016, I wrote:
I urge us to reaffirm our own agencies in the patchwork of the Taiwanese American experience… to be the involuntary ambassador of a threatened identity is both a privilege and an exhausting responsibility. But personal pursuits of disorientation, investigation, and storytelling — wanting to learn about your history, as it was written by your people — can also be revolutionary, radical acts. I have learned that there is no “right” way to be Taiwanese American, that both public protest and silent observation are valid modes of inquiry. I have learned that strength and residual trauma are not mutually exclusive; we can better celebrate Taiwan’s resilience if we understand the uncomfortable mosaic of her past. I have learned that Taiwanese American culture is not just about the food we serve on our dinner tables, but about the ongoing dialogue and relationships between the generations. If we want to take pride in our culture, we have to first take pride in each other.
I am struck by how much wider my worldview has become in the last decade, but also proud that 19-year-old Leona, eagerly submitting her first Perspectives piece for TaiwaneseAmerican.org, was even then trying to articulate a Taiwanese American identity formed by relationships, forged in conversation, emboldened by its own curiosities.
I grew up in a pocket of the diaspora that essentialized the 228 Incident as the defining moral and political origin story of what it meant to be Taiwanese. I learned about the massacre when I was eight years old, and felt so deeply connected to its survivors and descendants that Taiwan’s struggle for self-determination became the lens through which I interpreted all injustices. And because I understood myself as an heir to that unfinished struggle, I came to see myself, by this logic, connected to every struggle, against repression everywhere.
Through the echoes of 228, I learned that political repression is not theoretical, or a faraway threat that only happens to other communities and other histories. I learned that state violence enters all kinds of homes, displaces all kinds of families, suffocates all kinds of languages. I learned that, in its aftermath, it also decides whose suffering is politically justified, and whose memories become weaponized. Who gets remembered, and who gets left behind.
These echoes have followed me. When I met, as a child, former political prisoners confined in Jing-Mei, it etched in me a visceral rejection of cages; that same unease is present as I confront the realities of American incarceration and immigration detention. When I later encountered the racialized police killings of Michael Brown, George Floyd, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, and Breonna Taylor; and the ICE executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, I reflected on parallel structures of the state: the vocabulary of justification; the cold, hollow rhetoric of law and order.
In these tragedies, we are extended a moral invitation: to share our convictions and passions with and for all oppressed peoples, everywhere. “Human rights for Taiwanese” as embedded in the broader logic of human rights for all. “Freedom for political prisoners” meaning freedom for all political prisoners, including ones with whom we do not see eye to eye. “Self-determination for Taiwan” meaning self-determination for other identities, communities, and nations, too.
I struggle every year to articulate how I want to model the hard work of solidarity, how to make a day of commemoration an inciting point for a lifetime of curiosity, compassion, and the political commitments due both. I don’t believe this work can be formed by grief or trauma alone. I believe we are emboldened when we recognize that people like us — our families, our communities, our chosen ancestors — have intervened in history before. Their courage gives us precedent; their contradictions give us grace.
To that end, accompanying this year’s resources & readings, I offer a few reflective questions. I hope they nudge you towards a deeper understanding of the relationship you would like to have with Taiwan, Taiwanese America, and the “great unfinished struggles” that shape our lives in both.
Questions for personal reflection:
(1) When did you first learn about the 228 Incident or the White Terror?
What do you remember feeling? How has that emotional memory shaped the way you respond to injustice today? How did other historic events influence your understanding of this incident?
(2) What does “never forget” mean to you in practice?
Maybe you attend commemorative events, or read relevant literature (or even historically banned books). Maybe you donate to causes, choose to engage in a hard conversation, become more involved in your local community, journal, or make art. What would it look like for remembrance to inspire an activity? What would it look like for remembrance to shape your everyday decisions and commitments? (There is no wrong answer! Everything matters!)
(3) Who do you consider “your people”?
How have those boundaries changed over time? How does your concern fluctuate for those within and outside of your community? How do those boundaries complicate or inform your sense of solidarity?
(4) What stories of resistance inspire you?
Whether you find them in fiction, museums, or in your own family, how do those stories inform what you believe is possible for ordinary people today, including yourself? What qualities and characteristics do you admire about them? What have they taught you?
(5) What questions do you want to ask our ancestors who lived through this history?
What questions and stories do you want to leave for our descendants who will only learn this history through us?
Remembering the 228 Massacre: Readings & Resources on Taiwan’s White Terror Era (2026 Update)
Readings/Articles:
- “Extraordinary, Emergency, Temporary” – Leona and Taiwanese American historian Dr. Hong-Ming Liang examine parallels between Taiwan’s Martial Law–era Garrison Command and contemporary ICE.
- The 228 Massacre in Taipei: “Forced Into a Car, Never to Return” (The Taiwan Gazette) – Seven decades after the 228 Massacre, survivors and relatives in Taipei city and Taipei county recount their experience and anguish.
Films/Videos:
- Untold Herstory (TaiwanPlus, free streaming through 2029) – On Taiwan’s Green Island in the 1950s, a group of female thought prisoners chose to fight for freedom but were forcefully suppressed by the authorities. Despite this, they held on to their values and believed in a freer future. With English subtitles.
- 《牽阮的手》Hand in Hand (YouTube, free streaming through 2046) – “Hand in Hand” chronicles the life story of Dr. Tian Chaoming and Ms. Tian Mengshu, a married couple who walked hand in hand through the White Terror and the democratic movement. Their mutual support and unwavering faith reflect the oppression and struggles endured by Taiwanese people under authoritarian rule, and witness a history of moving from fear to freedom.
- The 228 Memorial Foundation Online Lecture Series – delivered in Mandarin, but YouTube’s auto-generated English translations are quite helpful!
- A City of Sadness (YouTube)
- National Human Rights Museum – Oral History of Political Victims – Taiwanese and Mandarin, with English subtitles
- Cross-Generational Conversations on the 228 Incident (青春發言人)- Taiwanese and Mandarin, with English subtitles
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