Now accepting submissions: 2026 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes

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TaiwaneseAmerican.org is pleased to announce the 2026 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes. Created in 2021 in collaboration with Taiwanese American author Charles Yu, the Prizes are intended to encourage and recognize creative literary work by Taiwanese American students, and to foster discussion and community around such work. In 2022, the prize expanded to include a separate middle school category for 6th-8th grade applicants, judged by Alvina Ling. In 2023, we added an additional…

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What happens when we think of Taiwan as a revolutionary place?: A Conversation with Catherine Chou, co-author of REVOLUTIONARY TAIWAN

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Those who've monitored English-language online discourse on "Taiwan issues" for the past decade or so may be familiar with the lucid lyricism and rigorous clarity of Catherine Chou (perhaps first known by her then-Twitter handle, "@catielila.") I've long admired Catherine for her rare ability to braid political theory, historical context, and lived affect; how she insists that Taiwan's story be told not only honestly and intelligibly, but with great dignity and deference to the people living…

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Kaila Yu’s FETISHIZED: Community Discussion Guide

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Screenshot from Anna Wu![/caption] We had such a wonderful, nourishing discussion on January 18 to kick off our 2026 Taiwanese American Memoir Book Club! Below are questions inspired by our conversation to help spark further discussion/reflection. We encourage you to form your own reading groups to explore these texts in community. To view our full schedule and RSVP to future discussions, please visit our 2026 Taiwanese American Book Club…

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Skincare & Sourcing from Taiwan’s Natural Richness: In Conversation with Yahu Beauty Founder Brittaney Hu

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As our annual Taiwanese American gift guides have scaled in breadth and reach, we've been so delighted to hear from emerging Taiwanese American creators and entrepreneurs eager to tell their story. Shortly after our 2025 edition was released, we had the opportunity to meet Brittaney Hu, who'd founded a skincare brand, Yahu Beauty (pronounced like "Yahoo," another company with a Taiwanese American founder!), just this winter. In this conversation, Hu shares her dreams for Taiwanese ingredients…

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2025 Taiwanese American Small Business Gift Guide

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Every holiday season, we return to this special tradition: gathering the makers, dreamers, and small business owners who infuse Taiwanese American creativity into their craft. What began years ago as a simple community roundup has grown into one of our most beloved annual traditions—a celebration of food, art, care, storytelling, and the people whose work reflects the textures of our diaspora. This year's Taiwanese American Gift Guide celebrates craftsmanship rooted in heritage and imagination.…

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We Build Museums So We Can Someday Stop Building Cages: A Taiwanese American Reflection from the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park

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This essay was originally written for my personal newsletter, but I hope its reflections on heritage, human rights, and ethical imagination may resonate with the broader Taiwanese American community. 🫶 Hello from Taipei, where I’ve collected so many museum pamphlets and cute paraphernalia that I am tempted to start a junk journal (though now that I think about it, this Substack is an intellectual junk journal of sorts). I’m so grateful to have also spent time this week with people I’ve…

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Shared Meals, Fieldwork, Storytelling: Building Transnational Solidarity Through the Taiwan Food and Farm Delegation

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For many in diaspora, food is one of the most tangible threads connecting us to ancestry, memory, and land. Yet the pathways that sustain those connections—seed to harvest, recipe to ritual—are often complicated or even fractured by displacement, colonization, and distance.  It is along these fractured, but fertile, lines that Taiwanese American community organizers Li Schmidt and Kimberly Chou Tsun An have envisioned and built the Taiwan Food and Farm Delegation, a pilot project uniting…

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Keng-lâm Su-iⁿ: Writing A New Chapter for Tâi-gí

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Meet the educator-activists turning the tide on Mandarin hegemony to nurture a new generation of Taiwanese speakers and storytellers. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2048"] From L to R: Hô Phè-chin, Lûi Bêng-hàn, Tīⁿ Têng-têng, Ong Úi-pek[/caption] Founded in 2024, Keng-lâm Su-iⁿ (The Mosei Academy of Taiwanese Language and Literacy) has quickly become a dynamic and influential forces in Tâi-gí (Taiwanese) language revival. Rooted in a pragmatic praxis, the collective’s…

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Winnie M Li’s “WHAT WE LEFT UNSAID” and California Book Tour!

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WHAT WE LEFT UNSAID By Winnie M Li Excerpt from p.102 - 103 In this passage, Bonnie and Alex, two Taiwanese-American sisters in their 40s, are sharing a hotel room on a cross-country road trip. They stop to reflect upon their mother.  ‘I guess Mom must have been like that with us.  Like, we were her whole purpose or living?’ ‘Yeah,’ Bonnie answers after a moment, releasing Alex from the hug. ‘And then we all moved away.’ They sit side by side, stewing equally in their…

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Speaking in Layers: How Anne Is Building a Taiwanese Language Movement from New York to Nantou

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Editor’s Note: In this article, we use the terms “Taigi” and “Taiwanese” interchangeably to refer specifically to Taiwanese Hokkien, also known as Taigi or Tâi-gí (台語). While commonly spoken in many Taiwanese households and often associated with Taiwanese cultural identity, it is important to recognize that Taigi is not currently the official language of Taiwan, nor is it the sole language spoken by those who identify as Taiwanese. Taiwan is home to a rich diversity of languages,…

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