Guest Post: “Passing” for White to Get Into Harvard?

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by Grace Yia-Hei Kao Asian Americans and Harvard University have been in the news and on my mind recently. The bigger story has been about the “Linsanity” surrounding (Harvard grad) New York Knicks player Jeremy Lin who continues to take the NBA by storm. The smaller story, though one that also made national headlines in early February, is of the recent decision by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate a complaint that Harvard and Princeton Universities discriminate…

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Guest Post: “Clean Slate”

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We recently connected with Charles McDonald, a hapa Taiwanese American, who has spent several years living and working in Taiwan. He mentioned to us a year ago that he intended to start a Taiwanese-inspired clothing line. Back then, it was just an idea, but a year later, his company has become reality and showcases some interesting Taiwan-themed designs all printed on Made in Taiwan T-shirts. The IDCY brand is available online and occasionally at select Night Market locations. We at TaiwaneseAmerican.org…

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Guest Post: Recommended Taiwan Blogs 2011

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Meet Fili, an expat blogger who previously spent two years living in Taiwan (Taipei and Tainan). During his time there, he and other Taiwan bloggers created a community to help expats and tourists find high quality information in English. The result? Handy websites that include travel/culture guides and forum advice: Taiwanderful and iTainan. Fili also blogs about his travels at Filination and has posted a few hundred entries about Taiwan travel and Taiwanese culture. Although he currently lives…

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Wendy Hsu on Issues of (In)visibility and Asian American Identities

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TaiwaneseAmerican.org has followed Wendy Hsu's work since discovering her Asian American music blog, yellowbuzz.org, several years ago. We also found it fascinating that she founded Dzian!, a vintage pan-Asian garage and surf rock band (Dzian! means "super-cool" in Taiwanese) around the time we asked our musical artist friends to help support the 2009 Typhoon Morakot fundraising relief efforts for hard-hit Taiwan. Her band revived and paid tribute to the Taiwanese grassroots performance style known…

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Reinventing Thanksgiving

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This is a story about Thanksgiving traditions and my hidden talent. (More on the talent later.) Those of us who can’t trace our ancestry to the Mayflower are left to create our own Thanksgiving traditions. As a result, I think I had the best Thanksgivings of anyone I know. To understand, we have to start at the beginning-- 1965, when my parents came from Taiwan as chemistry graduate students. They left the heat and humidity of Taipei for very unfamiliar surroundings in Providence, Rhode Island,…

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Mixed Roots Thanksgiving

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What does the next generation of Taiwanese Americans look like? All I have to do is take a look at my kids for some clues. Like my sons, a growing number of third-generation Taiwanese Americans are mixed-race. I started my blog, HapaMama, in 2008 after many conversations with friends – many of them Gen X Taiwanese Americans like myself—and realizing that we had many similar experiences of navigating cross-cultural relationships and raising children in a multicultural environment. In case you’re…

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The “Support Taiwan” Campaign on Social Media

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Take part in a social media campaign to bring awareness to Taiwan and to support our distinct identity! Dates: Monday, September 26 at 12:00am - October 14 at 12:00am Location: Facebook, Google+, and Twitter Profiles Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127871607305987 This event is by I Love Taiwan (http://facebook.com/taiwannation/) A project of Support Taiwan (http://www.supporttaiwan.com/) *Note: TaiwaneseAmerican.org does not take an official stance in endorsement…

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Why Taiwan Matters, Part II

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You are invited to attend the following open hearing of the US House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Hosted by Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), this presentation is part II on the topic of "Why Taiwan Matters." Date: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 Time: 10:00 AM (EST) Location: Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building Address: Independence Ave and South Capitol St, Washington, DC Live broadcast: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=1358 Facebook…

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A Taiwanese American Story: Celebrating Malachy’s 70 Year-old Gong Gong

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I love this story. And the narrator's voice is cuteness beyond belief. This is the life story of 5 year-old Malachy's grandfather whom he calls Gong Gong and his grandmother Po Po. It's a wonderfully illustrated tale of one man, whose story is so familiar to many Taiwanese Americans today, and it was a surprise gift to Gong Gong for his 70th Birthday. Gong Gong is Dr. Yihnan Norman Chiou, and he serves as the 2010-2012 president of the North American Taiwanese Medical Association (NATMA).…

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TaiwaneseAmerican.org’s Ho Chie Tsai Featured on Taiwan543.net

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TaiwaneseAmerican.org's founder, Ho Chie Tsai, was recently featured on Taiwan543.net. It's a relatively new website on a mission to close the gap between Taiwan and the world by showcasing influential individuals/talents in Taiwanese American communities and updating the public with relevant and current news. Interviewer Jude Chao writes: Taiwanese Americans have a lot to offer the world, but our community has often gone unrecognized. With the help of sites like TaiwaneseAmerican.org, however,…

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