Happy Mental Health Awareness Month! It’s Time to Normalize the Elephant!

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By Emily Wu Truong The subject of mental health is like the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, and that is how it seems in my local community. Many individuals choose not to seek help in fear of becoming marginalized and shunned by friends and family. Many choose to suffer in silence because they were taught to “save face” over “airing their dirty laundry” to anyone, or else they would bring shame to themselves and the family. On the contrary, many people know me as…

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Beyond Boundaries: What makes us Taiwanese?

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What makes you Taiwanese? Is there an answer that’s more right than others? What terms make up that definition? I’m tempted to begin this article by listing what I feel qualifies me to claim Taiwanese identity, as if somewhere out there, there’s a scale and the more Taiwanese I can be, the more my writing here matters. Nonsense. When we create definitions of identity based on looks, language, or legalese, we use a whole host of criteria to tell people if they are enough or not. We…

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[UPDATED] Taiwan’s Sunflower Student Movement

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As the events of the Sunflower Student Movement unfold in Taiwan, we've compiled what we hope to be a comprehensive resource of up-to-date articles, analysis, live feeds, social media, and photos and footage of the protests. We know there are numerous other sources out there, so feel free to send us whatever you may find. Please continue checking back as the events of the movement unfold and as this list is continuously updated! LAST UPDATED: 4/9/2014 11:18AM PST THE SITUATION: GENERAL OVERVIEW Democracy…

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A Taiwanese American Look at the Sunflower Movement

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Let me paint a picture. The golden age of the American economy, where the US was the uncontested global hegemon after the Second World War, tripped over itself in the 1970s. Inflation, unemployment, and income inequality all rose significantly in the coming decades, contributing to what sociologists call the Great U-Turn, in reference to the receding of hard-earned social progress. Manufacturing jobs disappeared, entire towns across the country falling into despair in their absence. This crisis marked…

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Reflections on 228

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To strangers who don’t know the history, 228 is just a bunch of numbers.  However, 228 actually refers to February, 28, 1947. It marks the date of the massacre of around 30,000 people and the imprisonment of over 140,000 Taiwanese citizens who were suspected of opposing the Kuomintang (KMT) government.  To certain Taiwanese people, it’s a date where blame is put on the government for what happened. To others, it’s just an incident in history where thousands died.  But to me, 228 is what…

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Making History Happen

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By Felicia Lin When I first heard about Su Beng, a lifelong Taiwan independence activist, former undercover Chinese Communist agent, would be assassin of Chiang Kai-shek, historian and author of Taiwan’s 400 Years of History, in 2003, I was intrigued. I wondered what would motivate a man like this and quickly decided that I wanted to meet him because I knew that his was a story to be told. What began as a simple idea to write a story based on his life has grown into a project to document it.…

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Magic Continues at TACL-LID Camp

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It ended with a pinch, a squeeze, or even a simple hand on a shoulder. “Touch somebody who has made an impact on your life. Touch somebody who made you laugh. Touch somebody who is now your friend”. Such a simple gesture left 42 youths with a deep connection and impact after attending TACL-Leadership Identity Development (LID) Camp at UC San Diego during the month of August. It had been 10 years since I last attended LID Camp and it was now my first time serving as a camp counselor. I was…

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What Would You Tell Allie, a 6 Year-Old Taiwanese American Adoptee?

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Recently, Lora C., the loving mother of 6 year-old adoptee Allie C., messaged our TaiwaneseAmerican.org Facebook Page to ask for our advice about how to help her child learn about and accept her identity as a Taiwanese American. I was moved by how much Lora was willing to share with us and how she regarded us as a potential community resource, given that their family lives in the Midwest, where there are relatively fewer Asian Americans. Even though I was uncertain about how I could help, I arranged…

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Loops of Yarn

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by Annie Lin I didn't learn to knit from my grandmother, even though she was a knitter. She spent almost every summer in the backyard of our house in suburban Southern California, perhaps because plane tickets out of Taiwan were cheaper then or perhaps because it was a way to escape the humidity of Taipei in July. When she wasn't weeding the garden or laundering our clothes with a bar of slippery brown soap, she was sitting in a lawn chair next to a plastic bag of green or gray yarn and knitting…

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The Making of the Taiwanese American Identity

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Growing up in the Taiwanese American community, I learned as a child the importance of understanding how history and politics shape and define our community. We become well versed in geopolitics across the span of several centuries, including comparative cases of identity formation and nationhood. We learn the story of how groups of diverse peoples living on an island, called Ilha Formosa by Portuguese sailors on a Spanish ship, became caught between the warring visions of ambitious and powerful…

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