“To be left ignorant about Asian American history is to erase who we are as a people”: Ellie Yang Camp’s “Louder Than the Lies”

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Taiwanese American author Ellie Yang Camp has been a high school history teacher, an artist, and an anti-racist educator. Now she’s taking on another task, authoring Louder Than the Lies: Asian American Identity, Solidarity, and Self-Love. In this book she unpacks the Asian American identity by drawing on personal experiences, stories from her friends, and the history of Asians in America. She also tackles the topic of white supremacy, capitalism, and racial solidarity.   This is not a…

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Wendy Cheng’s “ISLAND X” is essential reading for Taiwanese Americans

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As editor-in-chief of TaiwaneseAmerican.org, I try to adhere to a level of curatorial prudence and precision of language -- because not every great book must be essential -- but I truly believe that Wendy Cheng's Island X is essential reading for Taiwanese Americans. It is an unprecedented origin story of Taiwanese Americans, lyrically charting not only where we come from but, crucially, why it matters.  In the final chapter, Becoming Taiwanese American, Cheng notes that her book captures…

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Vanessa Hope’s INVISIBLE NATION: “China does not want the world to know our story.”

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Vanessa Hope's "Invisible Nation" offers an affecting portrait of Taiwan through an impressive lineup of interviews, not just with President Tsai Ing-wen, though she's the most prominently featured, but with an array of historians, activists, academics, and politicians, thoughtfully interspersed with archive footage. Together, they offer a comprehensive narrative about Taiwan's many paradoxes: being globally influential but systematically excluded, existing in de facto independence but threatened…

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“Not in Our Name” – Understanding the Jewish Struggle for Palestine from a Taiwanese American Perspective

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="990"] Ten thousand gather in DC with Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now to Demand Gaza Ceasefire Wednesday October 18, 2023 (Photo from Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter)[/caption] “If they hadn’t taken us, where would we have gone?” I've heard this question, once posed by my uncle in Taiwan, echoed countless times by Jewish and Israeli friends over the years. “Where would we have gone?” “Who would have taken us?” In the wake of World…

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Between My Grandfather, Taiwan, and Me

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I had just turned eleven years old when my gonggong passed away. I never got to know him very well; my memories of him are pieced together from summer trips to the East Coast, when we visited my mother’s side of the family. But between his deteriorating health and my distraction of getting to play Wii with my cousins, my gonggong and I did not spend much time together. After his death, his transformation into an unknown, distant figure in my life felt inevitable. [caption id="" align="aligncenter"…

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‘A Tale of Two Islands’ & Fire EX Ignite Community

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Taiwanese Americans had back-to-back reasons to gather this weekend in the Bay Area.  A Tale of Two Islands: Hong Kong x Taiwan Fair In San Leandro, Formosan United Methodist Church, one of the most longstanding Taiwanese churches in the United States, played host to the Hong Kong x Taiwan Fair 台港交流日, named 雙島: A Tale of Two Islands. This was the inaugural collaboration between the Taiwanese American Federation of Northern California, a primary first-gen coalition of organizations…

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Remembering the 228 Massacre: Readings & Resources on Taiwan’s White Terror Era

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Feature image: Memorial Foundation of 228  How should a nation reckon with its sins? On the 75th anniversary of the 228 Massacre in Taiwan, and in the midst of ever-greater geopolitical distress, we invite our community to reflect with us on life under and after authoritarian violence. History is rife with the patterns of misinformation masquerading as prophecy; ego presented as hope; fear as our moral compass. In Green Island Secrets, Professor Chung-chih Li writes, "how one feels about…

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Pew Research reissues report on Asian Americans after misrepresenting Taiwanese Americans

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  KEY LINKS: Corrected "Key facts about Asian origin groups in the U.S." (Pew Research Center) - September 8, 2021 How many Taiwanese live in the U.S.? It’s not an easy question to answer (Decoded: PRC Medium) - September 8, 2021 To the Taiwanese American community: Ever since the 1990 United States Census, the Taiwanese American Citizens League (TACL) has led civic engagement efforts to remind our community to complete the U.S. Census by not only checking the "Other Asian"…

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Response to Pew Research Reports Hiding Taiwanese Identity: “We made it count. Now tell our stories.”

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Taiwanese American Community Response to Pew Research Reports on Asian American Communities IMAGE SOURCE: PEW RESEARCH CENTER Recently published reports by the Pew Research Center analyzing Asian American communities have included footnotes that data for “‘Chinese’ includes those identifying as ‘Taiwanese.’” As of today (May 1 - the start of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month), the methodology for Pew Research Center’s Asian American fact sheets makes no reference to why…

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