Sunflower Occupation Documentary Tours North America

A year after the historic occupation of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, a 9-part collaboration documentary has been made featuring the stories and timeline of events during this student-led "Sunflower Movement." The Sunflower Student Movement, driven by a coalition of students and civic groups, protested the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement by the Kuomintang party in the legislature without a clause-by-clause review. The Sunflower image was associated with this massive student…

Apply to be a Formosa Foundation Ambassador

The Formosa Foundation is now accepting applications for the 2015 Formosa Foundation Ambassador Program. For over a decade, this premier Taiwanese American program has provided opportunities for hundreds of college students from Taiwan and the US to experience the effectiveness of political advocacy within the halls of Washington D.C. The Ambassador Program combines in-house training with on-the-ground activist work. Participants in the Program develop the expertise, analytical framework,…

Survey on Culture and Identity for Asian American High School Students

Are you a high school aged student or a parent of one? Are you interested in the Asian American experience and how it affects perceptions of identity? Read on to see how you can help and be rewarded with a $10 gift card! HELLO! My Name is Wells Ling, and I am currently a graduate student at Saint Louis University working towards my doctorate in developmental psychology. As a second generation Taiwanese American growing up in the Midwest, I rarely wondered or truly appreciated my family’s…

Anita Chang’s Tongues of Heaven Screens in SF/Bay Area

Taiwanese American filmmaker Anita Chang's most recent documentary film, Tongues of Heaven, revolves around the issue of language loss and asks the essential question: “what do you lose when you lose your native language?” Her film explores the challenges of young indigenous peoples of Taiwan and Hawaii in learning the heritage languages of their ancestors — languages that are endangered or facing extinction. TaiwaneseAmerican.org is proud to be a Co-presenter of this limited theatrical…

Why I Fight to “Keep Taiwan Free”

      Keep Taiwan Free. Three simple words but keep Taiwan free from what? China? Why do we need to Keep Taiwan Free? Wait, but I thought Taiwan is free? These are just some of the common questions asked when people see the slogan Keep Taiwan Free. As most people know, Taiwan’s history is quite complex. It took several decades and the sacrifice of tens of thousands of citizens to get to the democracy that Taiwan is today. Yet, this young democracy is still a fragile one. Even just in…

September 13th | Keep Taiwan Free Movement in NYC!

[caption id="attachment_11876" align="alignnone" width="610"] Photo Credit: MengLing Hsieh[/caption] Despite being one of the world's youngest successful democracies, Taiwan continues to be excluded from the United Nations. Among many consequences, that means Taiwan is unable to fully participate in and contribute its resources to global institutions such as the World Health Organization and forced to enter international competitions under the name of “Chinese Taipei." Keep Taiwan Free and…

ART FOR ADVOCACY: Bringing Taiwan's Sunflower Movement to Brooklyn

By Dana Ter On a damp New York evening on May 22, just a stone throw away from Bushwick Collective on Troutman Street – a street filled with graffiti murals turned into an art gallery of sorts, the open-air Bat Haus Coworking Space was abuzz with artsy hipster types. They were holding Brooklyn Brewery beers and admiring photographs and paintings of sunflowers. Speaking in Mandarin with a smattering of English, the attendees, mostly young people in their 20s and 30s, were discussing the role of…

Beyond Boundaries: What makes us Taiwanese?

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…