Teacher. Health Coach. Community Builder.
Throughout all areas of my life; my family, my Taiwanese American Identity, my holistic health coach business, studying movement and teaching Capoeira…it’s all been about learning and sharing. My motivation in life is to live in community with others, and if I can help foster connections, both with self and each other, then I stay engaged and fulfilled.
I grew up in Ohio, in a majority white town, with fortunately, a diverse set of friends. I started attending TAF (Taiwanese American Foundation) camp at a very young age, and it imprinted the importance and power of learning and growing in the community, and the importance of truly understanding yourself. It’s hard for me to actually state the overarching impact of the lessons I learned there, with its mission of creating servant leaders, but it’s informed much of my search for meaning and community throughout my adult life.
It led me to Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art that has a very strong community component. While I was part of the New York City Teaching Fellows program, I found a school that I’ve been with ever since. I started a branch of my own school in Oakland in 2012, and through the pandemic we are still going strong. Through community members in Capoeira, I learned about holistic health coaching and farming, and eventually went down my own path in these disciplines. I came to the Bay Area, ended up farming for a season, and going to nutrition school at Bauman College in Berkeley, and since 2012, I’ve been running a holistic health coaching business, called The Nourished Belly. I’ve since authored two nutrition books, The Nourished Belly Diet and The Gastroparesis Healing Diet, published by Ulysses Press.
How does being Taiwanese/Taiwanese American and/or community ally play a role in your life?
Wow, thinking about answering this question is making me cry! What can you say about an identity that is fundamental to your framework of the world? It’s a sense of belonging, it’s a sense of home, and it’s also an enigma. Growing up divorced from the physical land means that you are constantly trying to understand it. Growing up westernized means you are trying to fit two very different puzzle pieces together. My parents made it clear that it was my responsibility to educate people about Taiwan, and growing up American, you have to make a conscious decision to learn about your own culture. From learning and relearning Mandarin and Taiwanese, to yearly trips, to reading up on the history, it’s a task that I struggle to make time for and yet feel is my birth rite.
It is also an extreme source of pride. Proud of my parents and my brother for being heavily into Taiwanese politics. I learn from them. Proud of the Sunflower Movement, of Taiwan’s Democracy. Proud of the bomb food. All keeping in mind that Taiwan isn’t perfect, and I don’t know what I don’t know.
If you could teach future generations 1 thing about being Taiwanese/Taiwanese American or Taiwan, what would it be?
If you want to have a real connection to Taiwan, you have to learn our history. Learn about the indigenous, to the waves of immigration and colonialism. Go back and make a connection with the island that is personal and yours alone.
What does the future of Taiwanese America look like to you?
I would love to see Taiwanese Americans come together more as a community. There are definitely those of us who connect through the conference circuit, and professional organizations that focus on careers. And also, it would be great to bring a level of learnings and activism amongst ourselves. More than just celebrating our food (which absolutely deserves to be celebrated), let’s also connect over learning.
I’m heartened by the podcast Bite Size Taiwanese, and some of the recent programing that taiwaneseamerican.org is promoting about culture and history. Let’s make it “cool” to have a connection to our home and culture so that we can continue to have strings that tie us together in the larger American community.
Favorite memory of Taiwan/Taiwanese America?
Attending TAF! It’s a beautiful representation of what one community, who feels spread out and isolated, can do to bring community and celebration of culture back into their lives.
Favorite Taiwanese food?
bah tzang
Connect with Felicia @feliciacchang on Instagram! Check out her feature on TaiwaneseAmerican.Org’s Instagram and Facebook!
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