Taiwanese Americans – Taiwan Insight

Asian Migrants and Taiwanese Americans: A Dialogue on Identity, Activism, and History

20 September 2024 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Panchen Lo, Pei-Chen Cheng, and Ssu-chieh Jessica Fan (University of Texas, Austin). This article details a panel discussion at the NATSA conference featuring three scholars who discussed the experiences and identities of Taiwanese Americans. The panel focused on the intersection of Cold War geopolitics, class, and the complicated process of identity formation. It critically examined how historical context, class, and racial narratives have shaped the lives and experiences of Taiwanese Americans.

Connecting with Island X: Reflections from Second Generation to the Third Generation

24 May 2024 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Donna Wang Su. In this article, the author connects to the book Island X through her own journey as a second-generation Taiwanese American whose family lived through the era explored in the book. This article shares a personal story and invites conversation and participation in building a stronger community.

Rewriting Asian American History: The Anti-Imperial Struggles of Taiwanese and Hong Kong Diasporas

22 May 2024 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Alex Yong Kang Chow. This article offers insights into the anti-imperial struggles of the Taiwanese and Hong Kong diasporas through the book Island X. This article contextualises the diaspora experiences historically through Cold War geopolitics and left-leaning activism since the 1970s.

Island X: An Internationalist Examination of Taiwanese American History During the Cold War

20 May 2024 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Wen Liu. This article highlights three major contributions of Wendy Cheng’s historically grounded book Island X, including the understanding of Taiwan through the US-China-Taiwan stance, the need for Asian American studies to incorporate geopolitical analysis and situating Taiwan in Asian American studies.

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

17 May 2024 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Leona Chen. This article is republished from Taiwaneseamerican.org. It explores how Island X brings important conversation to different generations of Taiwanese Americans, and the meaning of the book as an opening and invitation for people to rethink about the diaspora community’s history and lived experiences.

Introduction to Island X

15 May 2024 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Wendy Cheng. This article introduces Cheng’s 2023 book Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism. The book tells the political history of a generation of Taiwanese who migrated to the US as students from the 1960s to the 1980s during the late Cold War and KMT martial law, and who became politically active in struggles for democracy, human rights, and Taiwan independence.

Island in Between: An Eternal Frontier?

10 April 2024 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Chee-Hann Wu. This article argues that the Oscar-nominated short documentary Island in Between highlights the liminality and in-betweenness of both the island of Kinmen and the director’s diasporic identity. Rather than emphasizing its geopolitical significance and constant military presence, the short documentary focuses on the director’s personal journey and narrative, growing up in both Taiwan and the US, moving back to Taiwan in 2017, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, being drawn to Kinmen where his father served in the military. Through the director, the audience sees how he re-experiences Kinmen as a way to reconnect with a part of his identity, and is also able to reimagine Kinmen’s past and present.

Taiwanese American as an Aesthetic/Academic/Activist Concern

25 September 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Organized by I-Lin Liu. Taiwanese American is not a given status but a process of becoming. For first and second-generation Taiwanese Americans, the experience of living in a foreign land and becoming a member of an ethnic minority group often creates occasions for rethinking or reconceptualizing the meanings of being Taiwanese or Taiwanese American. This article focuses on the meaning(s) of Taiwanese American identity, community building, and the future of the Taiwanese American identity.

Reinscribing Taiwanese Americans into Transpacific History

18 June 2021 Editor

Written by Catherine Chou. For a country that greatly restricts the ability of foreigners to acquire dual nationality, and that also has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, the second-and third-generation diaspora in the United States represent under-tapped human capital. Yet, for both US institutions like Pew, and Taiwanese government and civil society, it seems, fuller recognition of the demographics, diversity, social networks, identity formation, and political and professional commitments of Taiwanese Americans – and the impact of their “civic transnationalism” – remains elusive.

The Overseas Taiwanese Student Movement and Its Impact on Post-Sunflower Movement Politics

17 June 2021 Editor

Written By Brian Hioe. The 2014 Sunflower Movement, over seven years ago, was a seminal moment for many Taiwanese young people. Apart from marking a generational coming of age, the movement also led to the entrance of many young people into politics and saw the emergence of many new organisations.

“We Are Not Puppies, We Are Who We Are”: A Voice from the Indigenous Taiwanese Diaspora

16 June 2021 Editor

Written by Yi-Yu Lai. Apart from the language issue, Ajaon told me that stereotypes of Indigenous people back home are usually brought to the diasporic community. For example, when she moved to Hawaii several years ago, she was often invited to Taiwanese events because they wanted her to perform.

“Going to America”: An overview on Taiwanese Migration to the US

15 June 2021 Editor

Written by Aspen Chen. The ostensible dearth of strong geographic, cultural, or political ties between the two places make the large-scale out-migration of Taiwanese to the US an interesting phenomenon: Why do so many Taiwanese immigrate to the US, and how has the pattern changed over time?