1 Patterns of Personal and Political Life Among Taiwanese-Americans Linda Gail Arrigo Post-Doc, Inst. of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 2002-04 Green Party Taiwan International Affairs Officer, 1997-present Tel: (886-2) 2662-3677 Fax: 2662-6897 Mobile: 0928-889-931 E-mail: [email protected] Mail: No. 38, 6F, Tsui-Gu Street, Shen Keng Township, Taipei County 222, TAIWAN 2006 submitted to Taiwan Inquiry , a journal of the North American Taiwanese Professors’ Association (earlier version was presented at the Asian-American Literature Conference May 7, 2005, Chinese College of Culture, Taipei, Taiwan) ABSTRACT Taiwanese migrated to the United States first as graduate students in science fields in the late 1960s and 1970s, and later also as investors and businessmen in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Although within the United States they were classified within the broad ethnic category “Chinese American”, among the migrants the sharp political and cultural divide between native Taiwanese and Chinese “mainlanders” within Taiwan of the early period was reproduced and in fact exaggerated overseas, where the migrants could opt for separate social circles and language usage in private life. Moreover, in the mid-1970’s Hokkien-speaking Taiwanese-Americans took up a strident and relatively unified community position in support of Taiwan’s democratization and independence that deeply affected their personal lives and their relations with their homeland, given the Taiwan government’s overseas network of spies and the blacklisting that denied them the right to return. With the rising clout of the native Taiwanese middle class in Taiwan and then political opening in the late 1980’s, tensions decreased, and the businessmen migrants contributed to the growth of enclaves dubbed “Little Taipei” such as in Flushing, New York and Monterey Park, California, where the native Taiwanese vs. mainlander distinction waned. Despite this politicized context that at one time brought some Taiwanese into contract with international revolutionary movements, Taiwanese-Americans, as part of the secure American middle class and even the military-industrial complex, have generally imbibed a very conservative and pro-American political outlook. Likewise, their personal life perspectives tend to be stable, conventional, and non-confrontational. This pattern continues in their second generation, although here Taiwanese-American youth are increasingly subsumed among the other descendants of the Chinese diaspora, as in their generation they relate mainly to the dominantly white U.S. society. Key words: Taiwanese-American, Chinese-American, Taiwan, Little Taipei, brain drain, migration, diaspora, democratization, Kuomintang (KMT), Democratic Progressive Party, blacklist, exile politics, national liberation movement. 2 Introduction This article is meant to be a loose social history of the Taiwanese-American community from the 1970’s to the present. “Taiwanese” here is meant to specify “native Taiwanese”, ethnically “Han” (ethnic Chinese) living in Taiwan for several generations (i.e. they originated from south China, speaking either Hokkien or Hakka dialects), in contrast to “mainlanders” who came to Taiwan after 1945 from various parts of China together with the government of Chiang Kai-shek [1]. This is an important distinction, but of course it has often been neglected and obscured, parallel to the Chiang regime’s long insistence that Taiwan is only a small part of China, and that there was no internal discontent with its minority rule within Taiwan. For example, Iris Chang’s 2003 book The Chinese in America , devotes one chapter to “The Taiwanese-Americans”, but the description and cases she provides are all “mainlander” migrants from Taiwan, and there is surprisingly no mention of the Hokkien-speaking migrants and their community and political organizations. So I believe the social history to be presented here is a necessary correction to the English literature. But aside from describing the native Taiwanese Americans, I will occasionally mark some of the contrasts with the mainlanders from Taiwan who settled in the United States, and with Taiwanese who has migrated to Japan and elsewhere. This account could be seen as an ethnographic commentary, composed largely of casual observation and anecdote, but hopefully still largely representative. It is written mostly from my own experience as part of the Taiwanese-American community, bonded first by marriage in 1969 and later from 1975 on by participation in the historic events of the Taiwan democratic movement. So I am describing in most detail the “brain drain” generation that migrated from Taiwan to the United States for graduate study in the period of the mid-1960’s to late 1970’s and their political activities of the 1980’s. However, I will also discuss the businessman migrants of the 1980’s and 90’s, the “little study-abroad students” of the 90’s, and the second generation of the migrants. [2] Initial Migration of Native Taiwanese: The Brain Drain, 1970’s When Taiwan was “restored” to the Republic of China in August 1945 following Japan’s surrender, fifty years after it had been occupied, most of the population was literate in Japanese; but this education was not recognized by the new rulers. After a decade the younger generation of native Taiwanese had substantially made the transition from Japanese to Mandarin Chinese, albeit with bitterness over the coercive suppression of their mother tongues by the Nationalist Chinese educational system. The children of mainlanders had some privileges and subsidies for schooling as the dependants of bureaucrats and military, but by the late 1960’s native Taiwanese were at least 70% of the student body in technical fields at the most prestigious university, National Taiwan University (i.e. a little less than the native Taiwanese proportion in the whole population, 85%). In political, diplomatic, and social disciplines the mainlanders clearly predominated, as seen especially at the second-ranked university, National Chengchi University, which was originally founded as a KMT cadres college and specialized in these fields. From some meager population data, and also consistent with Iris Chang’s description, it is my impression that in the 1950’s most migration from Taiwan to the United States was by mainlanders, whose families were still sunk in the refugee experience and mentality. Some with wealth stayed in Taiwan only briefly and then sought the safety of the United States or other countries as soon as possible, fearing the Chinese communists would eventually prevail. Others hedged their bureaucratic positions in Taiwan by sending their sons for study abroad, a route towards obtaining green card status. 3 By the 1960’s, however, the rapid expansion of technically-advanced military, aerospace and nuclear industries in the United States created the “brain drain” that swept tens of thousands of Taiwan youth to graduate school and thence secure employment in the United States. The official numbers for study abroad, which had to be approved by the Ministry of Education until July 1989, are given as follows in five year increments: Table 1. Taiwan Students Going Abroad for Study, Main Countries USA & Australia, UK, France, Total in 5 Students Year Japan Canada N Zealand Germany yr period Abroad 1950-54 1416 0 4 21 1441 3637 1955-59 2645 5 43 303 2996 2553 1960-64 6719 11 206 1041 7977 4564 1965-69 11457 24 364 989 12834 6780 1970-74 9761 27 385 377 10550 12029 1975-79 18537 26 599 776 19938 12250 1980-84 26626 15 575 636 27852 17560 1985-89 35233 64 4762 4303 44362 22590 1990-94 69213 8186 18224 10253 105876 30960 1995-99 78137 14161 33233 8047 133578 36410 2000-2004 79844 15450 46319 8087 149700 29234 Source: This table has been compiled from two tables, 1950-1989 and 1988-2004, on the ROC Ministry of Education website. There are numerous inconsistencies in the original tables. During 1989 the requirement for approval of study abroad by the Ministry of Education was deleted; and the sources of information change after this and the figures suddenly escalate. Appreciation to Dr. Jerome Keating for pointing me to this source. Total for going abroad for study in the five-year period is just for the countries in prior columns, and does not include sizeable later numbers for Singapore (600-800 in 2004), Southeast Asia, or other European countries (875 in 2004), etc., or the small figures given for “Other” for the period 1950-89 (maximum 122). Numbers of students abroad is taken from numbers on a chart on the Ministry of Education website, apparently those currently known to have student status. The data given is the first year in the five-year period. The peak is in the year 1994, at 37,580. Note that after 1990 there are many fewer abroad at one time relative to total numbers going abroad for study in the period, implying that the majority are in short-term programs. Averaging the students abroad at the beginning and end of the period and dividing by the number of students who have gone abroad, we obtain the following indices: 1950-54 2.15 1980-84 0.72 1955-59 1.19 1985-89 0.60 1960-64 0.71 1990-94 0.32 1965-69 0.73 1995-99 0.25 1970-74 1.15 2000-04 0.20 1975-79 0.75 4 By the end of 1974, nearly 32,000 students had gone to study in North America. Probably less than 10% returned to Taiwan after completion of study. One might suspect U.S. geo-political strategy in this cultivation of youth from Taiwan. The general impression is that 90% of the graduates of National Taiwan University in engineering fields went to the U.S., the vast majority with financial aid in the form of scholarships and research assistantships. Otherwise, U.S.