Pro Independenceįor Leona Chen, who supports the U.S. Why do you have to make this so political?’” Wang said. census form and write in "Taiwanese" rather than reporting as "Chinese." The father of the groom proclaimed his son’s favorite color is green - the color of the pro-independence movement in Taiwan - and played a public service announcement encouraging wedding-goers to check "Other Asian" on the 2020 U.S. Wang, 37, recalled a wedding he attended in Orange County for two Taiwanese American friends several years ago. And Wang said his experience is that divisions are more pronounced among the diaspora than in Taiwan. in the 70’s and 80’s didn’t live through Taiwan’s political and social evolution. “That question doesn't get asked anymore.”īut the thousands of Taiwanese who emigrated to the U.S. “You go back to Taiwan, no one's going to be like, ‘Oh, are you benshengren? Are you waishengren?’” said Wang, a product designer and co-founder of a tea shop in L.A.’s Chinatown. “The division between waishengren and benshengren was really obvious in the 1950s - like in the way you speak and class differences,” said James Lin, who teaches Taiwan Studies at the University of Washington. Waishengren occupied an incongruous place in Taiwanese society as war exiles who made up just 10 to 15% of the population but as a group dominated politics and public sector jobs.Ĭhinese culture was elevated while languages that were not Mandarin - such as Taiwanese Hokkein, Hakka and indigenous languages used by long-time locals - were banished from schools. 'The Division.Was Really Obvious in the 1950's' Over the next four decades known as the "White Terror" period, the Kuomintang imprisoned and executed thousands of suspected Communists and other dissidents as it persisted in its bid to take back China. To quash uprisings, the Kuomintang placed Taiwan under martial law. Historians said they were greeted positively at first by the mostly ethnic Chinese whose families had emigrated to the island in earlier centuries called benshengren.īut many of these long-time Taiwanese became angry over corruption and mismanagement under the new regime. These Chinese newcomers - largely a mix of soldiers, businesspeople and government officials - became known as waishengren - “people from outside the province” in Mandarin Chinese. Several years later, the party - known as Kuomintang in Mandarin - moved its government to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war to the Communists. The Republic of China led by the U.S.-backed Nationalists took over Taiwan. The island was emerging from 50 years of Japanese colonial rule that ended with Japan's defeat in the war. The Taiwan where Chou came of age is very different from what it is today.Ĭhou's family was among the waves of Chinese who came to Taiwan after World War II. “We call it the immigrant time capsule, right? Where Taiwan exists in your mind, as it was when you left,” said Leona Chen, editor of the website. hearing decades-old stories about Taiwan. And as details of Chou’s background emerged, the complexities and trauma embedded in Taiwanese politics also surfaced, deeply affecting immigrants and their children and grandchildren who grew up in the U.S. The mass shooting was a shock to many immigrants from Taiwan, where civilians do not own guns and political violence rarely escalates beyond brawls in Parliament.
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