CHAPTER 2: Literature Review
2.3 Figure 1: Identity Changes in Taiwan 1992-2012
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research has been conducted to find out the results of the trends in identity in relation to these unanchored anchor babies? Are they only American on paper?
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2.3 Figure 1: Identity Changes in Taiwan 1992-2012
Source: Election Study Center, National Chengchi University
http://esc.nccu.edu.tw/english/modules/tinyd2/content/TaiwanChineseID.htm
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Chapter 3: Research Method
3.1 Participants and Categorization
There are seven groups of participants in this research. They will be referenced to by an alias and separated by age group. Each person will be contacted and asked a short series of questions (Appendix A), and from these questions different point of interest could be built upon and then new questions will be proposed to further fit the individual experiences. Due to the nature of the participants, some where available for one-on-one interviews, others are not currently located in Taiwan and therefore had either phone interviews or had the
questions presented to them through a series of emails.
This is a qualitative study built upon personal interviews. There will be seven different individuals interviewed. Cases A, B, F, and G are all located in Taipei City and therefore were available to meet up for a personal one-on-one interview. Cases C and D are currently living in the U.S. so I had a phone interview Case C and Case D was through a series of emails. Case E was also interviewed through a series of emails due to the fact that she was not quite a free to meet up for an interview.
These cases are then split into three different age categories: postgraduate, collegiate, and pre-adolescent. Although it is common to know someone who was born in the United States, it is not the easiest to find participants where were willing to be interviewed. Some potential participants were contacted, but were not willing to talk about their personal lives with a graduate student. However, through much exposure and friends of friends, there were enough participants who were willing to be interviewed about their lives. Due the personal nature of these interviews, each participant will keep their anonymity by having their name changed to “Case” and an assigned alphabetical letter. A summary of these interviewees can be seen in Table 1.
The first age category of post-graduate consists of two individuals who have already graduated from university. Case A is a 31 year-old man, currently living in Taipei with his wife. He has been born in the US, completed his college education in Taiwan, went to an American university for a postgraduate degree and currently works in the technology field.
Case B is a 25 year-old woman currently living in Taipei. She gradated from Taipei American School and went to university in the United States.
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The second category, collegiate, consists of those who are currently in university or have not yet graduated from university. Case C is a 24 year-old man, currently living in California. He was educated in Taiwan, but left to complete high school in Los Angles. He has been enrolled, but has not yet graduated from community college. Case D is a 22 year-old woman who is currently getting her degree from an American university. She was educated in Taiwan until high school, and is currently working on her four-year degree at University of Washington-Seattle.
The third category, adolescent, is a high school student at a private bilingual school.
Although she is only a junior in high school, she is a part of the OP (Overseas Program) class offered at her school that is prepares their students for university abroad.
The last category of pre-adolescent refers to Case F, consisting of siblings from the same family, both of which are currently enrolled in a Taiwanese elementary school. They will be interviewed with their parents, together, as the children have not yet reached the stage of solid identification.
As with each experiment there is a controlled factor, a case of which in this case would be comparing the background of a typical immigrant household with children who were born and raised in the United States for a majority of their childhood. The idea of having a control case to compare to the rest of the participants the difference feeling
associated with an American identity, even though the control case has split his time between the United States and Taiwan. Case G was born and raised in the United States, but his family move to Taiwan where he completed high school at an international American school and then went back to the U.S. to complete university. He is currently living in Taiwan and has started a musical career here.
As each story is their own, each case will have their own chapter.
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3.2 Table 1 - Participant Overview
Gender Age Place of Birth
Current Location Work Status
Case A Male 31 NJ, USA Taipei, Taiwan Parents’ Company
Case B Female 26 CA, USA Taipei, Taiwan Unemployed
Case C Male 24 WA, USA Los Angeles, CA Unemployed/
School Hiatus
Case D Female 22 NY, USA Seattle, Washington
College Student
Case E Female 16 WI, USA Taipei, Taiwan High School Student
Case F Female (Sisters)
8/6 CA, USA Chiayi, Taiwan Elementary/
Kindergarten
Case G
(Control)
Male 36 WA, USA Taipei, Taiwan Music Producer
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Relationship: Met him through an exposition held in Taipei during my internship with American Institute in Taiwan.
Case A, is the eldest subject, an only child, and family has relatives that immigrated over to the United States. Although he currently holds an American passport, and an Alien Resident Card (ARC), he introduces himself as Taiwanese. He admits that he was born in New Jersey, but does not feel any relation to that place other than it being where his aunt is from. Some relatives have immigrated over to the United States, and his mother stayed with them for a short period of time. However, at an age where he has no memories, around six months old, Case A was taken back to his mother’s homeland.
The second time he would return to the United States, the country of citizenship that he currently holds, was only for a short visit when he was three years old. However, the memories he has of his childhood are firmly nestled into those of the typical Taiwanese youth. He remembers the small shop near school and how the could buy snacks and baseballs cards. Although he did enroll in cram school, his elementary years were more relaxed with some television before dinner.
All of his school years were spent in Taipei City, growing up and going to school close to where he lived. Although he has always known that he was born American, he did not flaunt it. In middle school, those who knew he had an American citizen often correlated that with English language skills, and since Case A was raised in Taiwan, his English skills were lacking, just as those of his peers. However, as a child there was that pressure to have better English merely based on the fact that he held citizenship there. Through this
experience, Case A, would not openly express his alternative citizenship, although sometimes during high school it would be mentioned since he did not have to complete military service.
In Taiwan, for young men approaching the end of high school, the discussion of when to complete military service (whether before or after pursuing higher education) is often a topic of debate.
Although Case A never grew up with an American background, his parents were prime candidates for immigration. Both parents were a part of the wave of scholars that went
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to pursue higher education in the United States, staying there for about six to eight years.
However, after his birth, the whole family moved back to Taiwan and has only seen the U.S.
as a destination for summer vacations. Case A recalls the summers he spent with his aunt, and the obstacles he encountered as a teenager who was in a country where he could not communicate very well. Although his parents have received their higher education in the U.S.
they did not pressure their son to go and study in the states. In the end, Case A went through the entire Taiwan education system, and only later did he go on to pursue a Master’s degree in the United States.
While in the United States, getting a Master’s in Human Resources, he was
considered a normal student due to this passport, but he couldn’t help but to think that he felt more like an international student. Universities often have special programs and welcoming events to help international students feel more at ease, but because he came as an American, he went unnoticed. It wasn’t until he went looking for the international community did he find the comfort of international community who he could relate to more.
In the American atmosphere of education, he has learned that American education is more about passion, the journey to getting the answer, not necessarily getting the right answer in the end. Taiwanese education has a reputation of getting the right answer, even if the journey is incorrect. Case A pointed to the phrase “填鴨式教學法” the concept of force-feeding, or cramming method of teaching, that has negative connotations. However, since Case A only pursued a higher education in the United States at the age of 23, he realizes the differences, but he also knows himself— he would have never have left behind his life in Taiwan in exchange for the educational opportunities that were in the U.S at the age of 18.
He currently lives in Taipei with an Alien Resident Card provided through his parents’
company. Since he is guaranteed this visa through the company there is nothing to lose, nor any reason to go back to the U.S. His lives with his wife in the same neighborhood he grew up in, although not with his parents. His life here is stable, but he does encounter problems when it comes to inheriting real estate from his parents. In Taiwan the importance of real estate is essential as it determines factors as where you live, which district you can vote in, as well as the fact that Taipei City is prime real estate. Due to the fact that he is a “foreigner” on paper, the changing of the household land to his name would encounter many problems, as
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well as incur extra taxes. This is one of the larger reasons why Case A has contemplated giving up his American status and reclaiming his Taiwanese identity.
Case A will never introduce himself as anything but Taiwanese. He grew up in Taiwan, and does not see himself any different from any other local Taiwanese except for that fact that on paper he is technically American. His parents used the opportunity, and kept him as an American, however, Case A does not feel there is anything American about him.
As the only participant who is married, he feels that there is no other place for him than Taiwan. He would not want his future children to encounter the communication issues that he had as an adolescent, and he wants to have children in a place and society he understands and knows best: Taiwan.
Case A is the prime example of how a person can be American on paper, but their identity is completely attached to another country. He is an unattached anchor baby, having thought about the future and how he needs nothing to do with the United States. He has dual citizenship, but he has not used his citizenship in order to stay exempt from military service.
He will keep using the Alien Resident Certificate that his parents’ company will always provide in order to keep his lifestyle as Taiwanese as possible.
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4.1.2 Case B: 26 year-old female Current Location: Taipei
Relationship: Met at a mutual friend’s birthday party.
Case B is a bubbly, cute girl that is sweet and always has a smile on her face.
Running into my group of (foreign) friends at the same restaurant she would introduce herself as being from California. But when exactly was the last time she lived there? She can remember clearly as if it was yesterday— June 20th, 1992, twenty-one years ago. Why did the date stay prevalent? She contributes remembering the day she left the United States for Taiwan because of her childhood friend’s birthday. In 1992, she was merely five years old, but it made such an unforgettable impact on her life.
Her childhood memories are quite mixed, she remembers the suburban lifestyle that California had to offer: her neighbors, family friends, birthday parties in the back yard, and watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July. In a way, the way she thought of her past, the hazy, but happy way she reminisced really showed her love and her happiness as a child.
Perhaps some of these memories are a bit contrived, as an indirect influence of looking over past photo albums, but the tendency to embellish upon past memories is simply a part of human nature.
However, her currently life is here, in Taiwan, and has been this way for most of her life. Although she is currently using her Taiwanese identity to leave and enter Taiwan, this was not always the case. In her younger years, when she first moved to Taiwan, she went to a normal school like any other locals would. Difference is, her Chinese was not up to level, as she was in an English dominant atmosphere for the first five years of her life. However, as she spent the next five years of her education in local Taiwanese facilities, she also had the same experience as her local peers. She was enrolled in a local kindergarten, put into her neighborhood elementary school, went to a branch of one of Taiwan’s largest English after school programs (cram schools), and had an experience similar to what any local Taiwanese child at the time would have had.
The turning moment came was in fifth grade. Perhaps it was that her scores were not as high, or her parents did not care for the atmosphere, but Case B has passed the entrance exam and was to complete middle school and high school in the international school, Taipei American School. Taipei American School, often referred to as TAS, is a private
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international school of which you must hold a foreign passport in order to enroll. Her parents decided that her time would be spent in this school, and upon entry, Case B was ironically placed into an “English as a second language” course program. Eventually by the beginning of high school at TAS, she was placed into the normal courses with offered academic support.
In order to maintain status and stay in the international school, during this period Case B only used her American identity and did not start using her Taiwanese identity until after college.
As with many international schools, the goal is to have the students study a
curriculum similar to that of the country that they plan on attending college. Case B, as with all other TAS students, knew that their end goal of their TAS career leaned towards an acceptation and enrollment at an American university or college. Case B did just that; she enrolled and finished a four-year college program in an accredited California college.
College was great for her, and she loved it. Surprisingly enough, as much as she embraces the American side of herself, she feels quite mixed, and home is not California.
Home is with her parents, in a popular night market district of Taipei. For her, the thought of staying in the U.S. after finishing college was not even plausible. College in California was merely a four-year educational vacation from the place she calls home, Taiwan. Being brought up in an English environment in Taiwan, she admits it is easier to read, write, and text message in English. However, she usually only reserves English speaking to other English speakers. Case B loves her hometown of San Matteo, but she is distant enough where it is merely a part of her history, not her future. Currently she is in Taiwan and has no future plans to go to the U.S. outside of vacation purposes.
Case B identifies with both aspects of her identity. She herself admits she feels like she is a mixed identity, akin to that of an American Born Chinese (ABC). However, she has more physical ties to Taiwan. Her parents both pursued higher educational in the United States, and lived there for quite a while, their return was based on the father’s new job. Case B’s mother currently teaches at a well-known university in Taipei. Case B is also happier in Taiwan, not just because her entire family is based here, but because of the medical care that Taiwan provides. Case B suffers from a specific extreme acid-reflux disorder and needs to be under lots of care. In the United States, the medical care she would need would not be
provided, and even if she had health insurance back in the States, it would cost more than she could pay for.
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Case B is also a part of the “boomerang” generation in youths of today. Commonly referred to as boomerang, these children have left their parents, only to go back to them because they have yet to build a life independent from their own. This can be seen as a part of the poor economic status in the United States. However, this is not a phenomenon in Taiwan, and is seen as part of the culture instead. Taiwanese families are not just the parents and children, but often consist of grandparents as well. The daughter in the household usually lives with the family until she is married, and then she moves into her husband’s household.
There are instances where the children of the household move out of the house due to job locations, but this is just a temporary leave. The idea that the family will always live in that house is also why household registration is so important, as in Case A. The household registration is usually passed down through the men in the family.
Although she graduated college several years ago, and has held several different jobs and/or internships in Taiwan, Case B does not see herself going back to the United States anytime soon. Her home is in Taipei, not California. Idealistically, she would love her children to have the same privilege of growing up with a dual identity as she has. She would love her children to have a part of their childhood in the United States, but leave early
enough to also set the foundation for their Chinese reading and writing abilities. Case B feels she is equal parts of both cultures, even though she has lived more than half of her life in
enough to also set the foundation for their Chinese reading and writing abilities. Case B feels she is equal parts of both cultures, even though she has lived more than half of her life in