Possible Factors for Foreign-Born Boom

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doctorate from a country outside of Taiwan, and that his or her degree usually derive from an English speaking country such as the United States. In order to receive a PhD from the United States, one must put in a lot of time and effort into pursuing their education.

Therefore, a portion of these anchor babies in Taiwan are the result of academics around their early thirties deciding to have children and then bringing these children back with them when the parents have finished their educational journey abroad. These children usually have a dual citizenship due to the international status that their parents have had.

However, many children enter the respective countries using their respective passports, therefore there are no percentages relating to the immigration patterns of dual citizenship children. There are merely percentages that combine all foreign passports, versus combing all national passports. The actual percentage of children that qualify under this new anchor baby phenomenon is still technically a mystery. They are legitimate citizens of both countries, and they have the freedom to select the passport they wish to use upon entry in either country. Finding the patterns, or even finding percentages of anchor babies in Taiwan, is something that does not show in normal immigration records. Therefore this thesis will not conduct or include percentages relating to the amount of anchor babies in from the United States in Taiwan.

2.2 Possible Factors for Foreign-Born Boom

What is the cause for the boom in foreign-born Taiwanese births, to the point where it has become a common occurrence in Taiwanese life and culture? One of the possible factors is the change in U.S. foreign policy during the late 70s, early 80s. “The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which redefined U.S. policy towards Taiwan in the wake of normalizations of relations with the PRC, stipulated that the island would receive an independent per country limit of 20,000 per year (Waters & Marrow 2007:360). Although this policy did not go into effect until 1982, it allowed Taiwan a new wave of migrants to the U.S. it “reduced pressure on applications and allowed chain migration of relatives” (Walter & Marrow 2007:360). In addition to this change, “the Taiwanese government liberalized its emigration policy in 1980, which allowed ordinary citizens to travel freely” (Walter & Marrow 2007:360). Not only were there a larger variety of people from different social statuses travelling, but many of them were also U.S. bound. Rather than just having educated professionals enter academia or

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the technological workforce, it also permitted students and working class families to enter the United States as well (Walter & Marrow 2007:360).

This further allowed newer generations of immigrant children, as students are young and many decide that after studying that they would like to settle down in the United States rather to return to their homeland. Due to earlier migration patterns of Taiwanese

professionals, rather than being limited to coastal areas that welcome working-class families, they created their own ethnic enclaves where the job market lead them:

Like earlier Chinese immigrants, those from Taiwan and Hong Kong have settled predominantly on the two coasts, with nearly half living in

California because of the superior transportation links to Asia. […]

Substantial numbers of Taiwanese professionals have also settled in the Midwest and the South, forming sizable communities in Texas and Illinois.

(Waters & Marrow 2007:362)

These sizable communities are built around technology systems and their companies.

Although the coastal regions remain friendlier and more welcoming for Chinese immigrants due to previously established Chinese communities, many of the Taiwanese students who came to the U.S. were often were science or engineering majors (Waters & Marrow 2007:363). Later, after graduating, these young students would look for jobs in the places that would apply their academic strengths, i.e. technologically advanced areas of Texas, and then settle there. Opportunities flourished in the U.S. and with it the technologically related students who came to study in the U.S. had the opportunity to start their careers and settle down rather than leaving. This new wave of advanced academic professional can also be referred to as a “brain drain” of Taiwan. However, not all students made the decision to settle down in the United States and instead returned to Taiwan.

Another factor is Taiwan’s political stance, in the 1980s, Taiwan had not yet been democratized, and the feelings between Taiwan and Mainland China are not one of close friends. With the ever-existing threat of China looming over the small island, Taiwanese people have felt this political turbulence directly, and this may have influenced the investment of allowing their child to be a dual citizen with another country that has more political stability.

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However, what is more important and applicable to this research is not the new generations of ABC/ABT (American Born Chinese or American Born Taiwanese), but the identity of the children whose parents go back while the children are young. There are instances of children who are born in the United States and at a young age, around or before early primary school, the children then taken back into their parents’ country. “Taiwanese American families are now engaging in transnational lifestyles” (Waters & Marrow

2007:368). However, can a transnational lifestyle be applied to the situation of children who may be partially educated in two different nations due to their dual citizenship?

Birth tourism, which markets to mothers who come to the United States merely to give birth to their child, what is their motive? Lien Luyi’s 2006 dissertation observes and further analyzes the mother’s perspective in this phenomenon. Although there has been research done behind the mother’s point of view, the identity of the child is who is raised with a foreign passport, while he/she grows up in a completely Taiwanese environment, has yet to be explored. Depending the parents, the child may attend public school with other local Taiwanese children, or they have the option of enrolling in a private international school such as Taipei American School, where one of the requisites is the possession of a foreign

passport. Whichever educational track is chosen, if the child continues on to go to school/university in the U.S., the fact that the child would not have to take English as a second language proficiency tests. This will help the transition of getting admitted to an American university a lot smoother, rather than entering college as a complete foreigner with more requisites to fulfill.

What is the result, then, with a citizenship of another country, but growing up in their parents’ country? Many boys who have been born in the U.S. in the 1980s end up returning to the U.S. before they are 18, is their planned American birth a way to avoid military consignment? When the children return to the U.S., the country they first belonged to, where exactly does this generation of children fit socially and culturally? In academia there has been research on what it means to be Taiwanese and concept of Taiwanese identity, several papers published through the Issues & Studies periodical utilizes survey data that has been collected by the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University about Taiwan’s evolving identity changes (See Figure 1) from Chinese to Taiwanese. However, what

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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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