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Having grown up among Taiwanese in the US, something that stands out actually living in Taiwan is how different the younger Taiwanese are in TW vs the younger Taiwanese diaspora in the US. Obvs diaspora are much more American, but the Taiwan they know doesn't look like TW I see.
The more I talk to young Taiwanese in TW, the less I recognize the TW re-presented to me by diaspora. May have something to do with disproportionate waishengren in diaspora or might have to do with the game of cultural telephone, where the message is transformed over distance.
Biggest difference is that US Taiwanese diaspora seems much more ambivalent about sui generis TW identity, there's much more openness to essentialism of pan Chinese identity politics.
Is the diffusion of robust assertiveness about Taiwanese identity a recent evolution in TW?
Is the diffusion of robust assertiveness about Taiwanese identity a recent evolution in TW?
Another factor is probably related to racial politics in US. To be "Asian" in America is complicated enough, trying to get your non-Asian friends to understand dif bt Taiwanese vs Chinese is impossible when they cant grasp dif bt Chinese and Japanese. Easier to just id Chinese?
Couldn't find any hard stats to verify hunch on disproportionality of wàishěngrén in US Taiwan diaspora but more anecdotes in this Quora thread. Would be interesting to know the numbers. https://www.quora.com/Does-a-disproportionate-part-of-Taiwanese-Americans-have-mainland-China-backgrounds-waishengren
This train of thought begs a question that presumably has infinite iterations, ss: what does it mean to be Taiwanese?
One can say generically that "it's like being Chinese, but also believing in democracy and human rights." But there's obviously much more than that.
One can say generically that "it's like being Chinese, but also believing in democracy and human rights." But there's obviously much more than that.
I imagine the near impossible complexity of something like the identity matrix in America has begun to settle in here in Taiwan. Early Ams had Euro, African and First Nations roots, but evolved dynamically per new geographies, communities, values and political necessities.
Taiwanese have similar stew of cultural resources, albeit quite a different permutational context, the identificatory process unfolding here bears a strong resemblance to the one that is happening in the US. A hill to climb, indeed.
