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They did not come to a new country on the Mayflower to get away from religious persecution in England as the early American settlers did in 1620. These newcomers, mostly women from Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia, came to Taiwan by plane to get away from poverty and search for better lives with their Taiwanese husbands. The stream of immigrants started roughly in the early 1990s.
The new immigrants, as well as their sons and daughters, just like immigrants in other parts of the world, have to deal with new challenges and opportunities, coupled with cultural shocks and discrimination. Luckily, there is some help provided by their adopted country.
A program named "Parents and Children Study Together" was drawn up to help these socially disadvantaged people learn to read and write Chinese--perhaps one of the most difficult written languages in the world--so that they and their children could grow and learn together and truly become, like President Chen Shui-bian who claimed to be a "son of Taiwan," the new sons and daughters of Taiwan.
The program was jointly offered by students at the Graduate Institute of Family Studies and Child Development at Shih Chien University led by Associate Professor Teng Yin-ping and nonprofit organizations such as Cathay Life Charity Foundation and Good Shepherd Sisters Taiwan--a Catholic charity dealing mainly with domestic violence and providing shelter homes for battered women--headed by Sister Therese Thong.
In 2006, roughly one out of every six new marriages taking place in Taiwan involved a foreign spouse from either China or Southeast Asia, according to the Ministry of the Interior. As of 2006, there were more than 384,000 foreign spouses in Taiwan. MOI figures also indicated that 13 percent of babies delivered in 2006 were children of foreign brides. In other words, Taiwan, a country suffering from a dwindling birth rate, is increasingly becoming a multicultural nation blessed with different cultural heritages and characteristics.
The result of the latest MOI survey of 287,000 foreign spouses undertaken in 2004 to study their priorities for governmental assistance showed that language training and childcare topped all other requests. Thus helping foreign brides obtain the language skills to fit into society and educating their children have become issues that should no longer be ignored.
Research conducted by Teng to study the causes of these children's slow learning behavior indicated that foreign mothers being discouraged or even forbidden from communicating with their children, as most of these mothers feared to talk to their own kids due to pressures within the new family, tended to slow down the children's linguistic development.
"Because mothers lack language skills and are unfamiliar with Taiwan's cultural environment, their interaction with their children is hampered as a result," Teng said May 24. "Through the co-study program, mothers learn how to fit into society and attain skills to educate their young. In the meantime, children also have opportunities to learn how to interact with their peers within a group."
The most difficult part of the project was not designing the courses but, rather, "how to persuade them to come out of their homes and participate in the plan," Teng claimed. Many families of foreign spouses opposed the project for them to learn. In the end, GSST had to send social workers to make house calls just to ensure that the classes held at the Interracial Family Services Center of Taipei County, an affiliated shelter for women's protection under GSST, could run smoothly without having too many absentees.
Teng and her graduate students conducted the classes by separating the three-hour session into two parts. During the first half, mothers and children aged over 30 months were taught to draw and read illustrated storybooks together, as well as how to utilize the library. In the second half, mothers were given a PowerPoint presentation on the stories' content and an introduction to difficult characters within the story. Then the mothers continued to learn skills needed to tell a story about their children's nutrition needs, while the youngsters were led by other teachers to sing songs and play games. In 2006, more than 300 foreign spouses and their children benefited from the program.
The result was a success, at least for the 31-year-old Indonesian Hakka mother Tjong Ching-chu, who married her Taiwanese husband in 1998, the year in which anti-Chinese sentiment among Indonesians ran high and many Indonesian Chinese were slaughtered or raped during rioting. In a previous anti-Chinese riot, Tjong recalled May 25, her grandfather was beheaded by a mob. Out of fear of riots and with persuasion from her father-in-law, Tjong embarked on the cross-cultural episode of her life. "It was tough because I never had any Mandarin education before I came to Taiwan," Tjong said. Her identity was another problem. "Here they call me an Indonesian. In Indonesia, they always shout 'China, China' at me. I suffered discrimination in both places," she explained.
Even communicating to other family members was a nearly impossible task, which led to more misunderstanding and distrust. Her language disability exacerbated her social life as well, meaning she had almost no one to talk to outside her family. Finally, in a move that changed her life completely, she joined the co-study program held at the IFSCTC April 24, 2006. The 24-week three-hour-per-week courses helped Tjong regain her confidence and interact with others, including her kids.
"I have witnessed progress in her language skills since she joined the program," said the center's director Jien Ya-hwei May 25. "She is now a dedicated volunteer assisting the foreign spouses at the center," Jien added.
Tjong's progress might be connected to a lesson titled "I Love Myself" that she took at the center last year. This included the mantra, "I am special, unique and precious. I love myself, and life will be happier." Today, Tjong is a confident sales representative of health-related food products for a local pharmaceutical company. "Coming to Taiwan was not bad after all," she commented
Unlike Tjong, not all new immigrants come to Taiwan in search of a better life. Tran Thi Hoang Phuong, originally of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, for example, met and married a Taiwanese civil engineer who was working in Vietnam in 1994 when she was a sophomore at Ho Chi Minh City University of Law. Later, in 2001, she accompanied him to Taiwan when he returned to run a bottled-water business owned by his family. On June 3, she became the first Vietnamese to receive a master's degree from the Graduate Institute of Family Studies and Child Development at Shih Chien University.
"She is unique," said Teng. "She could have enjoyed her life here very easily. Instead, she chose to come to school to learn how she can assist her compatriots with their new families here." Teng said she appreciated Tran Thi's noble ideals and courage to overcome language difficulties to finish her dissertation on "New women immigrants' family values and their adaptation to their marriages--exemplified by women from Vietnam."
Like Tjong, Tran Thi also had to adjust herself to the new cultural environment and face the language barrier. "In the beginning, I could read but not speak Mandarin. I could use English to talk with others," she recalled May 25. The more she interacted with people in Taiwan, the more she felt that "Taiwanese have little understanding of Vietnamese culture, and that caused further misunderstandings of female immigrants from Vietnam." She became a volunteer at the Taipei City Hospital Branch for Women and Children, where she learned of the difficulties Vietnamese mothers had when applying for government medical services and helped translate the first medical-aid manual in Vietnamese. She felt that she also needed to spare more time in understanding their marriage problems, including their children.
In addition to arranging the co-study program for new immigrants, GSST also provides practical programs, such as a motorcycle riding class at the Yong-le Women's Service Center in Taipei City. Thong said the organization currently organizes four major projects: a children's growth program for foreign spouses in Yilan County, another "Parents and Children Study Together" course in Chiayi City, a "New Immigrants Cultural Space" for incomers to hold cultural activities and a house-call service for families in need of special care. Together these programs cost GSST a great deal, Thong said, even with contributions from corporate donors such as Cathay and governmental sponsorship. "Sixty percent of donations come in small amounts," she said. "We need more funds to help more women, as these are the ones who are taking care of Taiwan's new babies."
By Alexander Chou
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