Wed, Jul 17, 2024 page2

• Second-generation immigrants launch advocacy group

  MORE THAN LANGUAGE: While government policies for new immigrants focus on teaching Mandarin, the TIYA said more was needed to help promote equality

  • Staff writer, with CNA
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  A group established by second-generation immigrants would advocate for policies that protect the rights of Taiwan’s more than 1 million new immigrants, the group’s chairwoman said on Monday.

  The Taiwan Immigration Youth Alliance (TIYA) — which held its first membership meeting on Sunday, after operating as an informal organization for several years — was formed by the children of parents who came to Taiwan from China and mostly Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, chairperson Nadia Liu (劉千萍) said in Taipei.

  Liu, whose father is Taiwanese and mother is Vietnamese, said that in the past few years, the government has rolled out policies to assist second-generation immigrants in adapting to Taiwanese society, such as with job training and language courses subsidized by the New Immigrants Development Fund.

  

  Taiwan Immigration Youth Alliance members pose for a photograph at the alliance’s formal establishment news conference in Taipei on Sunday.

  Photo: CNA

  “But what kind of empowerment and care do we actually need? We rarely had the chance to participate” in those discussions, the 26-year-old said.

  Liu said that she and her peers needed other kinds of support, such as with assisting their immigrant parents in adapting to daily life in Taiwan, as well as with their own education and career planning.

  “For families with cross-national marriages, the social support from the mother’s side is often limited,” she said, adding that in most cases, the immigrant parent is the mother.

  “We often have to rely on ourselves or solely on the social network of our Taiwanese father’s family to navigate various aspects of our upbringing,” she said.

  Estimating that about 600,000 foreign nationals have immigrated to Taiwan due to transnational marriages, Liu, one of more than 500,000 second-generation immigrants, said she and TIYA members saw the need to establish a group to give them a voice on public issues and advocate for policies related to their community.

  “Taiwan greatly needs young voices with immigrant perspectives,” she said.

  Before TIYA was officially established on Sunday, its members and other civil groups held a news conference on July 1 to call for public hearings and for the government to incorporate more input from affected groups on a bill to protect the rights of immigrants, she said.

  One of the TIYA’s concerns is the bill’s section on language education for second-generation new immigrants, she said.

  Some legislators have said that the government should only help immigrants learn local languages, such as Mandarin and Taiwanese, but not the language of their immigrant parent’s country, Liu said.

  That mindset does not encourage the promotion of multicultural equality, she said, calling for more consultations with civil groups on the proposed bill.

  The bill, proposed by the Ministry of the Interior, seeks to “comprehensively enhance the well-being and rights protections of new immigrants and provide them with a friendlier living environment,” the Executive Yuan said in a statement.

  Under the proposed legislation, a dedicated agency would be established to coordinate immigrant-related affairs and resources would be made available to encourage academic research by immigrants and help them with language learning.

  Approved by the Cabinet on June 21, the bill is stuck in cross-party negotiations in the Legislative Yuan. Additional public hearings requested by the civil groups have not been held.

  Apart from policy advocacy, Liu said she hopes that through activities initiated by TIYA members, people in Taiwan would be less inclined to see people with immigrant backgrounds as being different.

  “Our ultimate goal is to eliminate the environment of discrimination and stigmatization caused by prejudices against [people from] specific countries,” said Liu, who works as a research assistant in National Taiwan University’s Department of Sociology.

  Given the growing population of second-generation immigrants, it is crucial to have an organization made up of members of the community that engages in long-term advocacy in Taiwan, Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy managing director Alvin Chang (張育萌) said.

  As a member of the Executive Yuan Youth Advisory Council, Chang said that TIYA members had provided him with perspectives from young immigrants, and he hoped for more cooperation and exchanges between their organizations.
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