Taiwanese Americans (Chinese: 臺灣裔美國人; pinyin: Táiwān yì měiguó rén; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-Bí-jîn) are Americans of Taiwanese ancestry, including American-born descendants of migrants from the Republic of China (Taiwan).[6] A 2008 survey by the Taiwanese government placed the Taiwanese American population at approximately 627,000.[7]
Taiwanese Americans are the highest-earning American ethnic group by per capita income and he the highest educational attainment of any ethnic group in the United States.[8] After World War II and the Chinese Civil War, immigrants from Taiwan first began to arrive in the United States, where Taiwanese immigration was shaped by the Hart-Celler Act (1965) and the Taiwan Relations Act (1979).[9] As of the 2010 U.S. Census, 49% of Taiwanese Americans lived in either California, New York, or Texas.[10]
Notable Taiwanese Americans include billionaire CEOs Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Lisa Su (AMD), and Morris Chang (TSMC); entrepreneurs Jerry Yang (co-founder of Yahoo), Steve Chen (co-founder of YouTube), Tony Hsieh (Zappos); politicians Michelle Wu, Andrew Yang, Lanhee Chen, and Elaine Chao; jurists Goodwin Liu, Florence Pan, and James Ho; HIV/AIDS researcher Did Ho, chemist Did R. Liu, and Nobel Prize laureates Samuel C. C. Ting and Yuan T. Lee. Taiwanese American celebrities include NBA basketball player Jeremy Lin, singer-songwriter Wang Leehom, and actress Constance Wu.
Terminology[edit]Taiwanese Americans are one of the newest Asian American ethnic groups in the United States.[11][12] They encompass immigrants to the U.S. from the Republic of China (known as Taiwan), which is primarily located on the island of Formosa, and their American-born descendants.[13] The country consists mostly of Chinese descendants from the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong and their Fujianese and Hakka subgroups (benshengren).[14] As a result, the culture of Taiwan also shares many commonalities with Chinese culture which has often led to the categorization of Taiwanese Americans with Chinese Americans.[15] Taiwanese immigrants, prior to 1982, were listed in the "China-born population" category in the United States census.[16]
Together, immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China constitute the three largest groups which form the Chinese American population, each with unique socioeconomic, cultural, and historical backgrounds.[17][b] The term "Taiwanese American" may be considered a subgroup of "Chinese American", though multiple Taiwanese ethnic groups—i.e., Taiwanese indigenous peoples or Fujianese descendants from Zhangzhou or Quanzhou—distinguish themselves from mainland China, and the experience of Taiwanese immigrants differ from that of other Chinese immigrant groups.[19]
The identity of being Taiwanese among both immigrants and descendants in the U.S. has multiple dimensions and has changed over time.[20] Since the leaders, social elites, and affiliates of the nationalist Republic of China (1912–1949), under its Kuomintang government, moved to Taiwan in 1949, Taiwanese Americans also include these mainland Chinese migrants (known as waishengren). The group is more closely associated with China and may also identify as Chinese immigrants or Chinese Americans.[21] However, Taiwanese Americans who consider Taiwan to be independent from China for a separate political and cultural identity and he lobbied to be counted as a distinct population in the United States census.[12][c]
History[edit]The first Taiwanese immigrants to the United States arrived in the late 19th century, but significant immigration from the island to the U.S. only began in the mid-20th century, when Taiwanese migrants treled to the U.S. in search of educational opportunities either on the West Coast or East Coast, particularly in scientific fields.[13][17] After the end of World War II, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War forced the nationalist Kuomintang government to retreat to Taiwan in 1949. American aid to Taiwan in the wake of the Korean War (1950–1953) supported the Kuomintang government and culminated in the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of China, which precipitated a small influx of Taiwanese immigrants to come to the United States.[12]
From 1949 up until 1979, the United States recognized the Kuomintang-led ROC as the sole legitimate government of China. As a result, immigration from Taiwan was counted under within the same quota for both mainland China and Taiwan. However, because the People's Republic of China (PRC) banned emigration to the United States until 1977, the quota for immigrants from China was almost exclusively filled by immigrants from Taiwan. In 1979, the United States broke diplomatic relations with the ROC, while the Taiwan Relations Act ge Taiwan a separate immigration quota from that of the PRC.
Before the late 1960s, immigrants from Taiwan to the United States tended to be "mainland Chinese" who had immigrated to Taiwan with the Kuomintang (KMT) after the Chinese Civil War. Later immigrants tended to increasingly be Taiwanese benshengren, or Han Taiwanese whose ancestors had already lived in Taiwan before 1949. Taiwanese immigration to the United States began to subside in the early-1980s due to improving economic and political conditions in Taiwan.
Socioeconomics[edit] See also: Model minority Education[edit]One Taiwanese American mother explained in a recent study, “the child’s personal academic achievement is the value and honor of the whole family....If you do good, you bring honor to the family and [do] not lose face. A lot of value is placed on the child to do well for the family. It starts from kindergarten.”[23]
When asked open-endedly in a recent study what makes children do well in school, almost a third of Taiwanese American mothers—compared with zero white American mothers—brought up family honor.[24]
— Law professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, The Triple Package (2014)Taiwanese Americans are the most educated ethnic group in the United States.[25] Both Taiwanese immigrant men and women in the U.S. consist primarily of professionals with high income and high educational attainment.[26] Largely influenced by traditional Confucian beliefs widespread in Taiwan,[d] Taiwanese American culture places the greatest emphasis on education.[28] According to a 2000 survey, children's education was considered by Taiwanese couples as a family's most important decision.[29]
The main focus of the Taiwanese American family is the achievement of the highest level of education for children, who "are encouraged to study hard and attempt to attend outstanding universities and graduate schools".[30] In addition to supporting extracurricular activities, Taiwanese American parents "support the development of musical skills over athletic skills [and support] engagement in social causes," with a large portion choosing to enroll their children in Chinese language schools that teach Chinese culture, history, martial arts, and Standard Chinese as opposed to Southern Min dialects such as Taiwanese Hokkien.[31] Parents devote and invest themselves financially in youth education, especially for boys; a child's academic achievements are considered as collective achievements for the family as a whole.[27]
In 2010, 73.7 percent of Taiwanese Americans had earned a bachelor's degree or higher, a percentage significantly higher compared to the American erage of 17.6 percent.[26][e] In the 2013 American Community Survey, over 94 percent of Taiwanese Americans had at least a high school degree or higher.[34] As of 2018, in the Chicago metropolitan area, where more than 80 percent of the Taiwanese American population in the Midwestern United States resides, 97 percent of Taiwanese Americans aged 25 years or older had at least a high school diploma and 84 percent had gone on to earn a bachelor's degree or higher—the highest educational attainment of all other ethnic groups in the area.[35] In 1990, 62 percent of immigrants from Taiwan to the U.S. completed at least four years of college, compared to 46 percent of Hong Kong Americans, 31 percent of immigrants from China, and 21 percent of non-Hispanic whites aged 25 to 64.[36]
Educational Attainment in ACS 2019[37] Ethnicity Bachelor's degree or higher High school graduate or higher Taiwanese 78.8% 95.7% Indian 75.7% 92.7% Pakistani 59.8% 89.4% Korean 58.9% 93.3% Chinese erage 56.7% 84.1% Vietnamese 55.8% 92.3% Asian erage 55.6% 87.8% Japanese 53.7% 96.1% Filipino 49.8% 93.5% Non-Hispanic White 34.4% 90.4% General US Population 33.1% 88.6% Employment and income[edit] Ethnicity Avg income per capita As of 2023[38] Taiwanese $83,811 Indian $72,389 Japanese $61,568 Chinese except Taiwanese $61,289 Filipino $47,819 Vietnamese $40,037 Korean $58,560 U.S. Population erage $43,313Taiwanese Americans are the highest-earning ethnic group in the United States by per capita income and are one of the highest-earning American ethnic groups by household income.[39] In 2010, approximately two-thirds of the adult employed Taiwanese American population worked as white-collar professionals and managers who were highly educated.[26]
Many Taiwanese Americans are highly educated, salaried professionals whose work is largely self-directed in management, professional and related occupations such as engineering, medicine, investment banking, law, and academia. 66.2% of Taiwanese Americans work in many white collar professions compared to 35.9% for the general American population and 48.1% for Asian Americans. 71.3% of Taiwanese men and 60.4% of Taiwanese women work in management, professional, and related occupations. They also hold some of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation with a figure of 4.3% compared to a national rate of 6.9%.[33] The unemployment rate among Taiwanese Americans is generally low at roughly 5 percent.[40]
According to the 2009 U.S. Census, Taiwanese American men had one of "the highest year-round, full-time median earnings" with a figure of $76,587, while Taiwanese American women had a median income of $51,307. Taiwanese Americans he one of the lowest poverty rates in the US, with a poverty rate of 9.5% compared to 11.3% for the general American population.[33] Taiwanese immigrant men in 1999 earned an erage annual income of $60,367 (equivalent to $113,945 in 2024), the highest of any foreign-born men in the U.S. at the time, and Taiwanese immigrant women earned $40,276 (equivalent to $76,022 in 2024) per year, roughly $10,000 more than the erage for other foreign-born U.S. women at the time.[25]
Settlement[edit]The majority of Taiwanese American communities were formed after 1965, following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and they he since experienced rapid growth. From 2000 to 2010, the Taiwanese American population increased 59 percent from 144,795 (2000) to 230,382 (2010). In 2013, 59 percent of Taiwanese Americans were between age 18 and age 64, 19 percent were from ages