Immigrant advocacy group formed by second-generation immigrants

Taipei, July 15 (CNA) A group established by second-generation new immigrants on Sunday will focus on serving Taiwan's new immigrant community of over 1 million people by pushing for policies that can help them, the group's chairperson said.

The Taiwan Immigration Youth Alliance (TIYA) 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, said TIYA chairperson Nadia Liu (劉千萍) in Taipei.

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

"But what kind of empowerment and care do we actually need? We rarely have had the chance to participate (in those discussions)," the 26-year-old Liu told CNA on Monday, adding that they are usually defined and "imagined" by the authorities as needing assistance in certain areas.

Despite speaking fluent Mandarin, Liu noted that she and her peers needed other kinds of support, such as assisting their immigrant parents with 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," Liu said, noting that in most cases in Taiwan, 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 around 600,000 foreign nationals have immigrated to Taiwan due to transnational marriages, Liu, one of over 500,000 second-generation new immigrants, said she and her TIYA colleagues 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.

Even before the TIYA was established on Sunday, its members and civil groups held a press conference on July 1 to express the need to hold public hearings and incorporate more input from civil groups on issues related to a bill to protect the rights of new immigrants being reviewed by the Legislature, Liu said.

One of the TIYA's concerns is on language education for second-generation new immigrants mentioned in the proposed bill, Liu said.

According to her, some legislators have said that the authorities should help them learn only local languages, such as Mandarin and Taiwanese, but not the language of their immigrant parent's country.

Liu argued that this mindset does not encourage the promotion of multicultural equality in Taiwan, and she called for more consultations with civic groups on the proposed bill.

According to an Executive Yuan statement, the bill, proposed by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), seeks to "comprehensively enhance the well-being and rights protections of new immigrants and provide them with a friendlier living environment."

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

Approved by the Cabinet on June 21, the bill is currently stuck in cross-party negotiations in the Legislative Yuan, and the additional public hearings requested by the civil groups having never been held.

Apart from policy advocacy, Liu also hoped that through activities initiated by TIYA members, people in Taiwan will 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 specific countries," said Liu, who works as a research assistant at National Taiwan University's Department of Sociology.

Given the growing population of second-generation new immigrants, it is crucial to have an organization established by members of the community and engage in long-term advocacy in Taiwan, said Alvin Chang (張育萌), managing director of the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy (TYAD).

As a member of the Executive Yuan Youth Advisory Council, Chang said that members of the TIYA had provided him with perspectives from immigrant youth in the past, and he hoped for more cooperation and exchanges between the TYAD and TIYA in the future.