On Aug. 2, 1790, a year after the inauguration of the first US president, George Washington, the US held a census under the general direction of then-US secretary of state Thomas Jefferson. It was the first US population count, and the census now takes place every 10 years. There have been 22 federal US censuses.
Taiwanese-Americans started immigrating to the US as early as the 1950s and have been arriving steadily ever since. However, nobody knows — not even the US Census Bureau — how many Taiwanese-Americans there are in the US. Estimates range from 250,000 to 1 million.
Why is this number unknown? It is due to international political considerations and restrictions the US imposed on itself.
The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) is a non-profit organization that — among other activities — promotes the welfare of Taiwanese-Americans. FAPA, together with other Taiwanese-American organizations, is petitioning the census bureau to include a check box for “Taiwanese” under the race question on the next US census in 2020.
FAPA has been campaigning for such a check box since 1997. In 1998, then-FAPA president Chen Wen-yen (陳文彥) appeared as a witness at a meeting of the Subcommittee on the Census to testify on the matter.
Chen stated: “In the 1990 census, about 80,000 respondents identified themselves as Taiwanese under the race question. One hundred and ninety-three thousand marked Taiwanese as their ancestry. This discrepancy is caused by the fact that on the 1990 census form, Taiwanese was not listed as a separate category under the race question, while it was explicitly listed as an example under the ancestry question.”
In a 1997 memorandum, the US Department of State informed the census bureau that the “listing of Taiwanese as a race in a census questionnaire would inevitably raise sensitive political questions … contrary to the US government policy and US national interest.”
FAPA believes that the constitutionally mandated US Census is and must be a purely internal US affair, and should not fall victim to international politics and/or pressure.
In 2010, a write-in campaign was taken up instructing Taiwanese-Americans to write “Taiwanese” under the race question.
Nevertheless, the 2010 census demonstrated large discrepancies in the count of Taiwanese-Americans between US federal agencies. According to the 2010 census, there were 230,382 Taiwanese-Americans, while the 2014 Homeland Security data on Lawful Permanent Residents showed that the Taiwanese-American population in 2010 was 450,673.
Add this huge discrepancy in the count of Taiwanese-Americans to international political interference and Taiwanese-American indignation is understandable.
In 1994 the US House of Representatives and the US Senate passed legislation enabling Taiwanese-Americans to list “Taiwan” as their place of birth on their US passports, instead of “China.” Since then, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service — and since 2003 the US Citizenship and Immigration Services — have maintained separate quotas for Taiwanese-Americans and Chinese-Americans. If one federal agency can do it, why not the census bureau?
It is high time that the census bureau lifted this self-imposed restriction and included a Taiwanese check box on the census form in 2020. The US Congress is set to convene a census subcommittee next year. So the time for Taiwanese-Americans to speak out is now.
There is a need for accurate data on how many Taiwanese-Americans there are today.
We want to be counted!
Peter Chen is president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.
The US Senate’s passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which urges Taiwan’s inclusion in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and allocates US$1 billion in military aid, marks yet another milestone in Washington’s growing support for Taipei. On paper, it reflects the steadiness of US commitment, but beneath this show of solidarity lies contradiction. While the US Congress builds a stable, bipartisan architecture of deterrence, US President Donald Trump repeatedly undercuts it through erratic decisions and transactional diplomacy. This dissonance not only weakens the US’ credibility abroad — it also fractures public trust within Taiwan. For decades,
In 1976, the Gang of Four was ousted. The Gang of Four was a leftist political group comprising Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members: Jiang Qing (江青), its leading figure and Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) last wife; Zhang Chunqiao (張春橋); Yao Wenyuan (姚文元); and Wang Hongwen (王洪文). The four wielded supreme power during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), but when Mao died, they were overthrown and charged with crimes against China in what was in essence a political coup of the right against the left. The same type of thing might be happening again as the CCP has expelled nine top generals. Rather than a
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
A Reuters report published this week highlighted the struggles of migrant mothers in Taiwan through the story of Marian Duhapa, a Filipina forced to leave her infant behind to work in Taiwan and support her family. After becoming pregnant in Taiwan last year, Duhapa lost her job and lived in a shelter before giving birth and taking her daughter back to the Philippines. She then returned to Taiwan for a second time on her own to find work. Duhapa’s sacrifice is one of countless examples among the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who sustain many of Taiwan’s households and factories,
RSS