From “Dachen Yibao” (Dachen Patriotic Compatriots) to “Undocumented Immigrants” : Doing Families in Transnational contexts

• Main Authors: Hui-Yu Chen, 陳卉諭
• Other Authors: Mei-Hua Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/wrbw6a

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 社會學系碩士班 === 106 === This thesis is about one of the last group of Nationalist refugees from the Chinese Civil War, the “Dachen Patriotic Compatriots,” who resettled in Taiwan in 1955. This thesis shows that, even though they lacked adequate economic and social capital, with the help of the tight ethnic network, many of these “political refugees” were able to emigrate from Taiwan to the United States as undocumented workers in the 1980s. The thesis of this paper is fourfold. First, the tight ethnic network has made the Dachen people more eager to migrate than other groups, and it has also motivated them to repeatedly cross political, economic and even cultural boundaries. Second, the family shapes migration, but the migration also shapes the form of the family. Both migrants and those who remained must properly carry out “doing families” in transnational contexts and strive to be “model immigrants / families”. Third, many Dachen people who have obtained United States citizenship, have embraced the idea of “flexible citizenship”. With Taiwan’s recognition of “dual nationality” and its generous national health insurance as well as the need for parental care, Dachen people will continue to move back and forth between Taiwan and the United States. Lastly, at present, many Dachen people’s restaurants in the United States still hire undocumented migrant workers. While these restaurants function as a shelter space for third-world undocumented migrant workers, they also reproduce the “global irregular workers chain” and show that the attempt to strengthen the border control of the United States is still in vain.