Becoming Taiwanese: Identity formation with Evan Dawley

Hearts in Taiwan

Who were the Taiwanese before they called themselves Taiwanese? In this episode, we’re going back to school for a crash course in history with Dr. Evan Dawley. We discuss identity on the island before the Japanese colonial period, the influences of Japanese colonizers and the Kuomintang-led Republic of China, and identity among the modern Chinese diaspora. This historical overview of the formation and evolution of the Taiwanese identity provides context for present day conversations.

Resources mentioned:

• Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City, 1880s to 1950s (Harvard University Press) by Evan N. Dawley, Chinese edition (NTU Press)
• TaiwanPrimarySources.com, collected by Wayne Soon (Vassar College) and Evan Dawley (Goucher College)
• The 4th World Congress of Taiwan Studies, June 27 to 29, 2022 in Seattle, Washington
• Orphan of Asia by Zhuoliu Wu
• Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan
• Trends of Core Political Attitudes survey data by the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University
• The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority by Madeline Hsu
• The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan by Dominic Yang
• American Exodus: Second-Generation Chinese Americans in China, 1901–1949 by Charlotte Brooks
• Remembering China from Taiwan: Divided Families and Bittersweet Reunions after the Chinese Civil War by Mahlon Meyer
• “The War in Ukraine Has Unleashed a New Word” by Timothy Snyder for The New York Times Magazine
• More publications by Evan Dawley

About Evan: Evan Dawley is Associate Professor of History at Goucher College, where he has taught since 2013, and he previously worked in the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State. His research relates to modern East Asian history, with particular attention to Taiwan, China, and Japan, as well as identity formation, imperialism, and international/transnational history.

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Chapters

1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. Introducing Evan Dawley (00:03:14)

3. Why study East Asian and Taiwan? (00:04:16)

4. Identity before Japan colonized Taiwan (00:08:22)

5. Taiwanese national identity formation during the Japanese colonial period (00:16:13)

6. Identity hardening during martial law under the KMT (00:25:28)

7. Tranformation into modern ethnic identity (00:32:37)

8. Identities of Chinese diaspora, especially in America (00:35:34)

9. Non-Communist Chinese without a homeland (00:44:43)

10. Advice for people exploring identity today (00:49:10)

11. What's next for Evan (00:54:35)

12. Debrief and related episodes (00:56:12)