Since 1980s, the marriage pattern in Taiwan has had a huge change for a large number of
female immigrants both from Southeast Asia and Mainland China started to immigrate to
Taiwan. It is called “Marriage Migration.” Researches concerning female immigrant
spouses’ homeland cultures and familial identities were seldom discussed; however, it is
till recent years that the stories of those female immigrants were fully presented/
represented by means of various narratives. For instance, many films, photos, and the
contexts exquisitely depict conflicts between female immigrants and their cross-cultural
marriages, families, children and even their families of origin.
There are three kinds of narratives in immigrants’ writing: oral/confessional narrative,
textual narrative, and documentary films. The first is based on female immigrants’
description orally with their own languages and then being translated into Chinese, or they
write with simple Chinese. For example, the Taiwanese female artist, Lulu Shur-tzy Hou,
played as a medium in depicting seven female immigrant spouses by means of the firstperson
monologue in her three episodes Look Toward the Other Side: Song of Asian
Foreign Brides in Taiwan (2005-2009). These episodes probed into the question of
spouses’ self-identity whilst living in an exotic place. Then, the Textual narrative tends to
focus on the mother-daughter relationships and Pepe Wu’s three short stories in Moving
Skirts will be discussed. It usually illustrates the mother figures with madness, aphasia, or
also absence from home. All mothers are silent without voices. Finally, in the documentary
films, Out/Marriage and Let’s not be Afraid display that women not only play as mothers,
wives, daughter-in-laws, but as a defenders to protect their rights.
This research will explore the following issues in female immigrants from Southeast Asia
in Taiwan: (1) cultural and National identities; (2) motherhood and the mother-daughter
relationships; (3) narrative writing. It will definitely provide a new perspective in Asian
ethic and women’s writing and set up a landmark toward research possibilities of diasporic
females studied by the approaches of displacement
