Brief Introduction of the Establishment of the Taiwanese Association of America, East Tennessee Chapter
Author: Hui-hsiung Chang
Over the last thirty years, many Christmases, Lunar New Years, Dragon Boat Festivals, Mid-Autumn Festivals, and Thanksgiving holidays have been warmly celebrated with our community; many weekends and holidays have been spent running and laughing together on fields; many lone wanders have enjoyed the warmth of friendship, and many newcomers and students have found the love of family, all thanks to the Taiwanese Association. The Taiwanese Association of East Tennessee is like a big, warm family, and the 30th birthday of this big family calls for a very warm celebration. This grand occasion also causes one to reminisce about the past and feel grateful for the courage and hard work of the people who founded the association, as well as the time and effort that many community members have contributed to the Taiwanese Associations over the last 30 years.
Looking back thirty years, Taiwan was still under the rule of authoritarian dictatorship, and its economy was not as developed as it is today. Many young people came to the United States to pursue a higher education, as well as a better and freer life. In those days, there were usually around two or three hundred Taiwanese students at the University of Tennessee. Though they had come to America, a free and democratic country, these Taiwanese students were still unable to escape the White Terror that the Chiang regime had imposed. They had established secret agents on campus to monitor students and even manipulate the student’s association, using them to control the speech and actions of overseas Taiwanese students.
With the awakening of the Taiwanese consciousness in the early 1970s, there was a wave of overseas Taiwanese students from across the United States establishing Taiwanese Associations. Taiwanese students at the University of Tennessee were not far behind. After gathing, they discussed forming a Taiwanese Association that wouldn’t be controlled by secret agents, spoke their mother tongue, and could truly belong to all of them. At the time, Kuo-hsiung Lin was the president of the “Chinese” student’s association, but since he was Taiwanese and wasn’t obediently “loyal,” the secret agents always resisted and made things difficult for him. This only further aroused the Taiwanese students’ desire to establish a Taiwanese Association. The five UT students who participated the both in discussing the organization and preparations for the Taiwanese Association in 1974 and 1975 were: Min Kao, Yea-Hwang Uang, Yao-tsung Chen, Cheng-hui Lin, and Ming-hui Li.
Since so many overseas Taiwanese students wanted to create a Taiwanese Association, the establishment of the association shouldn’t have been a problem. However, to establish it, there needed to be a person in charge of the preparatory committee and a founding president. Under the atmosphere created by White Terror during those times, it wasn’t easy to take on this heavy responsibility. The president would be the target of the secret agents’ suppression, his passport might get revoked, he might not be allowed to return home, and he could even suddenly die like Chen Wen Chen. These were all difficulties that arose when trying to establish a Taiwanese Association. At that time, either Min Kao or Yea-Hwang Uang, though I don’t remember which, asked me to become the founding president. But, since I was worried about not being able to return to Taiwan to visit my mother, relatives, and friends, I didn’t accept the offer.
At that time, Yao-tsung Chen, who was studying for his MBA at UT, was working part time at “L & N Restaurant,” owned by Chin-fang Yu and Yueh Chen. There, he met Mr. Yu-ming Chen (Yueh Chen’s father), whose entire family had immigrated to the United States. Yao-tsung Chen proposed that Mr. Chen to take charge of the preparations and serve as the founding president. After contacting the other students, Mr. Chen immediately agreed to take the position, and he worked extremely hard, visiting all of the Taiwanese people in the neighborhood and inviting them to attend the Taiwanese Association’s inaugural meeting. Under Mr. Chen’s leadership, the planning tasks were split up and delegated. I was in charge of booking the UT Baptist Student Center for our use. On Thanksgiving Day, 1975, the “Knoxville Taiwanese Association” held its inaugural meeting. (On the request of another Taiwanese Association, the name was later changed to Taiwanese Association of East Tennessee.) Thus, the Taiwanese Association was born. I remember that there were 50 or 60 people who attended the inaugural meeting. Though J. W. Lue had only just moved to Knoxville at that time and was unfamiliar with everyone, he showed great enthusiasm for the association and was elected as Vice-president thanks to the many valuable opinions he expressed during the meeting.
After this, the leadership roles in the Taiwanese Association were passed from generation to generation. Thanks to the dedication, effort, and the countless sacrifices of the Association’s Presidents, Vice-presidents, officers, and members, the Taiwanese Association of East Tennessee has finally arrived at 30 years of history, and it continues to be a warm family for the Taiwanese people living here. On this occasion of celebrating the Taiwanese Association’s 30th anniversary, we would like to use this opportunity to express our highest respect and gratitude towards that group of University of Tennessee students, as well as the past presidents and staff who were involved in creating the Taiwanese Association.
Sourced from the Taiwanese Association of America, East Tennessee Chapter website:
http://web.utk.edu/~changhui/taaet2006/200512/t30_1chang.htm
Translated from 313. 東田納西台灣同鄉會成立簡史 / 張惠雄 /09/2017
