essay review -Racial Discrimination from Language
People have equal right no matter what country they belong. However, racial discrimination still happens contemporary. According to National Immigration Agency in Taiwan, transnational marriage from Southeast Asia are approximately 7.44% of population (2017). There are two main reasons which cause high percentage of Southeast Asian immigrants. One is the male population in Taiwan is larger than the women population. Also, since women right raises, women can get more chance of education. As a result, women seeks for someone who have high education level as them. Because of these, men have hard time to find their spouse. Therefore, there are some agencies which can assist people to match other people from other countries. In the beginning of increase of transnational marriage, those women migrating to Taiwan are low-level education. Because they have financial difficulties in their country, most of them cannot get enough money to go to school. Thus, they marry to Taiwanese to improve their economics status in their original country. This situation which mentions before causes Taiwanese have racism discrimination which is immigrants from Southeast Asia have low-level education, unhealthy condition and poverty. Nonetheless, this misunderstanding is from inappropriate communication. Language barrier causes immigrants sense they suffer racial discrimination in daily life, medical concern, and their children’ education.
Women immigrants have less opportunities to accept education. Most migrations are married to farmers or retired soldiers who are from China. These families have traditional concept, and they think women have to take care of everything at home, even some of them have to assist agricultural work. In her article “Minority Education Plans: Stories of “Foreign Brides” In Taiwan” (2012), she interviews five women immigrants and concludes they have heavy work in their daily life. One of mother describes “[she] prepare the breakfast for [her] children and send them to school. After that [she] go to work at the noodle stand until late afternoon. [She] pick up [her] children from school and monitor them doing homework. Then [she] cook for [her] family and in-laws, and clean the house” (qtd. in Sung 521). Although this mother has already lived in Taiwan for at least five years, she can only supervise instead of teaching children. Before children’ school age, they are busy in cooking, cleaning house, and taking care of in-law parents. Also, most activities do not require conversation, so immigrants are still not aware of much Mandarin vocabulary. Since mothers have to devote their time to their family, they do not have much time to learn more Mandarin.
Because of language barrier, the first communicated problem migration have to face is their daily life. Taking transportation, buying something, or talking to someone normal happens in everyone’s life, and they are easy to achieve as people have basic literacy. However, if people cannot recognize or speak these words, those things become a nightmare. For instance, immigrants in Taiwan only can speak their first language, and they do not have time to learn the second language, Mandarin. As they take a bus or they walk on the street, they cannot do by themselves. This is because all signs are written in Mandarin. Also, if they want to ask people, they cannot figure out what people talk to them, even they can memorize their address. The immigrants describes “[she doesn’t] run errands by [herself] mainly because of the language problem and that [she is] not familiar with the ways things work here” (qtd. in Sung 525). Also, some say: “[they] will get lost when [they] go out, because [they] cannot read the road names or any signs” (qtd. Yang 171). This causes immigrants cannot leave too far from their home. In other words, they lose partial freedom because they cannot go anywhere they want. Also, immigrants have no idea how to talk to people in Mandarin. This causes there is a gap between immigrants and Taiwanese. As a result, public are not aware of these immigrants, so they consider immigrants are low-level education.
Then, migrants have to deal with medical concern, such as depression, pregnancy and other disease. Taiwan and Southeast Asia have similar climate, so weather does not cause depression. There are other reasons which can cause depressed, but the main reason causes immigrants feel depressed due to racial discrimination. Furthermore, they cannot express their thoughts well, so they feel they are alone. Why do they feel isolation? In their article “Measuring Belongingness: The Social Connectedness and The Social Assurance Scales” (1995), Lee et al. describe “[a] sense of connectedness allows people to maintain feelings of being “human among humans” and to identify with those who may be perceived as different from themselves. [Also, a] person struggling to feel connected begins to feel different and distant from other people” (qtd. 233). . In their article” Perceived Discrimination, Family Functioning, and Depressive Symptoms among Immigrant Women in Taiwan” (2014), Yang, Hao-Jan, et al. examine immigrants have higher rate of expressing depressed symptoms as they receive discrimination. In their sample, most people are under high school education level, are from China and Vietnam, and work in the factory. However, they show same result, which are depressed symptoms, no matter what they are different. Immigrants are depressed because they feel helpless. In this unfamiliar country, they have to restart learning everything in a short time. Before they get used to speaking Mandarin, it seems like they are children who are beginning to learn language. Immigrants are mature adults and they want to share their thoughts, happiness and sadness. However, they do not have relatives and friends from same country, so they cannot find people to talk. For a long term, they stay their comfortable area and limit themselves. Thus, they feel they are a group which does not belong to Taiwan and they suffer racial discrimination.
The others medical concern is pregnancy or diseases. Taiwanese marry immigrants because they want to have their own baby or babies. In Asia society, family means parents and own children. Nevertheless, Taiwanese have stereotype “that they give birth to low birth weight, high-risk, high cost babies due to their lower socioeconomic status, shorter stature, and lower pre-pregnant weight than native-born Taiwanese women” (Sudha et al. 269). Another example is an immigrant’s husband says “[he] feel[s] very frustrated [because his] wife cannot communicate with the doctor and cannot read the instructions for the therapy and medications. [His] son has had many seizures. The disease is not under good control” (qtd. Yang et al. 172). This negative impression results from language barrier. Since immigrants cannot communicate with doctors, they are not be able to understand and follow doctors’ instruction. This behavior increase chance to give an unhealthy infant. Therefore, people think immigrants’ children eliminate the level of resident should be.
Despite of daily life and medical concern, cross-country spouses have to figure out how to educate their children. Since their spouse does not have high literacy, they cannot assist their children learning. This causes their children have hard time to learn academic work. In general, the academic grade of immigrants’ children is lower than residents. Thus, people have stereotype that immigrant mother is low-level education.
What causes Taiwanese has such negative impressions? The answer is mass media. At that time, a phrase, foreign brides, is known. However, foreign brides contain meaning of racial discrimination. In Taiwan, there are many similar kinds of News Channels and newspaper. They are competitive, so they usually put negative head title to attract readers. Also, they repeat to report these bad news. This phenomenon causes public to only remember negative things. In early stage, Taiwan starts to develop, so it improves economic status compared to Southeast Asia. Furthermore, due to unbalanced population of gender, Taiwanese begin to match their spouse from Southeast Asia. This coincidence makes people want to work here by transnational marriage. Therefore, fake marriage is often reported in media. However, how much reliable are these news? In her article “Imaged and Imagined Threat tothe Nation: The Media Construction of the ‘Foreign Brides’ Phenomenon’ as Social Problems in Taiwan” (2007), Hsia claims that mass media in Taiwan are not reliable because journalists do not check the news which is shared by their colleagues. She lists many titles from each newspaper, and concludes there are not any statistic value in it. Hsia says this happens because journalists want to turn in their journal before deadline. Moreover, they want to be the populist mass media, so they have to make an impressive title. As a result, after Taiwanese read or watch news which is lack of reliability, they have negative impression which people think immigrants from Southeast Asia are low-income.
Since the problems immigrants have still exist in Taiwan society, Taiwanese stick stereotype in immigrants from Southeast Asia. Thus, Government has to think about how to break this cycle, so immigrants and their offspring do not suffer racial discrimination anymore. The solution should be not only about education, but also be a completed plan between family and school. Also, Government can broad Southeast Asia programs to increase public acceptance by using advantage of mass media. This is a chance to flip negative impression to positive impression.
Works Cited
Hsia, Hsiao-Chuan. “Imaged and Imagined Threat to the Nation: The Media Construction of the ‘Foreign Brides’ Phenomenon’ as Social Problems in Taiwan.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, Mar. 2007, pp. 55-85. Academic Search Complete, doi:10.1080/14649370601119006.
Lee, Richard M., and Steve B. Robbins. “Measuring Belongingness: The Social Connectedness and The Social Assurance Scales.” Counseling Psychology, vol. 42, no. 2, Apr. 1995, pp. 232-41. Academic Search Complete, www.shoreline.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9504261444&site=ehost-live.
National Immigration Agency. 1 Nov. 2017, www.immigration.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1084099&ctNode=29699&mp=1. Accessed 18 Nov. 2017.
Sung, Ko-Yin. “Minority Education Plans: Stories of “Foreign Brides” in Taiwan.” Women’s Studies, vol. 41, no. 5, July 2012, pp. 515-35. Academic Search Complete, doi:10.1080/00497878.2012.683704.
Xirasagar, Sudha, et al. “Neonatal Outcomes for Immigrant Vs. Native-Born Mothers in Taiwan: An Epidemiological Paradox.” Maternal & Child Health Journal., vol. 15, no. 2, Feb. 2011, pp. 269-79. Academic Search Complete, DOI:10.1007/s10995-010-0612-9.
Yang, Hao-Jan, et al. “Perceived Discrimination, Family Functioning, and Depressive Symptoms among Immigrant Women in Taiwan.” Archives of Women’s Mental Health, vol. 17, no. 15, Oct. 2014, pp. 359-66. Academic Search Complete, doi:10.1007/s00737-013-0401-8.
Yang, Yung-Mei, and Hsiu-Hung Wang. “Life and Health Concerns of Indonesian Women in Transnational Marriages in Taiwan.” Journal of Nursing Research, vol. 11, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 167-76. Academic Search Complete, www.shoreline.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=11423820&site=ehost-live.
Revision Reflection:
This time I add more sub claims, and rearrange them to make it more logical. However, I still have to find out one source about what difficulties immigrants have when they teach their children. I remember I read a resource talking about it, but I cannot find it now. To achieve this final paper, I have to find out two more sources. My revision goal is to revise my major claim because it is too long, and my complete goal is to achieve every requirement.
