Taiwanese American
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (230,382 0.07 percent of the U.S. population (2010)) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Greater Los Angeles area, New York City metropolitan area, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle metropolitan area, Baltimore-Washington, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia | |
| Languages | |
| American English, Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka | |
| Religion | |
| Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Chinese Americans, Hong Kong Americans, Hoklo and Hokkien Americans, Hakka Americans, Overseas Taiwanese |
Taiwanese Americans (Chinese: 臺灣裔美國人) are Americans who have full or partial Taiwanese heritage. This includes American-born citizens who descend from migrants from Taiwan. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 49% of people who consider themselves Taiwanese live in the state of California. New York and Texas have the second and third largest Taiwanese American populations, respectively.
Prior to the 1950s emigration from Taiwan (then called Formosa) was negligible.
Since the 1950s, because of the Cold War, the United States continued to recognize the Kuomintang-led ROC as the sole legitimate government of all of China from 1949 until 1979. As a result, immigration from Taiwan was counted under within the same quota for both mainland China and Taiwan. However, because the People's Republic of China (PRC) banned emigration to the United States until 1977, this quota for immigrants from China was almost exclusively filled by immigrants from Taiwan. After the national origins system was relaxed and repealed by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and 1965, many Taiwanese people came to the United States, forming the first wave of Taiwanese immigration. Their entry into the United States was facilitated by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which created a system in which persons with professional skills and family ties in the United States were given preferential status, regardless of the nation of origin.
In 1979, the United States broke diplomatic relations with the ROC, while the Taiwan Relations Act gave Taiwan a separate immigration quota from that of the PRC.
Before the late 1960s, immigrants from Taiwan to the United States tended to be "mainland Chinese" who had immigrated to Taiwan with the Kuomintang after the fall of mainland China to the Communists. Later immigrants tended to increasingly be native Taiwanese, whose ancestors had lived on Taiwan before 1949. With improving economic and political conditions in Taiwan, Taiwanese immigration to the United States began to subside in the early-1980s.
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