The Becoming of Immigrants from Outsiders to In-Betweens: The National Identity of Immigrants in Taiwan.

In recent decades a growing number of women from Southeast Asia and China migrate to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore through marriage. Between 1987 and 2008, Taiwan alone has received more than 400,000 marriage immigrant women, nearly equivalent to the entire Aboriginal population in the island country. Marriage immigrant women move alone without the company of family members and they are dispersed within local families. The isolation of individual immigrants and the closeness to the local culture means that the fusion of foreign cultures takes place right inside the private sphere between husbands and wives and mothers and children. This conveniently establishes marriage migration as fertile ground for the study of identity. This paper is to explore how marriage immigrant women experience a shift of national identity after residing in the country of residence for a period of time. Embedded in transnationalism, this paper argues that marriage immigrant women are under double pressure from the state and the family to integrate into the national culture of the recipient country. Throughout time, they develop a new identity with the country of residence while keeping their original identity with their native country. Considering the central role played by women in the reproduction and transmission of the national culture, this paper argues that their dual identity is better to be understood as an in-between identity to underpin the tension between the two identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]