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Inequalities of care: the practices and morals of transnational caregiving

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Inequalities of care: the practices and morals of transnational caregiving

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Content INEQUALITIES OF CARE: THE PRACTICES AND MORALS OF
TRANSNATIONAL CAREGIVING

by

Yu-Kang Fan

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY)

May 2018

Copyright 2018 Yu-Kang Fan

i
DEDICATION

This dissertation must first and foremost be dedicated to God, who gave me the gift of
life, and particularly for the many blessings he has showered on me throughout my
graduate study in the United States. He guided me to many good people, who helped me
to complete my work, and reminded me during the hard times that I can do all things
through Him who strengthens me and never fails to make my path straight.
I would also like to dedicate this work to my parents, whose constant love and
encouragement have inspired me to work hard and reach my goals throughout my life.
There are no words to express my gratitude for their support and trust in me. My sisters
also deserve and are given my wholehearted thanks.
Last, but never least, I give my grateful thanks to my beloved partner for the love
and care.

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my committee members, whose
encouragement and advice have contributed to the success of this research. My adviser
and committee chair, Dr. Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, who inspired this work prior to my
migration to pursue the doctoral degree, deserves special thanks. I have been honored to
have her constant support, guidance, and challenges in the United States. Her mentorship,
ranging from the framing of this research to the professionalism in the academy,
influenced my intellectual development and became my most cherished asset. I thank her
for helping me in all things, great and small. I am also grateful to Dr. Pierrette
Hondagneu-Sotelo, who always provided constructive comments and invaluable
suggestions for this work. Her graduate seminar inspired me and deeply influenced my
study of immigration. I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Leisy Abrego for
her thoughtful advice, knowledge, and support that guided me in the process.
Dr. Merril Silverstein must not be forgotten for his mentorship and his training on
quantitative research, as well as Dr. Alwyn Lim for his friendship and support. My thanks
also go to all the instructors and office staff in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Southern California and to all my friends, especially Sandra Florian,
Kushan Dasgupta, Demetri Psihopaidas, and Kyunghwan Lee, for their friendship during
the program and memories I will always cherish. I am also very thankful to Carolyn Choi
for brainstorming this research and standing by me.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank my friends, who have been a source of
support and encouragement and helped me to achieve my goal: Hsin-lun Yu, Jen-Hsien

iii
Hsu, Chien-Min Chu, Xin-Jie Yu, Regina Gongoll, Joohong Min, and Margaret Combey.
To those study participants who contributed in this research, your kindness means a lot to
me. Thank you very much.
I gratefully acknowledge the financial support I have received from the University
of Southern California throughout these years, including the Early Year Fellowship,
Advanced Year Fellowship, Graduate Assistantship, Research Enhancement Fellowship,
and Dissertation Completion Fellowship, as well as research funding from the Center for
the Study of Immigrant Integration, East Asian Studies Center, and the Center for
Transpacific Studies. I am also thankful to the Ministry of Education and the Chiang
Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. It was these grants that
made my training and this dissertation project possible.

iv
Table of Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………………...………... 1
Transnational Eldercare……………………………………………..…………. 3
Alternative Perspective: Stratified Family Care………………..……………… 10
Participants and Methodology………………………………..………………... 14
Operationalization of Social Class…………………………………………...… 20
Dimensions of Transnational Eldercare……………………………………...… 26
Organization of the Dissertation……………………………………………...... 27

Chapter 1: Taiwanese Immigration and the Homeland……………………….... 29
Historical Legacy of Chinese Immigration to the United States………………. 29
Contemporary Settlement of Taiwanese Immigrants………………………….. 32
Portrait of Taiwanese Immigrants in America………………………….……… 38
Cultural Origins of Chinese Eldercare.………………………………………… 41
Contemporary Eldercare in Taiwan…..………………………………………... 44

Chapter 2: Stratified Settlements……………………………………………….... 51
Middle Class: Keeping up with the Wongs……………………………………... 54
Upper Class: Express Line to California Dream………………………………... 64
Working Class: The Dimmed American Dream………………………………... 77
All or Nothing: Mobility of Junior Professionals in Ethnic Businesses………... 99
Stratified Flexibility of Obtaining Citizenship………………………………….. 105
Conclusion………………………………………………..................................... 108

Chapter 3: Middle-class Immigrant Families: Polymediated Care…………....... 111
Emotional Support……………………………………......................................... 113
Return Visits……………………………….......................................................... 129
The Arrangement of Caregiver……………………………….............................. 135
Instrumental Support………………………………...…………………………... 140
Financial Support………………………………………………………………... 141
Surveyed Experiences…………………………….……………………………... 143
Men’s Approval………………………………...……………………………….. 145
The Immigration Shift: Representing Chinese Caregiving in the United States…..... 146
Moral Struggles…….……………………………….…………………………… 158
Conclusion………………………………………………..................................... 165

Chapter 4: Nouveau Riche: Outsourced Care…………...……………………… 168
Emotional Support……………………………………......................................... 171
Return Visits……………………………….......................................................... 175
The Arrangement of Caregiver……………………………….............................. 179
Instrumental Support………………………………...…………………………... 182
Financial Support………………………………………………………………... 183
Surveyed Experiences…………………………….……………………………... 185

v
Unpacking the Traditions of Gendered Care………………………………...….. 187
Family Reunification………………………………..……………………...…..... 189
New Morals…….……………………………….……………………………….. 210
Conclusion………………………………………………..................................... 212

Chapter 5: Working-Class Immigrants in Despair: Unfulfilled Care.………… 214
Emotional Support……………………………………......................................... 216
Return Visits……………………………….......................................................... 219
The Arrangement of Caregiver……………………………….............................. 226
Instrumental Support………………………………...…………………………... 232
Financial Support………………………………………………………………... 232
Surveyed Experiences…………………………….……………………………... 238
Breadwinner Women’s Negotiation……………….……………………...…….. 241
Morals behind Extended Separation………………………….………………..... 242
Social Mobility and Embedded Transitions in Transnational Caregiving………. 252
Conclusion………………………………………………..................................... 253

Conclusion………………………….…………………………………….………… 256
Intersections of Class and Gender…..…..…..……………………………….….. 259
Transnational Care….…..……..…..…..…..…..………..……………………….. 261
The Transnationalism Paradigm for Studying Immigrant Incorporation….…….... 263
A Last Look at Care….…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 266

Bibliography……………………….………………………….………….………… 268

Appendix………………………….……………………………..……….………… 279
Appendix 1: List of Study Participants and Their Characteristics…...…..…..….. 279
Appendix 2: Descriptive Statistics of Immigrants Interviewed in Southern
California….…..……..…..…..…..…..………..…………………...
283
Appendix 3: Descriptive Statistics of Surveyed Immigrants…………….…….... 284
Appendix 4: Descriptive Statistics of Surveyed Immigrant-Parent Dyad………. 285

1
Introduction

Since 1965, the U.S. immigration law has allowed immigrants to enter the United States
for two major purposes, namely, employment and family reunification. As a result, one
sixth of the nation’s adults today are foreign born, many from Asia. The number of new
Asian immigrants has exceeded the number of Latinos since 2009 (Pew Research Center
2012) and most of them are from China, India, the Philippines, and Korea (Department of
Homeland Security 2010). While these Asian-born immigrant adults and their American-
born children are publicly acclaimed as the model minority based on their economic
success and social assimilation, the culture of eldercare of these high-achieving Asian
immigrants does not necessarily reflect this image.
Based on the cultural belief of xiao, Chinese and other Asian adults are raised to respect
their parents, provide them with material and non-material support, and generally please
them. This cultural belief of filial duty means that adult family members have historically
been regarded as the primary source of support and care for their aging Asian parents
(Levande, Herrick, and Sung 2000; Ng, Phillips, and Lee 2002; Ogawa 2002; Whyte 2004;
Zhan and Montgomery 2003). However, it is somewhat challenging for first-generation
immigrant adults to provide eldercare across national borders. Both providers and recipients
of transnational eldercare are affected by immigration regulations, healthcare provisions in
the country of origin and the country of settlement, and even disparity in access to
telecommunications (Baldassar, Baldock, and Wilding 2007).
When asked how often he made trips between the United States and Taiwan, Alex, a
Taiwanese immigrant in his early 40s, answered;

2

Taiwan is the priority destination when we apply for annual leave; in fact, it is
the only destination. Every time we visit our parents, we are acutely aware of
how few opportunities we may have left because they are getting old and we
never know when they will pass away! (Alex, early 40s, director of ethnic
media)

Alex’s answer provides a window to understand the struggle of Taiwanese immigrant
adults between their families/career in the new society and their filial duty to the elderly
parents they leave behind in Taiwan. Alex and the Taiwanese are not alone in
experiencing this struggle to provide transnational eldercare; other immigrant groups
across the globe, such as Italian, Irish, Salvadoran, and Singaporean immigrants in
Australia, as well as Bangladeshi and Turkish in the United States, have to negotiate their
obligation to care for their elderly parents who remain in the country of origin (Baldassar
2001; Baldassar, Baldock, and Wilding 2007; Merla 2015; Senyurekli and Detzner 2008;
Spitzer et al. 2003; Sun 2012). Hence, there is a growing body of scholarship on
transnational caregiving, which seeks to address the necessity, struggles, and strategies
involved in transforming immigrants’ moral and cultural obligations.
Baldassar, Baldock, and Wilding (2007) use the term “transnational caregiving” to
describe the way migrating adult children care for and support their stay-behind parents
across national borders. This term is utilized in this study to refer to immigrant adults’
provision of emotional, instrumental, and financial support, as well as the frequency of
home visits and the allocation of a primary caregiver for their stay-behind parents. This

3
study shows analyses of class and gender in examining how Taiwanese immigrants in the
United States retain the practice of eldercare and reconstruct their filial responsibility to
care of their elderly parents from afar.

Transnational Eldercare
Sociological scholars have particularly focused on working-age immigrants’ patterns of
assimilation over time or across generations, as well as those of their children and
grandchildren (Leach 2008). While early immigration studies primarily focused on
immigrants’ integration, later studies were based on the transnational practices that are
embedded in immigration. Transnational studies have particularly led to a notable debate
about how migrants participate in developing their home town and how they maintain ties
with their family across borders (Dreby 2010; Levitt 2001; Parreñas 2005; Smith 2006).
Yet, researchers of immigration and transnationalism have paid little attention to how
aging shapes the process of migration and the formation of immigrant families.
Migration is a process that often disconnects individuals from their families and this
disconnection is not only physical, but also social, cultural, and emotional. When first-
generation immigrants start a new life in the United States, they face multiple life
transitions. They make every effort to adapt to American society, join the American labor
market, establish social networks, and meet the criteria required to obtain citizenship.
They are often sandwiched between two different worlds because they need to care for
their aging parents in the home country, while raising their own children in the United
States. As a result, the intergenerational relationships and care practices of transnational
families are increasingly complex.

4
Recent scholars of transnational families have explored transnational care based on the
way in which migrant parents take care of their stay-behind children across borders (Abrego
2009, 2014; Dreby 2010; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila 1997; Parreñas 2005; Yeoh, Graham,
and Boyle 2002). It has been demonstrated by studies of transnational parenting, mainly
mothering, that migrants actively maintain their emotional and financial obligations to their
children by making calls and sending money home and that migrant mothers rely on close
relatives or paid nannies to fulfill their children’s daily needs (Aranda 2003; Hondagneu-
Sotelo and Avila 1997; Parreñas 2000, 2001, 2005).
Gender plays a critical role in transnational families’ childcare (Abrego 2014;
Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avilia 1997; Parreñas 2005). Migrant fathers send less money and
tend to communicate less frequently with family members in the home country, whereas
migrant mothers send more money on a regular basis and tend to contact family members
more frequently. The commitment and effort devoted to transnational parenting by
different genders of migrants have a huge impact on the economic wellbeing of their left-
behind children (Abrego 2009, 2014). Mothers are expected to provide more parental care
than fathers and this expectation of parental responsibility shapes the parent-child
relationship. Migrants’ left-behind children evaluate their mothers more harshly for
leaving them and are more saddened by their absence; therefore, migrant women bear a
greater moral burden of transnational parenting (Abrego 2014; Hondagneu-Sotelo and
Avilia 1997; Parreñas 2005).
This study is designed to add to the knowledge of the role played by gender in the
process of providing transnational eldercare based on the fact that the provision of eldercare
is gendered in Chinese society.

5
Mr. Ho, a Taiwanese elderly, felt ambivalent about the international migration of his
adult children. Mr. Ho cared about the career advancements and solid marriages of his
adult children, but he knew it came at the expense of their proximity as a family. Mr. Ho
saw a gendered flow of eldercare from his son working in China and daughter living in
the United States. With the daughter caring more and the son caring less, Mr. Ho
explained,

She [The immigrant daughter] sends messages via Line [a chat application]
from time to time. She calls us asking if we have done with meals or sleep
well; she reminds us of putting on additional clothes as the weather becomes
colder. The son makes fewer calls. Daughters are generally more caring (Mr.
Ho, late 60s, stay-behind father).

In fact, Mr. Ho’s daughter in Los Angeles complained about her brother’s
irresponsibility, “My brother works in the same time zone of Taiwan. How couldn’t he
often check on the parents? His wife is terrible, too. She does not care of her spouse’s
parents as much as I do for my spouse’s parents.” Mr. Ho’s story does not only suggest
that gender haunts the transnational households of elderly parents with migrating adult
children, but it also indicates that the traditions of Taiwanese eldercare provision, which
emphasize proximate care, are disrupted. His situation is not unique as Taiwan is now a
major source country of highly skilled expatriates around the world.
1
Adult children, who
are supposed to the primary source of eldercare in Taiwan, have become less available

1
See report: http://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/33868740.pdf

6
because of domestic and international migration.
Chinese sons are required to provide accommodation, intimate care, and financial
support for their elderly parents, but in fact, daughters-in-law take care of their parents-
in-law on behalf of their husbands (Das Gupta and Li 1999; Greenhalgh 1985; Lavely
and Ren 1992; Yan, Tang, and Yeung 2002; Yang 1996; Zhan and Montgomery 2003). A
few studies on transnational eldercare have shown that married Asian immigrant women are
reinstalled in their cultural role and perform eldercare from afar on behalf of their spouses
(Amin and Ingman 2014; Sun 2012). Gendered patterns of eldercare provision among some
ethnic groups can travel to the destination society.
Kin-keeping also matters in the process of transnational eldercare because immigrants
may coordinate with their stay-behind siblings to be updated on their parents’ condition or
make any crucial decisions. As a result, it is expected that, in this study, women will be found
to engage in kin-keeping more than men, as has been documented in studies of transnational
parenting (Abrego 2009, 2014; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avilia 1997; Parreñas 2005).
Immigrants provide their older parents with various kinds of intergenerational support
from afar, such as money, emotional support, and personal care (Baldassar, Baldock, and
Wilding 2007; Senyurekli and Detzner 2008). These transnational caregivers generally
experience a wide range of emotions, from guilt and distress to excessive worry about the
unpredictability and uncertainty of their circumstances, while simultaneously juggling with
their efforts to assimilate into the host society (Amin and Ingman 2014). They devise a
strategy to enable them to balance their work with caring for the family. Since frequent return
visits may exhaust their vacation time, they invite their parents to visit them to alleviate their
work-family conflict in the host society (Senyurekli and Detzner 2008). The immigrants also

7
develop a strategy to utilize certain care resources, especially because new forms of media,
such as Skype and FaceTime, facilitate a more embodied and co-present experience of the
affective and emotional responses that generally characterize transnational eldercare
(Baldassar and Boccagni 2015; Madianou and Miller 2012).
Although immigrant adult children are able to utilize new virtual forms of media to
keep in touch with their stay-behind elderly parents more than before, they still cannot
provide them with personal care, such as bathing, feeding, and help when they are sick, and
they cannot assist with household chores, transportation, and shopping, because they are not
physically present (Kilkey and Merla 2014; Merla and Baldassar 2016). Immigrants
constrained by separation from their families provide more emotional and financial assistance
across borders than personal care, which is usually provided by their stay-behind siblings
(Sun 2012). However, communication technologies still ease immigrants’ struggle to
fulfill their filial duty. As a result, transnational eldercare is conceived as a special kind of
eldercare because the interaction takes place among family members who live in different
countries.
In terms of existing explanations of who provides care in a transnational context, (i)
the global care chain perspective argues that families outsource their domestic duties
through the transnational commodification of reproductive labor, while (ii) the care
circulation perspective argues that informal care is circulated among family members
across distances. The concept of a global care chain is based on an understanding of both
care continuity and changes in the lives of family members in a transnational context.
Class-privileged migrant women subcontract their domestic care work to paid migrants
from a poorer background, while their disadvantaged counterparts usually rely on their

8
elderly parents and kin to negotiate care on their behalf in an unpaid capacity (Lan 2006;
Parreñas 2000, 2001). This international transfer highlights the structural relationship
between those who hire and those who are hired to provide care and some Taiwanese
immigrants, especially the privileged ones, utilize this approach to manage eldercare.
Yet the global care chain perspective leaves the question of these migrants’ care
arrangement for older parents who require eldercare but still care for their left-behind
children unanswered. Based on transnational parenting studies, older mothers are often the
primary caregivers for migrants’ stay-behind children. They continue to care for their
grandchildren and the household, even though they are aging and susceptible to illness (Scott
2012). Thus the view of transnational care in transnational parenting research is incomplete,
since some migrant groups have a filial duty to their older parents who remain in the
homeland.
The concept of care circulation suggests that family commitments help to connect
family members to reinforce the sense of belonging in transnational families by
reciprocal caregiving. Care circulates in an intergenerational network of reciprocity and
obligation, in which the elderly generation is not always the care recipient; rather, elderly
parents may travel to the immigrant adult children’s host country to provide the youngest
generation with childcare or other relatives with personal care (Baldassar, Baldock, and
Wilding 2007; Baldassar and Merla 2014a, 2014b). Some elderly parents of the
Taiwanese immigrants in this study were found to visit the United States to provide
postnatal care for their daughters (-in-law) and childcare for their American-born
grandchildren.

9
However, the perspective of care circulation may overestimate the mobility of older
parents, whose health problems prevent them from travelling and caring as they grow
older. Perhaps they do not travel due to their personal/cultural preferences and language
barriers, or because they are too poor to do so. The subjects of most existing studies that
show the continuity of care flow across national borders were privileged immigrants and
their parents who can afford to travel. Despite the fact that these scholars point out that
family commitment or love is subject to tension and unequal power relationships, they
fail to empirically illustrate what happens if no relatives are available or want to assume
the role of primary caregiver for older parents who prefer to stay behind. They tend to
depict family care arrangements as a smooth process that takes place in a vacuum of
family politics across and within generations.
While each of these two perspectives has merit in explaining caregiving
arrangements in transnational families, existing research on transnational parenting and
eldercare provision respectively is based on working poor and undocumented migrants
and upper- and middle-class immigrants. Inevitably, this homogeneous class background
of migrants provides a limited understanding of how class shapes immigrants’ distinctive
negotiation of transnational family care. Social class is introduced to the analysis in this
thesis to extend the understanding of negotiating transnational eldercare. This potentially
bridges the gap between the perspective of the global care chain and care circulation by
examining different arrangements and the reconstruction of eldercare provision across
borders with class comparison.
To be more precise, my analysis of transnational eldercare is based on my interviews,
aparticipant observation, and surveys with immigrant adults who administer eldercare to

10
their parents across national borders. I strategically exclude from this definition
immigrant families whose elderly parents immigrate for reunification (the “zero
generation”), but I incorporate some experience of it if applicable. The experiences and
care arrangement of elderly parents in receiving societies are the focus of scholars such as
Russell King et al. (2014), Sarah Lamb (2009), Judith Treas (2008), Lata Murti (2006),
Pei-Chia Lan (2002), Yoshinori Kamo and Min Zhou (1994), and Neil Lunt (2009).

Alternative Perspective: Stratified Family Care
Social classes continue to be reproduced within the family and across generations, despite
the widely recognized western ideology that individuals are responsible for their own
achievements. Discussions related to class and childrearing from the literature on
American families are configured in this thesis in order to establish the effect of social
class on the arrangement of eldercare (Lareau 2003; Rubin 1994). For instance, in her
book entitled Unequal Childhood, Annette Lareau examines the culture of parenting in
middle-class and working-class families. She finds that middle-class children grow up
with structured activities which results in “concerted cultivation,” while working-class
children do not, which results in the “accomplishment of natural growth.” Consequently,
middle-class parents tend to provide their children with different advantages compared to
their working-class counterparts. Middle-class parents report having had high aspirations
in high school and support from their own parents, while working-class parents portray a
more complex and varied school experience and family support (Gorman 2000).
This class stratification is a process that not only reproduces a cultural repertoire, but
also affects the outcome of access to different resources, moral boundaries, views of the

11
outside world and responses to it, and wellbeing. A body of gerontology research
illustrates health disparities at older ages in different social class (House et al. 1994;
Robert et al. 2009). Additionally, Pyke and Bengtson (1996) argue that families respond
variously to the caregiving needs of both frail and healthy older parents by identifying
two distinctive family caregiving systems among multigenerational families in the United
States. According to them,

Individualists approached parental caregiving reluctantly and viewed it as
burdensome labor. They were more likely to believe they had insufficient
time for caregiving, and they minimized their contributions by relying on
formal support. In collectivist families, however, caregiving was not through
formal institutions but was assumed by family members, who used it to
construct family ties both with the recipient of care and other caregivers. For
them, caregiving was a labor of love (Pyke and Bengtson 1996: 389).

While Pyke and Bengtson (1996) found various cultural reasons for eldercare provision
in their typology of the U.S. family caregiving system, other sociological scholars
suggest that cultural differences in eldercare provision can be related to class and ethnic
differences. Working-class families are more likely to provide informal and unpaid care
to family members than those from higher classes because they have no financial
alternative (Abel 1990; Glazer 1993). Working-class individuals struggle with conflicting
family and work roles far beyond the Uniyed States. Low-income women embody their
moral identity both as good mothers and daughters and reliable workers, and those with

12
few material resources find it difficult to navigate or escape the web of their obligations
(Backett-Milburn et al. 2008).
Changes in eldercare policy also reshape the roles and relationships of the state, the
family, and the market in providing care for older people. For example, since there is no
longer residential care in Sweden, family care remains more common among older less-
educated people, whereas those with a higher education tend to afford to purchase private
services in the downsizing of this Scandinavian welfare state (Ulmanen and Szebehely 2015).
Eldercare in Taiwan, the homeland of the immigrants in this study, is also taking on new
forms. Recruiting a live-in migrant caregiver has become a popular option for nouveau
riche Taiwanese because this private alternative does not challenge their cultural norms
of eldercare, since it addresses both the parents’ preference to cohabit and their adult
children’s necessity to care for them (Lan 2006). From the above-mentioned studies, it can
be concluded that developing a stratified model of eldercare provision is beneficial to
explore distinctive negotiation and arrangement of family care.
Moreover, Taiwanese immigration to the United States involves a process of class
reproduction across borders. These Taiwanese adults came to the United States for graduate
study and then settled here. This is a select group of people, most of whom originated from
middle-class families and were encouraged to pursue advanced study abroad. Whether or not
they originally intended to settle in the United States, they have established or reproduced a
middle-class family by obtaining professional qualifications that were transferrable to
mainstream jobs in the host society. This group also includes a great number of élite
immigrants, who transplanted their financial resources in the homeland and more
successfully achieved the American Dream and some working-class immigrants who

13
scrambled to sustain their families on a low wage. As a result, this study is designed to
compare the way transnational eldercare becomes stratified across different social classes.
Besides the gender and class comparison of transnational eldercare provision among
these Taiwanese immigrants, this study includes an intersectional discussion of gender and
class: a gendering process of transnational eldercare, which is further transformed by
their class-making process. Intersectional approaches engender a rich discussion of how
each social factor is intertwined with another; yet, it is still challenging from a
methodological perspective. Choo and Ferree (2010) criticize the existing scholarship on
family orientation as tending to associate collectivism with working-class and ethnic
families and individualism with the white middle class (i.e. Bellah et al. 1985; Segura and
Pierce 1993; Stacey 1991). Despite these insightful analyses, their research design may
not eliminate the race-based effect of shaping family care and, thus, their intersectional
discussion fails to consider how race transforms class logic of childcare and eldercare
(Choo and Ferree 2010).
An intersectional approach is employed in this study by controlling the ethnic group
to examine how gender and class shape the agency of immigrants to reconstruct their
filial obligation of eldercare across borders. In this way, the effect of ethnic culture will
not contaminate the core discussion of transnational eldercare that intersects gender and
class. In addition, the significance of the intersectional discussion of transnational
caregiving with gender roles and class values will be demonstrated by situating the
practices of women and their resistance within the dynamics of the immigration process.
It will be argued that conditions of class, namely, resource and cultural logics of eldercare

14
provision, give immigrant women diverse leverage to reconstruct the gendered role of
transnational eldercare.

Participants and Methodology
Censuses and surveys have all failed to precisely estimate the population of Taiwanese
immigrants in the United States because the political and cultural complexity between
China and Taiwan blurs the Taiwanese’s identity in the official data. This is partly
because some Chinese, who migrated from China to Taiwan in World War II and from
Taiwan to America claimed to be Chinese, and partly because the Taiwanese immigrants
had no choice but to claim to be Chinese on the census. All of the censuses makes it
difficult to estimate the true size of the population.
While the scholarly concept and public movement have noted collective efforts of
over-arching different ethnic groups of Asian American ethnic to gain political strength
in numbers (Espiritu 1992; Okamoto 2003), Taiwanese American organizations
advocated that all Taiwanese immigrants and later generations should identify themselves
on the 2000 and 2010 U.S. census as “Other Asian” and specify “Taiwanese.” When the
campaign was first proposed, the 2000 census showed that 118,048 people exclusively
claimed to be Taiwanese and it was more (i.e. 144,795) when adding the group of
Taiwanese who claimed that Taiwanese is a combination of one or more other races.
Forty-two percent of people of Taiwanese-origin lived in Los Angeles, Orange, and
Riverside County, followed by New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (11%), San
Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (10%), Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton (3%), Washington-
Baltimore (3%), and Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (3%). This Taiwanese-American

15
movement continued to grow and the census a decade later documented that 196,691
people exclusively claimed to be Taiwanese and 215,441 in combination with other races.
The Migration Policy Institute estimated the population in the same year and reported
that there are currently about 358,000 Taiwanese immigrants in the United States (Lin
2010).
2

Most of the families who participated in this study resided in Taiwanese enclaves of
the San Gabriel Valley, such as Temple City, San Gabriel, Monterey Park, Alhambra,
Rosemead, Baldwin Park, Arcadia, Diamond Bar, Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights,
Chino, and Chino Hills. A few rich immigrants lived in spacious mansions within
pleasant school districts, such as San Marino and Arcadia. Beyond this mecca for ethnic
Chinese immigrant families, some of the participants lived in Irvine and Riverside. The
majority of the respondents owned a single-family house but still had a mortgage. A few
of them rented and shared an apartment. Besides their residential stability in the United
States, some of them were comfortable with disclosing the value of their property
($300,000 to $2,000,000). The feelings I had about the houses after visiting are parallel to
my later classification of their class status after coding the interviews. For example, the
rich owned a mansion, which usually had a large pool or a tennis/basketball field in the
back yard, the professional managers lived in gated communities with restricted access
and the middle-class immigrants lived in modest-sized houses that contained family
group photos and children’s medals, trophies, and certificate of merit. Meanwhile, the
lower-income participants may have had no time to clean their home and were concerned

2
The Taiwanese are only the 24
th
largest immigrant group similar in size to the Japanese and Iranian
immigrant populations (Lin 2010).

16
about electricity because they tended to only turn on a small light in the living/dining
room as the interview proceeded.
The data for this study was obtained from 132 in-depth interviews and participant
observation of first-generation Taiwanese immigrants in Southern California, especially
the greater Los Angeles area, between 2013 and 2015. The participants were recruited
when I attended churches, activities and meetings of alumni associations, Taiwanese
civic groups, and parenting classes for immigrant mothers, as well as the participants’
referral of friends and neighbors. The participants were asked to relate their process of
immigration in a 30 to 180-minute audio-taped semi-structured interview, including their
experience of migration, settlement and incorporation, family establishment, educational
challenges for their American-born children, and their experience of providing their older
parents with eldercare across borders. The topic of transnational eldercare encompassed
their experience of care at a distance and their approach to it, what they discussed during
phone conversations, their experience of return trips to the homeland and older adults’
visits to the United States, the care arrangements and daily activities of older adults, as
well as plans and efforts of family reunification. Other general interview questions
included, for example, the way the participants defined filial piety and felt about family
separation.
This non-random sample included 76 women and 56 men from 122 immigrant
families (there are some couples particitating together). All of them, apart from 5 women
and 8 men, had a college degree or higher, but only a quarter of them worked as
professionals. Around a quarter of them worked as office staff in public and private
sectors. Twenty percent of them ran transnational, trade, real estate, hotel, restaurant, and

17
small businesses. It is noted that fifty percent of the women were full-time housewives.
By household, 19 of the family could be classed as working class, 80 as middle class and
23 as upper class.
I did not intend to use quantitative research sampling strategies for this qualitative
study to ensure the comparability of social classes because I wanted to avoid preoccupied
judgment of the social boundaries prior to the interviews. Yet I did keep theoretical
sensitivity in mind during the recruitment process. I recruited more male participants near
the end of the data collection because I had already received rich information from the
female participants and the ratio of participants by gender was unbalanced (Patton 2002).
Also, it was not possible to use purposeful sampling in terms of class because my
invitations over the phone or the referrals of previous participants had no indication of the
new participants’ social class; as a result, I discovered their immigration experience and
class formation during interviews.
I noticed that the referrals of networks were stratified when previous participants
referred friends and colleagues for my study. In other words, new participants referred by
entrepreneurs, professionals, office workers, and the working poor were respectively in a
similar class position after I reviewed these referrers and referrals. Despite the smaller
size of the rich and poor groups, their common perception and experience were sufficient
to discuss these homogeneous rich and poor individuals and the class composition of
these participants still engendered contradictory meanings. As a result, my act of
choosing cases did not produce a sample that was statistically representative; however,
the purposeful sampling helped to make an anticipated comparison of gender and class by
convenience sampling (Gorard 2007; Guest et al. 2006; Morse 2007).

18
The interviews were primarily conducted in Mandarin and sometimes in a local
dialect to demonstrate an ethnic intimacy with the respondents. They preferred Mandarin
over English. Some Taiwanese I met were permanent residents and had not become U.S.
citizens because they argue that permanent residents enjoy the same benefits and welfare
as citizens who are required to participate in civic duties, such as jury service. Most of the
132 participants were in their 40s and 50s, while their left-behind parents and parents-in-
law were in their 70s and early 80s. Thus, they were obliged to take care of their aging
parents across borders and some of them were sandwiched between childcare in America
and transnational eldercare. Except one participant whose parents and parents-in-law
currently live in the United States, the rest participants cared for at least one older parents
across borders. Lastly, the married couples usually had two children, most of them were
K-12 students and some were undergraduates. The list of participants in the Appendix
provides more details of their personal characteristics.
As I expected, the Taiwanese immigrants perceived the provision of eldercare as a
private and moral matter. One housewife noted at the end of her interview, “I’m OK with
answering your questions, but I think the subject of eldercare is too sensitive. I’m afraid
my friends won’t join the study.” This issue caused a problem of biased sampling. On the
one hand, positive selection bias may have occurred because those who did not provide
transnational eldercare to their stay-behind parents declined my interview invitation or
former participants’ referral. As one woman commented at the start of the interview, “At
least I have something to share with you,” while a male medical entrepreneur said “you
can probably study me because I have done my job, but I doubt if you can find
immigrants who do not do their filial duty.” On the other hand, there may have been

19
some positive selection bias in their responses because some participants’ actions may
differ from those they reported in the interview.
I generalized my interview questions to immigrants’ experience and placed less
emphasis on the topic of eldercare provision when recruiting new participants in order to
reduce the positive selection bias from the sample. I also reserved the topic of
transnational eldercare for the end of the interview or introduced news stories about the
topic during the conversation to intrigue the participants. I sometimes turned the recorder
off to ease their concern. In order to minimize the potential gap between the participants’
words and behavior, I triangulated the interviews with three years of participant
observation with half of the participants to achieve external validity. I was invited to
attend family dinners, friends’ gatherings, religious activities, and parenting classes very
frequently in 2013 and 2014, where I encouraged discourse related to their experience of
immigrant incorporation and transnational eldercare. In this way, I was able to collect up-
to-date data of their life history, family transitions (e.g. divorce and death of older
parents), their experience of return visits, and the changing organization of their eldercare
provision. At the same time, some gossip flowing from referee to referrer or vice versa
helped to identify the actual practices of transnational eldercare. I also attended two
funerals for the parents of study participants. Although the amount of participant
observation gradually reduced after 2015, I continued my observation online via the
Facebook pages of the participants based on the theme of transnational eldercare to
validate my argument and continue to update some immigrants’ status via random
invitations to get together.

20
Based on a mixed-methods approach, this study relies on interviews, participant
observations, and surveys to explore the shifting conditions of eldercare from the
immigrants’ perspective.
3
The study is designed to examine the ways immigrants exercise
agency to craft transnational caregiving and transform the circumstances in which they
live. I transcribed the interview contents and summarized the participant observations
into text in Chinese, and manually coded the text in English by drawing on the approach
of Strauss and Corbin (1998). After synthesizing the open coding, I developed thematic
groups of codes into ideas and concepts. Codes such as “Skype”, “Facebook”, and
“mobile applications” led to the idea of “polymediated care.” The concepts in this study
were driven by empirical patterns, such as the meanings behind the immigrants’ language
and behavior (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The concepts behind the provision of
transnational eldercare were over-arched to identify patterns within the same class
position and across the different social classes of the participants.

Operationalization of Social Class
The concept of class relates to the ability to command income, wealth and other resources
and theoretically understand society (Drudy 1991). Besides a subjective sense of social
belonging in relation to others, the key measures of social class include individuals’
economic attributes like education, occupation, income, house ownership, and
consumption patterns, as well as more cultural, but elusive, attributes such as cultural
resources, social connections, and individuals’ motivation to identify those class-relevant
attributes that shape their opportunities and choices (Wright 2015). Despite the problems

3
The questionnaires surveyed other Taiwanese immigrants who are reached by intwerview participants and
do not participate in the interview. I also dispatched the survey to few immigrants when I sensed limited
data available from the interview. Discussions of the survey are incorporated in the following chapters.

21
that arise in the operationalization of class in empirical research, the stratification
approach to sociological research focuses more on the process through which individuals
are sorted into different positions in the class structure (Drudy 1991; Wright 2015). Based
on this paradigm, the middle class in sociological research usually encompasses personal
income, college education, white-collar work, economic security, home ownership, and
certain social and political values (Hornstein 2005; Mills 1951).
However, this definition of middle class, or social class in general, does not
completely apply to immigrants because their citizenship status and credentials earned
outside the United States are obstacles to their employment, implying lower personal
incomes and less prestigious jobs. As noted by Gans (2009), immigrants often suffer
from downward mobility because newcomers cannot resume their old occupation or
career and have to detour to take jobs of lower status than in their country of origin. This
particularly applies to those immigrants without any U.S. education credentials that allow
them to access jobs in the mainstream. The new intake of immigrants are employed in
low-level jobs because their foreign-earned human capital is discounted by U.S.
employers (Min 1990; Sanders and Nee 1996). Due to it, I included household income
and the numbers of dependents to better define the social class of the immigrants (Pew
Research Center 2008, 2012). As a result, I categorized the participants as upper-class/the
rich (entrepreneurs and investors), middle-class (professionals, managers, and semi-
professionals with routinized work), and lower-class/working class (clericals and blue-
collar workers) based on their personal and household income, education, occupation,
economic security, home ownership, certain social values, etc. (Beeghley 2004;
Ehrenreich 1989; Gilbert 2002; Thompson and Hickey 2005).

22
Rather than inheriting old money and status, the participants in the upper-class group
had made new money from business ventures and investments. Most of them were
entrepreneurs of a transnational business and two of them were previous/current
professional managers who had heavily invested in the stock market and real estate.
Generally, these entrepreneurs owned multiple residential and commercial properties, both
in the United States and in Taiwan, and generate a huge income from house rents. Although
these immigrants were able to live moderately well on their assets, they continued to work
in the family business or returned to the workplace on a part-time basis to kill time because
they had retired in their early 40s. Some had large inheritances, but most had become rich
through business and investment. Most of them lived in mansions in San Marino, Arcadia,
and Rowland Heights, while some lived in exclusive neighborhoods in Irvine. All of them,
except one, had not graduated from élite schools.
Due to the expansion of higher education in Taiwan, most of the participants had
studied in a college in Taiwan for four years and forty percent of them had advanced their
studies in the United States. Some U.S.-educated immigrants achieved or maintain their
status of “middle class” based on credentials they obtained in the Unued States and they
deployed this capital to access mainstream jobs in the U.S. labor market, such as business
specialists, engineers, professors, and media professionals. They could generally better
control their hours and methods of work more than middle-lower and working-class
immigrants. Although some professional managers had a moderate investment in
residential property, they devoted themselves to their career and lived a lifestyle closer to
upper-middle-class families.

23
Next, immigrants with salaried and white-collar jobs were placed in the middle-class
group in this study. These U.S.- and Taiwan-educated immigrants had white-collar and
economically-secure positions, such as office staff in private businesses and public
service. Based on the poor transferability of their degree eanrned in the homeland, some
were forced to enter ethnic businesses that provided low but acceptable salaried jobs.
According to them, they had moved slightly downward to the middle-lower class. Those
U.S.-educated immigrants are semi-professionlas who work with autonomy and the jobs
are somewhat routinized. Some of them entered low-end government jobs that provided
more insurance benefits and high economic security. This middle-class group also includes
small business owners who have a moderate net income. Unlike transnational traders and
real estate developers, these small business owners may control their methods and hours of
work, but their net income does not allow them to claim to be upper class but it is
comparable to middle-class professionals. Although these small business owners have
more income than working-class people, it does not suggest that they have greater
economic security because of business disruption.
The participants in this middle-class group tended to define themselves as “Xiao-Kang
families,” which refers to comfortably well-off families in Mandarin and confronts the
Taiwanese’s negative perception of the rich and poor groups. Besides the measure of
middle class with immigrants’ education and occupation, it is clear that these middle
classes move up to bigger houses or better school districts for children as household finance
becomes better. Most of them are concentrated in the old and new Taiwanese community
of San Gabriel Valley, such as Alhambra, Monterey, Pasadena, Temple City, Monrovia,
Rancho Cucamonga, Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Chino, and Irvine.

24
Some of the immigrants belonged to the lower-income group based on concerted
evaluations of their personal/household income, education, work, home ownership, and
their eligibility for Medicaid, which provides the necessary health care for adults who
earn below a certain level of income. These working-class immigrants traditionally have
low-end occupations, such factory laborer, trunk driver, security, cashier, hairstylist, part-
time receptionist, and home service freelancer. These people were mostly underpaid and
some of them had no opportunity to advance their career. One had become financially
unstable because she had opened an acupuncture clinic in a minority area and faced
difficulties of securing clients. Meanwhile, one U.S.-educated Master degree holder
worked for ethnic businesses in exchange for citizenship sponsorship and a stable
income; a couple with U.S. Master degrees lost jobs, and they were in serious strains
because of huge expenditures in health care for the wife and the son. One working-class
man had a wife with a professional and well-paid career as a registered nurse, but I
defined the couple as the working class after accounting to the number of dependents,
annual net income, and the mortage loan.
The experience of downgraded mobility and stalled mobility of the working class can
generally be explained by diverse factors; for example, they have suffered from
unsalaried dependents, divorce, bankruptcy, limited net income from a small business,
involuntary moves, and long years of blue-collar jobs. They have experienced a chronic
deficiency of income to cover all their basic needs, unmet needs for health care, and
disruption in their lives. Yet, they are not poor based on the social definitions because the
majority of them are homeowners, having spent most of their savings from Taiwan on
acculturation into the United States; thus, the financial burden of the property makes it hard

25
for them to maintain a (lower-) middle class lifestyle. Most of them lived in houses and
condominiums in Alhambra, Baldwin Park, Rosemead, and Riverside. Two of the
respondents had purchased a tiny condo in Arcadia because a good school for children was
the only reason they emigrated from Taiwan to the United States.
The middle-class immigrants in this study are broadly defined in qualitative data by
their education, household income, job position, the property value of their home, and
other information about the family, such as investments I noticed or they revealed. When
adjusting the annual household income and number of dependents in the current 2015
Population Survey, Americans are categorized into different classes by tiers of income.
For instance, individuals who earn less than $24,173 per annum are categorized as
working-class, while those who earn more than $72,521 are regarded as upper-class;
therefore, those whose earnings are between these tiers are defined as the middle-class.
As noted, the Taiwanese immigrants in this study are typically a nuclear family, which
includes an immigrant couple and two children, living in a single family house. The
splitting criteria of the annual household income of this type of family are $48,347 and
$145,041, which means that the immigrant couples whose household income ranges
between the two cutting lines is defined as a middle-class family.
In summary, most of the personal and family information was collected during in-
depth interviews and home visits. Participant observations and follow-up gatherings
helped to provide more references. While the participants were categorized into social
classes after all the interviews had been transcribed and coded, the dynamics of social
mobility are undeniable because both the interview data and the additional participant
observations captured the immigrants’ crucial transitions and changes of the social ladder.

26
The shifting family conditions reshape their transnational eldercare provision.
Immigration studies have led to a great debate about social mobility to capture the
mechanism whereby individuals grow up in one class and live as adults in another. All the
data in this study demonstrates a spectrum of social class and transnational eldercare
provision, and all the cases are related to each other. It should be borne in mind that the
categories in this typology are Weberian ideal types.
4

Dimensions of Transnational Eldercare
Transnational eldercare is conceived as a special kind of eldercare because the interaction is
between family members who live in different countries. Transnational care providers and
recipients alike are affected by structural factors such as immigration regulations, healthcare
provision in the countries of origin and settlement, and disparities in the availability of
telecommunications (Baldassar, Baldock, and Wilding 2007; Kilkey and Merla 2014;
Vullnetari and King 2008; Zechner 2008).
To systematically examine the practices of transnational eldercare, scholarship on
gerontology is useful, as it has investigated intergenerational social support by measuring
the frequency of adult children’s emotional (visiting and advising), instrumental (physical
provision of personal care), and financial support (Bengtson, Biblarz, and Roberts 2002;
Silverstein, Gans, and Yang 2006). Five dimensions were therefore coded to measure
how often the immigrants (1) contacted stay-behind parents and siblings out of concern
for elderly parents’ welfare; (2) made return visits to the home country; (3) coordinated
with the family members or migrants who were the primary caregivers; (4) provided

4
Weber (1949) used ideal type as a methodological tool to understand and analyze social phenonmena. As
he sugguested, this research tool helps classification and comparison.

27
instrumental assistance to elderly parents, and (5) provided the stay-behind family with
an allowance and financial support.

Organization of the Dissertation
The next chapter describes the backgrounds of Taiwanese immigration to the United
States, provides portraits of these Taiwanese immigrants in Southern California and
beyond, and enages the changing form of eldercare in Taiwan. Chapter 2 is based on the
merits of the segmented assimilation theory and the concept of selective migration. It
explores the segmented assimilation of first generation immigrants of the same ethnicity.
In doing so, the Taiwanese are not regarded as being an homogeneous group to avoid
oversimplified generalization, where the discussion of unequal caregiving is situated.
The following three chapters, drawing on the classical conceptual configuration of
social gerontologists, examine transnational eldercare in terms of emotional support,
home visits, the arrangement of a primary caregiver, direct personal care, and financial
support. This dissertation establishes stratified patterns of transnational eldercare among
Taiwanese immigrant women across social classes: In chapter 3, middle-class immigrants
are described to perform polymediated care. Middle-class immigrants, mostly women,
frequently check on their stay-behind parents through telecommunications, make efforts
to arrange family gatherings, and return to the homeland to deal with family emergencies.
In chapter 4, upper-class individuals, both men and women, tend to provide elderly
parents with material support, which I conceptualize as “outsourced care.” In chapter 5, I
described how working-class Taiwanese immigrants do not substantially provide
transnational eldercare and fail to fulfil their duty and role of care. These three chapters

28
together provide a picture of differences in eldercare provision across social class, call
attention to the web of care the immigrants navigate, and examine the quality of care the
elderly experience.
The conclusion revisits the ideal of stratified patterns of transnational eldercare
among Taiwanese immigrants across social classes and situates discussion in previous
research. It then acknowledges the research limitations and development needed in this
dissertation.

29
Chapter 1: Taiwanese Immigration and the Homeland

The societal backdrop of Taiwanese immigration to the United States is described in a
broader context in this chapter. On the one hand, immigration from this island in Far East
Asia has historically depended on the political and immigration policies of the United
States; on the other hand, Taiwan’s political insecurity based on its international
relationships on the global stage initially led to immigrants entering the United States via
educational migration and family reunification. Despite the elimination of these political
factors when Taiwan was transformed into a democratic society, students in Taiwan have
continued to study abroad and Taiwanese entrepreneurs are incorporated into the era of
globalization. The urban gentrification and economic reconfiguration of Los Angeles in
the 1980s attracted Taiwanese immigrants to settle and develop ethnic Chinese
businesses and residential areas that eventually spread to the San Gabriel Valley. While
this group of Taiwanese is selective in terms of social and economic incorporation, their
socio-economic status and approach to obtaining U.S. citizenship have become more
diverse in recent decades.

Historical Legacy of Chinese Immigration to the United States
Men from Hong Kong and Canton Province in Southern China crossed the Pacific Ocean
to provide cheap labor for mining, farm work, and railroad construction during the
California Gold Rush in the 1850s. Despite the inaccurate counts of the Chinese migrant
population in the 1852 California State Census, three thousand Chinese resided in a small
quarter of San Francisco, which was labelled “Little China.” These Chinese were migrant

30
laborers and wealthy Chinese merchants who sold goods from China across the city
(Chan 1989; Maldetto 2008; Soule and Gihon 2010). However, these Chinese faces were
not welcome and, in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act regulated the inflow of Chinese by
setting an annual quota of 105 until the 1965 Immigrant Act. In fact, Chinese women
were prohibited from entering the United States until 1930 (Li 1991). Now, Chinese
immigrants no longer come to the United States in search of gold and they are no longer
prohibited from entering.
Since the 1965 Immigrant Act only opened the door to highly educated immigrants
or those who petitioned for family reunification, very few Mainland Chinese were able to
immigrate to the United States at the time of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and
1976. Then, migrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan dominated the population of ethnic
Chinese in America. Between 1950 and 1980, almost three fifths of them originated from
Hong Kong, one third from Taiwan, and the remainder from China (Long and Hwang
2002; OCAC 2006). The Chinese population of the United States had not undergone a
demographic transition in terms of places of origin until 1978, when migration
restrictions in China were lifted.
In fact, Taiwanese were not free to leave Taiwan because the Nationalist
government controlled the movement of people during the cold war. While Taiwan
maintained a close political, economic, military, and cultural relationship with the United
States, studying abroad, mainly to the United States, was the only legal way for
Taiwanese to leave the island. According to the interviewees in this study and the state
regulations, those early Taiwanese students were subjected to an investigation of their
family background by the police and were required to pass professional exams before

31
they were allowed to study abroad until the late 1970s. According to records, there were
50,000 Taiwanese students in the United States between 1960 and 1979 (OCAC 2006).
More specifically, most of the Taiwanese students at that time were “Wai Sheng Ren”; in
other words, mainlanders who were born in China or whose parents had migrated from
China. Having migrated around 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was
established, these mainlanders benefited from social and economic advantages in Taiwan,
not only because most of them were well-established, but also because they were
protected by state policies in terms of both education and employment protection. As a
result, children of mainlander families were more likely to study abroad than the general
Taiwanese population (Long and Hwang 2002). Overall, these early immigrants were
elites in terms of their family background and education attainment in Taiwan.
A classic path of Taiwanese immigration to the United States began to be clearly
paved between 1965 and 1980, when Taiwanese students came to the United States as
graduates and then transferred their immigration status to a working visa after graduation.
Then, they obtained jobs, became eligible for permanent residency, and finally applied
for naturalization. Only 6,000 of the 50,000 Taiwanese students studying in the United
States between 1960 and 1979 returned to Taiwan and, since many of them who stayed
were highly skilled, this caused a brain drain from the perspective of Taiwanese society
(Tseng 1995). At this time, most of the Taiwanese immigrants sponsored immediate and
extended family members for immigration because these mainlanders in Taiwan wanted
to resolve emotional or identity tension and some did not regard Taiwan as their
homeland, but merely a stopover in their migration journey. Thus, advancing their studies
was not the only reason for studying abroad; rather, it was a means for some Taiwanese,

32
particularly mainlanders in Taiwan, to manage risk for their family members, who were
worried that Taiwan would fall to China due to the rising military tension after World
War II. In addition to this chain migration generated by student migrants, privileged
Taiwanese were eager to immigrate to America.
Mass Taiwanese immigration to the United States did not emerge until the 1970s
because of the nation’s frustration with international relations, such as the ineligibility of
Taiwan to join the United Nations in 1971, the end of Taiwanese-Japanese diplomacy in
1972, and of Taiwanese-American diplomacy in 1979 (Chen 1991; Long and Hwang
2002). These factors led to the very first wave of mass immigration from Taiwan to the
United States (Chen 1991; Long and Hwang 2002; OCAC 2006) and inevitably, they
were selected based on their class (Xiao 1994).

Contemporary Settlement of Taiwanese Immigrants
Official immigration data indicates that Taiwanese immigration to the United States
peaked in the early 1980s. Most of the Taiwanese immigrants at that time were young.
Thirty one percent were aged between 25 and 34 and 19% between 35 and 44; in other
words, every two Taiwanese in the United States were young adults of working age
(OCAC 2006, 2011).
While the enhanced economy attracted student migrants to settle in the United States
for jobs and a better life since the late 1970s, Taiwan’s drive for industrialization made it
one of the first Newly-Industrialized Economies in East Asia. However, the fruits of
Taiwan’s development still failed to attract student migrants to return because of the
authoritative political regime. After some years of staying in a land with political freedom,

33
most of them chose to stay, partly because Taiwan did not move toward a democratic
direction until the late 1980s. Some Taiwanese students who aimed to return to Taiwan in
the l970s and early 1980s were prohibited from returning because they were threatened
with persecution due to their active participation in promoting Taiwan’s democracy and
independence in the United States (Arrigo 2006; OCAC 2006). According to one
interviewee, Mr. Wang, he was forced to stay because his name was on a blacklist. His
mother in Taiwan had asked him to stop his doctoral study at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill and leave the school because secret service agents had visited the
family in Taiwan and warned them of his attendance at meetings related to Taiwanese
democracy.
The huge population and vibrant Chinese community of the San Gabriel Valley in
Southern California may not entirely consist of student migrants. The development of the
Taiwanese economy in the early 1980s encouraged private enterprises to participate in
the competitive world market. Taiwanese entrepreneurs used their own capital to
establish transnational trading companies in Los Angeles and deployed Taiwanese
student migrants as human resources. In order to qualify as immigrant investors,
Taiwanese entrepreneurs were only required to invest a million U.S. dollars in a company
and create ten permanent full-time jobs for U.S. workers. In so doing, they and their
spouses and unmarried children under 21 years old were able to obtain permanent
residency. This was significant for the nouveau riche because their children were able to
study at public K-12 schools in the United States, thereby avoiding the stress of Taiwan’s
competitive educational environment. Some retirees and less privileged Taiwanese also
used this immigration avenue to relieve their worry about political uncertainty, their

34
children’s education, and quality of life. They utilized the financial resources of relatives
and friends from Taiwan to operate a business in Los Angeles (Tseng 1995). As a result,
a group of Taiwanese relocated, expanded, or started a business to achieve their
immigration goal.
These Taiwanese were able to use their entrepreneurial resources to establish their
own businesses soon after they arrived, but why did they choose Los Angeles? It has
been documented that Taiwanese immigrants settled in Monterey Park in the San Gabriel
Valley in the 1970s, when urban gentrification projects in Los Angeles enabled
Taiwanese investors to purchase properties and homes to sell to wealthy newcomers from
Taiwan (Wong 1979, 1989; Tseng 1995). Monterey Park rapidly became the Chinese
Beverley Hills in the early 1980s (Wong 1989), but it was transformed from Little Taipei
to Little Shanghai thereafter (OCAC 2006) when the Taiwanese began to move to
Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights, Diamond Bar, and Walnut in pursuit of newer
properties at lower prices, better schools, a growing Taiwanese population, nice views
from the hills, and convenient transportation close to the freeway. All of these elements
attracted the Taiwanese to relocate their families and operate their businesses in a new
neighborhood (OCAC 2006). In the past decade, the technological industry and pleasant
residential areas in Irvine in Orange County have attracted many Taiwanese professionals.
In contrast to the Chinese and Korean pattern of ethnic entrepreneurship in which
ethnic immigrants established their own enclave economy in a geographically-confined
area, the Taiwanese pattern of ethnic entrepreneurship was quite different. The ethnic
enclaves of Taiwanese in Los Angeles were not as strong as Koreatown, Chinatown and
Little Saigon in Southern California and beyond. Little Taipei is no longer in the face of

35
people in Los Angeles; however, Taiwanese entrepreneurship still flourishes despite its
apparent absence. Taiwanese ownership of an enclave economy is under-recognized, with
87% of pan-Chinese businesses in Los Angeles being operated by Taiwanese (Xiao et al.
1994). Taiwanese businesses not only serve their ethnic peers, but also become involved
in international trade, including the electronics industry, computers and gadgets, chain-
brand hotels, and shopping malls (OCAC 2006; Tseng 2000; Waldinger and Tseng 1992).
This pan-ethnic enclave in Los Angeles continues to enable Taiwanese
entrepreneurs to maintain transnational business links, since they established their new
business in Los Angeles based on their previous connection to factories, trading
companies, and business partners in Taiwan and China, as well as incorporating
Taiwanese student migrants as human resources. As a result, this pan-ethnic enclave in
Los Angeles enjoys the effect of “brain circulation” rather than “brain drain” (Tseng
2000; Zhou and Tseng 2001). This also helps to explain why the Taiwanese in the United
States kept moving to California instead of spreading out across the nation. The Golden
State attracted 43% of the Taiwanese in America in 1989 and 52% in 1998; meanwhile,
the population of Taiwanese decreased by 7% in New York, 6% in Texas, and 5% in
New Jersey.
As noted in Introduction, all of the censuses makes it difficult to estimate the true
size of Taiwanese population partly because the Taiwanese immigrants had no choice but
to claim to be Chinese on the census until 2000. The movement of “Write in Taiwanese”
in U.S. Census 2010 gained greater attention from the Taiwanese, but the size of
population remains underestimated. Table 1-1 and 1-2 respectively shows the population

36
of Taiwanese, who wrote in Taiwanese in 2010 U.S. Census, in selected cities of
Southern Califorina and major congressional districts of California.

Table 1-1 Taiwanese Population in Southern California Cities
City Los Angeles Monterey Park Alhambra Arcadia Irvine San Diego
Population 4,559 1,025 1,659 4,400 5,284 2,953
Source: 2010 U.S. Census.

Table 1-2 Taiwanese Population in Metropolises of California

District

Los Angeles-
Long Beach-
Santa Ana

San Jose-
Sunnyvale-
Santa Clara

San Francisco-
Oakland-
Fremont

San Diego-
Carlsbad-
San Marcos

Population

53,495

15,070

14,198

4,008

Source: 2010 U.S. Census.

The family reunification preference under the 1965 Immigration Act encouraged
Taiwanese and other immigrant groups to petition for family reunification. After
becoming permanent residents, the Taiwanese not only sponsored immediate relatives
(i.e. unmarried children under 21 years of age, spouse, and parents), but also other family
members, ranging from unmarried children over 21 years old, married adult children, as
well as their siblings and their spouses and children.
1
Since the U.S. immigration policy
established an exclusive quota of 20,000 Taiwanese every year in 1982, the Taiwanese
did not need to share the quota of 20,000 Chinese immigrants with people from Hong
Kong, Macao, and China (OCAC 2006). This change in the U.S. immigration policy led
to Taiwanese immigrants sponsoring their extended families to immigrate and reduced
the waiting time.

1
Further information about the family petition of U.S. citizens can be found on the following website.
https://www.uscis.gov/family/family-us-citizens

37
In short, Taiwanese emigration to the United States began with student migrants
and emerging investment immigration grew dramatically in the 1980s when the U.S.
government granted Taiwan a separate quota. The pull factors of the immigration policy
and social environment in the host society were closely linked with the push factors of
the personal desire for family reunification and the political uncertainty and social
problems in the home country. Despite the rise in the number of Chinese immigrants
since the 1980s, the people from this small island of Taiwan still constituted about 20%
of ethnic Chinese immigrants from 1965 onward (Citizenship and Immigration Service
2010). Yet, only 10,000 Taiwanese have been granted permanent residency in the United
States annually since 2000 (Citizenship and Immigration Service 2010),
2
which can be
explained by reduction in the number of Taiwanese student migrants.

Figure 1-1 Population of Student Migrants to the United States

Source: Institute of International Education, Open Doors Data

2
In the same decade, an average of 40,000 immigrants from China and 8,000 from Hong Kong obtained
legal permanent residency every year.

38
As shown in the above table, Taiwanese immigration to the United States was gradually
shrinking. Fewer Taiwanese students were coming to the United States to study and more
of them were returning to Taiwan after graduating. Thus, the U.S. government considered
Taiwan to be under-represented among the immigrant population and it implemented a
Diversity Immigrant Visa program, for which local Taiwanese were eligible, with the aim
of diversifying immigrants by their national origin.
3
This program, which is also known
as the Green Card Lottery, gives local Taiwanese who have no sufficient financial
resources and family members and networks in the United States a chance to achieve the
American dream. Consequently, this lottery system has diversified the socio-economic
backgrounds of the Taiwanese population in America.

Portrait of Taiwanese Immigrants in America
America has been the major destination of Taiwanese emigrants: 55% of overseas
Taiwanese have immigrated to the United States, 10% to Canada, 6% to Australia, 7% to
Japan, and 8% to Southeast Asia (OCAC 2002). The Taiwanese government conducted
an annual longitudinal survey of Taiwanese Americans between 2004 and 2011
specifically to portray their family structure, individual information, experience of
assimilation, and their motivation to return to Taiwan.
The findings show that two fifths of the respondents had studied and settled in the
United States, another two fifths had immigrated for family reunification and some of
them had moved there to search for a better education for their children and a job.
However, the reasons for migration were gendered: half of the women immigrated for

3
The lottery system is administered on an annual basis by the State Department and makes 55,000
permanent resident visas available to natives of countries deemed to have a low rate of immigration to the
United States.

39
family reunification, while half of the men entered as students (OCAC 2006, 2011).
Overall, the immigrant household surveys conducted by the homeland government
characterized the Taiwanese immigrants in the United States as young. Half of them in
2011 were aged 25-34 and 35-44. This demonstrates the necessity of Taiwanese
immigrants to administer transnational eldercare.
Two-fifths of the Taiwanese in America had a Bachelor’s degree, while another
two-fifths had a Master’s or Doctoral degree. Forty-four percent of the Taiwanese
immigrants had a Master’s or Doctoral degree, which was well above the U.S. national
average of 9%. Despite the fact that most women immigrated for family unification, they
were highly educated. Significantly, two thirds of full-time housewives had a college
degree and one third had either a Master’s degree or a Doctorate degree. Overall, the
Taiwanese were relatively highly educated, but it was noted that one fifth of them only
had a high school diploma. My interview data shows a similar composition as the
homeland surveys suggest.
Based on the homeland surveys, the medium annual salary of the employed
Taiwanese was about $57,000, but they had a wide range of annual personal salaries and
demonstrated their class diversity: 12.8% of Taiwanese earn less than $25,000, while
5.8% of them earn more than $150,000.
More detailed information better articulates their positions in the workplace,
educational attainment, and income. On the one hand, skilled professionals and managers
earn around $71,000 a year (by median), those working in administrative support and
sales make $37,000, and manual laborers earn $35,000. On the other hand, the medium
salary for Taiwanese with a Master’s degree or Doctorate dregree is around $76,000,

40
while those with a Bachelor’s degree earn $45,000 and those with a high school diploma
earn $30,000. As a result, Taiwanese immigrants’ educational attainment and work
positions predict their annual salary, but it cannot be assumed that there is a relationship
between education and employment position because self-employment may not relate to
education.
Notably, there is a group of lower-income Taiwanese behind the stereotype of a
model minority. The average and median personal income in specific positions may fail
to address the possibility of a greater income range because those who work for
American firms earn more than those who work for ethnic businesses. The number of
working-class immigrants is underestimated. As the surveys conducted by the homeland
government show, one fifth of the Taiwanese are financially dependent on their stay-
behind family or family members in the United States.
The nuclear family is typical among the Taiwanese in the United States. Half of
those surveyed had established a family in America with their spouses and American-
born children, about 13% were married without children and almost a quarter of them
were still single. Only a small portion (5%) lived in a three-generation household, while
two thirds of their older parents remained behind (OCAC 2002, 2005, 2006). As a result,
most Taiwanese immigrants have the filial duty to provide eldercare across national
borders. Half of the surveyed Taiwanese in the United States return once or twice a year,
and some more frequently, but a quarter of them have not returned in the past two years.
4

4
Yet, the geographical distance between the countries of origin and settlement affects the levels of trans-
border connections among the overseas Taiwanese. Half of the Taiwanese who have immigrated to Japan
and Southeast Asia have returned to Taiwan three times in the past two years compared to 16% of those in
the United States and 19% of those in Canada.

41
In addition to class diversities of Taiwanese immigrants, the aforementioned portrait
specially suggests the necessity of Taiwanese immigrants to administer transnational
eldercare: 1) every two Taiwanese in the United States were young adults of working
age, and 2) two thirds of their older parents remained behind. Now I turn to discuss the
cultural infrastructure of elder welfare provided by adult immigrant children to their older
parents in Taiwan.

Cultural Origins of Chinese Eldercare
Every society has its cultural norms and preferences of eldercare arrangement; for
example, older Jews are satisfied with instrumental support from their adult children,
while older Arabs are pleased with financial support but less so with instrumental
support. Culture appears to be a potent force in determining the kind of intergenerational
support older parents expect (Silverstein et al. 2013). Chinese eldercare encompasses a
wide range of responsibilities when caring for ageing parents, including children’s
respect, obedience, financial support, material provisions, residential arrangement, and
physical care for their parents (Whyte 2004; Zhan and Montgomery 2003).
The early experience of providing family care to older parents can be explained
from two theoretical perspectives, both of which situate the formation of filial duty in a
two-way direction between the generations. The reciprocity perspective argues that, since
children received childcare and support from their parents in early life, they should
reciprocate by providing their aged parents with personal care and other forms of support.
In other words, parents invest in their children when the children are young with the
expectation of a financial return or eldercare. By contrast, the attachment perspective

42
suggests that selflessness makes intergenerational support and care between family
members possible. The close emotional bonds forged with their parents early in life
promote adult children’s altruistic caregiving (Chow 1993; Kohli 2005; Lee, Parish, and
Willis 1994; Silverstein et al. 2002; Xie and Zhu 2006). Both perspectives demonstrate
the intergenerational exchanges of affection and instrumental support. Although most
scholars argue that the altruism model—the attachment perspective—best captures the
practices of eldercare provision in Chinese families, the motivation to provide eldercare
has become more complex based on a culture of individualism, an anemic jobs market for
adults, and the decreasing availability of family care (Whyte 2004; Xie and Zhu 2006).
Filial obligations are cultivated through domestic discipline, education, news media,
and legal regulations and cultural belief is even reflected in the law. For instance, the
Senior Citizens Welfare Act in Taiwan penalizes adult children, who are guilty of
carelessness, abuse and/or the abandonment of their elderly parents, with a fine or shames
them publicly by publishing their names or requires them to attend family counseling
sessions. Local media always comes up with a headline about the abandonment or neglect
of an elderly parent.
Chinese eldercare not only relates to the type of care, but also who administers it.
Sons are required to inherit the family name and continue the ancestral worship by
providing physical and financial care for their parents; by contrast, daughters are required
to help their parents until they are married and then their husbands’ families instead of
their own. In fact, daughters-in-law take care of their parents-in-law on behalf of their
husbands (Das Gupta and Li 1999; Greenhalgh 1985; Lavely and Ren 1992; Yan, Tang,

43
and Yeung 2002; Yang 1996; Zhan and Montgomery 2003). As a result, eldercare
provision is gendered in Chinese society.
To date, 70% of older adults in Taiwan prefer to live with their adult children, 13%
choose to live with their spouses, 5% would agree to live in residential institutions, and
6% prefer to live alone (Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan 2000). However, the traditional
family system in Chinese society has undergone a major transformation in the last three
decades and more and more families are finding it difficult to take care of their elderly
parents. This is due to increasingly low fertility (1.1 births per woman in 2017) and
economic development based on industrialization, urbanization, and social transition,
which gives equal education opportunities to men and women in Taiwan, as well as an
increase in the female labor force (90.2%, aged between 25 and 29) (Jones 2007;
Thornton and Lin 1994; Tsai, Gates, and Chiu 1994; Whyte 2004). Their employment
status also affects the time they can devote to caring for their elderly parents (Zhan and
Montgomery 2003); what is worse, the Taiwanese have the fourth longest working hours
in the international community (Ministry of Labor, Taiwan 2016).
In response to the aforementioned demographic changes and the prevailing cultural
norms of eldercare, the Taiwanese government aims to assist families to care for their
older members by providing hourly support for household chores, day care centers
offering various activities, hospital escorts, basic health care, and a home-delivery meal
service. However, these publically-funded services fail to reach the wider population
because older Taiwanese associate social welfare with shame and negative stereotypes
and worry that their neighbors may perceive their adult children to be immoral. As a
result, the recruitment of migrant caregivers has become popular among privileged

44
Taiwanese. This is partly because the private alternative of recruiting a live-in migrant
caregiver does not challenge the prominent cultural norms for eldercare in terms of the
parents’ preference for cohabitation, and partly because the private alternative satisfies
the adult children’s need to provide eldercare (Lan 2006). Therefore, some privileged
Taiwanese families choose to navigate external eldercare resources from the market, and
regard social services to be a less desirable option.

Contemporary Eldercare in Taiwan
The whole world is currently challenged by an aging population and Taiwan is no
exception. While it took 75 years for the aging population to expand in the United States,
it only took 25 years for Taiwan to become an aging society. Seven percent of the
Taiwanese population was aged 65 or more in 1993 and this had risen to 13% by the end
of 2015. The aging population is expected to rise to above 14% by 2018. To date, the life
expectancy at birth for men is 77 years and 83 years for women.
Family care has traditionally been the most popular form of eldercare in Taiwan.
However, as mentioned above, this tradition is increasingly being challenged by
internal/international migration, women’s participation in the labor force, and a reduction
in the number of children. This is not a tremendous challenge for the baby boomers, who
are now in their 50s and 60s because they usually have more siblings to share the cultural
responsibility to care for their elderly parents. They collectively share residential
arrangements, intimate care labor, and financial assitance. However, the issue has drawn
the public’s attention to future eldercare because Taiwan has the lowest birthrate of any
country in the world with every woman in Taiwan giving birth to an average 1.1 children.

45
Moreover, 80% of Taiwanese aged over 65 suffered from more than one chronic disease,
and nearly 20% of those aged over 75 had more than five chronic diseases.
5
Thus, it will
become progressively difficult for future Taiwanese families to care for their older
parents in the traditional way based on the lack of family caregivers.
Caring for older adults is a round-the-clock activity that involves time, energy, and,
possibly, love. Institutional care is a self-pay service, which is not covered by Taiwan’s
existing medical care system and national health insurance program. The Taiwanese tend
to be wary of accepting institutional care because they have a negative perception of
senior and nursing homes in terms of poor-quality care for older parents and a moral
defect for adult children. Therefore, the supply of beds in nursing homes in Taiwan far
exceeds the demand (Chen 2010).
Many Taiwanese are turning to outsourcing eldercare labor to live-in caregivers, but
few Taiwanese workers are willing to do such a taxing job. Therefore, the Taiwanese
government began to introduce migrant caregivers from Southeast Asia in the 1990s to
help families to administer care to their elderly parents at home and in hospital. The
number of migrant caregivers grew fourfold within ten years, despite regulatory measures
being taken to curb their growth.
6
By 2008, more than 160,000 migrant caregivers were
providing daily assistance to half of the 400,000 disabled citizens in Taiwan (Chen 2010).
Despite language barriers, cultural differences, and communication problems with
migrant workers, migrant caregivers are still mainly used as a satisfactory private option

5
This is based on the report, 2003 General Survey on the Health Status and Living Conditions of Middle-
and Old-Aged People.
6
Regulatory measures were implemented in 2000, 2002, 2006 and 2008. Based on nationality, Indonesian
caregivers form the largest group of foreign caregivers, followed by Vietnamese and Filipinos.

46
for those Taiwanese who need to care for older adults and can afford to pay for it (Chen
2010; Lan 2006).
7

Local governments began to provide older adults with a living allowance in 1995.
Based on different programs and locations, older adults from low-income families receive
a monthly living allowance of $110-220, elderly farmers receive a monthly subsidy of
$100, and veterans are given $500 every month (Chen 2001; Executive Yean 2015).
However, this total monetary measure of social welfare does not justify the nation’s lack
of public service with respect to eldercare and long-term care. Local governments have
subsidized a wide range of public services under piloted long-term care projects for the
past decade. Daily care services include house cleaning, home nursing, respite care, meal
services, the purchase and lease of medical auxiliaries and equipment, and shuttle
services (Executive Yean 2007). Since the goal of the policy is to allow older adults to
age in place, the projects encourage civil society and community development
associations to become involved in community care services, such as visits, telephone
greetings, catering services, health promotion for primary prevention, and referral
services. Although the government’s subsidy of care services has increased since 2014,
the public assistance of home care only meets one-third of the demand. Some argue that
migrant workers better help families in need, which further hinders the development of
public eldercare services.
The Taiwanese government is currently drafting a Long-Term Care Service Act and
a Long-Term Care Insurance Act in order to introduce a comprehensive eldercare system.
Before the establishment of a long-term eldercare system in Taiwan, the lack of human

7
These issues are solved with training by recruitment agencies (Lan 2006). Also, 80% of Taiwanese
employers are satisfied with the migrant care service (Chen 2010).

47
resources for long-term care pushed the responsibility back to the family. For instance,
the ratio of nurses to older adults in Taiwan is 3:1,000.
8
Therefore, families had to choose
between family care, the recruitment of migrant labor, and institutional care, the latter of
which was the least welcome alternative. Taiwan’s neighboring countries with low
fertility and an ageing society—Japan and Korea—share similar welfare regimes and
have made social policy reforms to mobilize women to participate in care services.
However, the insecurity of employment instead put greater pressures on women to seek
and maintain paid work outside the home (Peng 2012). Moreover, people in Japan have
not accepted the necessitated trend of outsourcing childcare and eldercare people to deal
with the growing aging population and the Japanese government began to invite foreign
nursing care workers since 2016 to respond to the failure of social care expansion.
9
In
fact, most Japanese citizens have been ambivalent about opening up the country to
immigration because of the worry about ethnic and cultural homogeneity (Peng 2016). A
Japansese news article reported that Japanese prefer eldercare robot to foreign nurses.
10

In short, these East Asian countries are facing the increase of eldercare demand and the
failture of social care expansion.
Articles in hospital periodicals in Taiwan usually illustrate Taiwanese families’
struggle to provide eldercare. One article describes how older parents in rural areas fail to
adapt to urban life with their adult children, and children unable to care for their parents
in the countryside because they are busy with their work in the urban area. Then the

8
7,202 nursing professionals provide long-term care services. 5,678 of them work in long-term care
institutions, 596 provide community-based services, and the remaining 928 provide home-based services.
See Council for Economic Planning and Development. (2009). National Survey on Long-term Care
Resources in Taiwan. Taipei: Council for Economic Planning and Development, Taiwan.
9
Also in Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/01/27/national/japan-oks-plan-accept-
foreign-nursing-care-workers/#.WjOiF7SpnBI
10
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/01/japan-prefers-robot-bears-to-foreign-nurses/

48
author compares seniors’ homes in the United States and Taiwan. Those in the United
States are described as popular places where older adults receive comprehensive care,
make friends, and feel better than they would if they lived with their adult children. By
contrast, it is difficult to promote seniors’ homes in Taiwan, both because older adults do
not want to live in an institution and the morality and filial piety of adult children would
be questioned by extended family members and friends.
11
As a result, family care
remains the dominant form of eldercare provision in Taiwan. In fact, the rise of female
participation in the labor force is challenging their availability as a care resource for
eldercare and raises the question of who would care for the elderly.
Despite the expansion of social welfare benefits, there was no universal social
welfare until the establishment of National Health Insurance in 1995. This compulsory
health insurance now serves as a safety net to ensure that everyone has medical
protection.

The National Health Insurance (NHI) program in Taiwan, launched in 1995,
has successfully provided universal and quality healthcare to the people at an
affordable cost. The program is focused on ensuring care for people who are
socially and economically disadvantaged, making sure that everyone is
covered, and improving the quality of healthcare. (Universal Health Coverage
in Taiwan, National Health Insurance Administration)

So far, the Taiwan National Health Insurance provides universal healthcare to Taiwanese
citizens who live in Taiwan, and even those who live overseas but have dual citizenship.

11
Shen, Wu-Chung. 2011. “Elder Care Problems in Taiwan” CMUH Health, March 3-4.

49
The elderly are the main target group for national health insurance because they are most
likely to need healthcare and medical care. Since the Taiwanese government aims to
ensure that all older adults have access to healthcare, regional healthcare centers provide
medical services and preventive healthcare, such as screening.
12

Taiwan’s National Health Insurance is not limited to the elderly; rather, it has made
healthcare affordable for all Taiwanese. For example, under this program, a family of
four pays a monthly premium of $100 with a 100% subsidy for households below the
poverty line. The fee for any medical visit is $2-3 at clinics and regional hospitals and $8-
12 at regional research medical centers; medicine is free or less than $7.
13
In addition to
the covered items (inpatient, outpatient, dental services, traditional Chinese medicine, and
prescription drugs), the National Health Insurance also pays for home care, rehabilitative
care, day care, and hospice care based on certain criteria. Older adults from low-income
families are fully funded for any fees and they are eligible for subsidies for caregivers
when staying in hospital. In short, this affordable medical care has eased the financial
burden for Taiwanese citizens, especially those with limited financial resources. It will be
argued in later chapters that the cost of accessing healthcare in Taiwan has led to a drop
in the number of applications for family reunification in the United States by most
Taiwanese immigrants and their stay-behind parents, and immigrant adult children
continue to care about and for their elderly parents across national borders.
This chapter has described the past and current contexts of the Taiwanese
immigration to the States, and the group’s immigration to the United States has been very

12
The project, beginning in 2007, includes physical fitness, fall prevention, healthy diet, oral care, mental
health, social participation, and preventive care.
13
This is based on the fee table in the official brochure of The National Health Insurance (NHI) program in
Taiwan.

50
selective, which paved the analyses of stratified settlement and incorporation in the next
chapter. The section of eldercare provision in Taiwan not only helps understand how
local Taiwanese navigate eldercare resources between the family, the market, and the
state, but also contextualizes how Taiwanese immigrants reconstruct the notions and
practices of filial duty across national borders. This will facilitate an insight into how,
what, and why most of the Taiwanese immigrants in this study make efforts or are
expected to provide care for their elderly parents who remain in the homeland.

51
Chapter 2: Stratified Settlements

Immigration sociologists have long been interested in the experiences and patterns of
immigrant integration across generations, especially focusing on the social mobility of
immigrant children. While many have documented white immigrants moving from the
working class to better classes and occupations, structural barriers have impeded this
process for immigrants of color (Gordon 1964; Portes and Zhou 1993; Warner and Srole
1945). Overall, they presume that migration constitutes a process of class mobility from
the bottom to the top.
However, Taiwanese entered the United States with diverse classes. This chapter
moves away from class essentialism behind existing theories of incorporation; instead, it
illustrates and builds its analysis of care on stratified experience of Taiwanese
immigrants.
The Taiwanese government surveyed emigrants’ occupational change after
immigration and, as shown in the table below, 88% of the Taiwanese immigrant
respondents were still employed as managers or skilled professionals in the United States,
50% of them continued to work in administration and sales, and 39% of manual laborers
worked in the same role after immigration (OCAC 2011).

Table 2-1 Occupation of Immigrants before/after Immigration (N=887)
Now
Before
Manager and
professional
Administrative
support and sales
Manual labor
Managerial and
professional
87.5% 10.3% 2.2%
Administrative
support and sales
46.4% 50.1% 3.5%
Manual laborer 23.0% 38.4% 38.6%
Source: OCAC (2011)

52
As was noted in Table 2-1, most Taiwanese immigrants retained their social class after
immigration, despite some achieving upward mobility or moving downward.
To understand stratified settlement of first generation immigrants of the same
ethnicity, this chapter incorporates the merits of the class formation theories into the
discussion of migration. People accrue and manipulate economic, cultural, social, and
symbolic capitals to crave out a class identity and habitus (Bourdieu 1991). People of
different classes also employ varying public, cultural, and institutional narratives to
understand the social world (Somers 1997). Most importantly, class differences in
practice, such as language use and child rearing, are reproduced through the education
system (Bourdieu 1987; Lareau 1995). The society becomes stratified. This chapter
contributes the scholarship of social stratification by adding the discussion of
transnational migration. Taiwanese’s experience of settlement is stratified: the experience
of settlement is determined by the pre-migration characteristics of immigrants, such as
family of origin, motivation for migration, and their own attributes, such as educational
attainment.
Firstly, middle-class immigrants, who participated in this study are the children of
middle-class families in Taiwan. They were raised to travel abroad for advanced study
because middle-class Taiwanese families compete internationally in their pursuit of a
global language as part of their parenting culture (Crystal 1997; Lan 2009). The
formation of class in Taiwan pushed these children to migrate. Educational migration,
intentionally or unintentionally, resulted in their settlement and the reproduction of their
class based on the capital they earn in the United States and the capital they brought with
them from Taiwan. Yet some middle-class Taiwanese started a new life in the United

53
States by operating a small business.
Next, the upper-class participants, who originated from entrepreneurial or upper-
class families in Taiwan, transferred the class privileges across borders for their
settlement in the United States and then retained the same position in the host society.
Despite their lack of U.S. education credentials, the upper-class immigrants navigated
their own route as entrepreneurs outside the mainstream job market in order to retain their
former class. They entered the new society not from the bottom as old perspectives of
assimilation suggest.
As for the working-class immigrants, various factors led to their social status. Some
of them grew up in poor households, worked as blue-collar laborers in Taiwan and stayed
working in poorly-paid jobs in the United States, such as factory laborers, auto
mechanics, and hairstylists. Some came from lower-middle-class families, immigrated for
the sake of their children’s education, but had experienced downward mobility with
occupations such as office and warehouse security guards, home service providers,
receptionists, and cashiers. Some junior professionals of ethnic businesses came from
middle-class families in Taiwan, but the reproduction of their family class was
temporarily impeded by their immigration status.
This study does not view the Taiwanese as a homogeneous group in order to avoid
oversimplified generalization in analyzing their migration experience. My attention in
this chapter is to establish the argument: the pre-migration status of immigrants leads to a
stratified process of settlement—from access to legal status to the class formation in the
host society.

54
Middle Class: Keeping up with the Wongs
Class reproduction of newcomer and oldcomer student migrants prevails in this study.
Having grown up in a middle-class family, Ken was inspired to study abroad. He came to
the United States in 2000 after obtaining a college degree and completing two years of
military service in Taiwan. Ken’s first act in the United States was to attend a language
school to prepare an application for graduate school. However, after being awarded an
MBA from a prestigious school, Ken found it hard to find a job in 2002 when the United
States was facing a recession. Ken and his girlfriend spent a year on Optional Practical
Training (OPT), which is allowed under a student visa, to find a job; however, most
employers were reluctant to employ people they perceived as being foreigners. Having
guessed that this was the reason why several job applications had been rejected, Ken’s
later experience as a senior director helped him to confirm the disadvantages of
foreigners in the primary labor market, despite their U.S. higher education credentials. As
he explained, “Firms needed to submit many financial reports and other documents to
sponsor an H-1B working visa and they just didn’t want to do it.” He finally found a job
at a Taiwanese-owned Chinese food restaurant, Panda Express, “because the boss knew
we international students needed a visa.”
Although Ken’s first placement with his MBA degree was as a trainee store manager
of Panda Express, he was not satisfied with this job because, as he explained, “to be
honest, fast-food restaurant work is exhausting. You need to stand all day.” Most ethnic
Chinese companies understand that student migrants need a visa to work in the
mainstream labor market and they take advantage of this fact by offering them lower pay
in the year of the OPT student visa and the subsequent years of the H-1B working visa.

55
These ethnic Chinese companies attract student migrants with the promise of a green card
application; as a result, some student migrants work as interns for ethnic businesses with
little or no pay and wait for future opportunities if they fail to find a company that can
legalize their stay.
Some student migrants moved to an H-1B working visa, which was a step closer to
obtaining permanent residency, but their employers broke their promise and refused to
sponsor their application for a green card. As a store manager, Ken earned an annual
salary of $40,000. He finally left the business after four years, not only because he was
dissatisfied with the job content, but also because the business would not accept his
request for permanent residency. Ken and his girlfriend relocated to Los Angeles because
they assumed that this immigrant gateway city was more open to foreign workers and
businesses were more likely to offer a citizenship application. Ken explained the results
of his search in Los Angeles, “I accepted any offer as long as they offered permanent
residency.” Despite a low monthly starting pay of less than $2,000, Ken accepted the job
because the employer guaranteed him a green card;

My second job paid less than Panda Express. It was really much less but they
agreed to apply for a green card for me. We tried everything to stay in the
United States. [Yu-Kang: Why did you stick to the States?] I was conscious
of the expense involved in studying abroad, including tuition and living
expenses. If you have the chance, you will want to cumulate your experience
in the States for some years. [Yu-Kang: only for a couple of years?] Yes, I

56
planned to return for my parents’ sake. I think most student migrants think
this way. (Ken, early 40s, IT business director)

Despite their educational attainments, the recent Taiwanese student migrants in this study
found it hard to enter the U.S. labor market. One male student migrant who graduated in
the 2000s recalled that only two of his ten peers settled in the United States. Later waves
of Taiwanese immigrants, especially non-STEM majors, were very likely to have traded
low pay for sponsorship of permanent residency in ethnic businesses.
In contrast to those recent student migrants, early waves of Taiwanese student
migrants recollected that every Taiwanese student peer in the 1970s and 1980s had
settled in the United States. For instance, according to Nicole, a professional women,
“We had multiple offers to choose from and employers were very willing to sponsor us
for permanent residency. I flew to Los Angeles for work the day after my graduation
ceremony [in 1980].” Early student migrants tell of a successful search for the American
Dream: they obtained permanent residency easily after they graduated, they purchased a
house at an affordable price, and they acquired a mainstream job and/or started a business
without any issues. In fact, ethnic businesses were friendly to Taiwanese student migrants
in the 1980s and 1990s in terms of sponsoring their legal status. Alex, who migrated in
1989, felt “lucky” to be evaluated as the director of an ethnic media in Los Angeles
because he obtained his current job right after graduation and the media house also
sponsored him for permanent residency.

57
Compared to oldcomer student migrants, the journey of recent student migrants has
taken a detour and the reproduction of a middle-class status takes longer to complete.
Ken shifted his profession to meet the demand of the labor market;

I am not a STEM major, so I forced myself to learn about computers. I did
my best to switch to the marketing department. Now I am in the purchasing
department. My pay when I left was three times as the pay when I entered.
(Ken, early 40s, IT business director)

When I probed his success in tripling his salary within four years of working for the
company, Ken emphasized his low starting salary. Since obtaining permanent residency
sponsored by his second employer, Ken and his wife have been climbing up the class
ladder because they are free to switch jobs to obtain better pay and a more senior position.
Ken concluded his citizenship journey as follows;

Like most Taiwanese, we immigrated step by step without any short-
cuts unlike some Chinese, who faked it and applied for political asylum
or religious asylum.
1
We were not refugees either, so it took us almost
ten years to become Americans. (Ken, early 40s, IT business director)

1
I met a Chinese student migrant in his late 20s, who left language school in 2015 and worked illegally as a
day laborer. He told me about his “instructed” application for religious asylum. He pretended he was a
believer of Falun Gong and cried in front of the officer about being persecuted by the Chinese government
at the immigration interview. He looked forward to the chance of being granted permanent residency (on
average 50% approval rate). According to the student migrant from China, the administration work has a
short wait, and the result should be officially noticed within six months.

58
Half of the middle-class men in this study entered the United States as student migrants
and now they work as engineers, bank clerks, financial advisers, traditional Chinese
medicine doctors, civil servants, ethnic media directors, and business owners. The early
wave of student migrants obtained jobs at American and ethnic businesses that sponsored
their application for permanent residency; one of them started an after-school center
business and another is engaged in international trade. The recent wave of student
migrants obtained jobs at American and ethnic businesses, depending on their legal
status.
To further illustrate, two of the engineers’ settlement process was different based on
their legal status. Bryan, who was born as a U.S. citizen but grew up in Taiwan,
“returned” to the United States to obtain a Master’s degree. Despite not speaking English
fluently, his citizenship allowed him to apply for graduate schools without an English
language test. Bryan’s U.S. citizenship was advantageous in his search for work,
compared to his cohort students. He was employed by an American direct broadcast
satellite service provider.

I attended a career event at a prestigious school in Los Angeles in 2010, when
a famous IT company announced to the student audience that it would not
accept any applications submitted by non-citizens and ineligible students
should leave the briefing in the meeting room. (Bryan, early 30s, DirecTV
engineer)

59
Jill, another engineer, who completed his Electronic Engineering Master’s in 2005
recalled his settlement with the intention of generalizing the career pathways of
Taiwanese STEM students;

You usually make two decisions. The first is related to settlement in the
United States. Except some excellent Master’s students are able to obtain a
job offer from mainstream companies in Silicon Valley, most students stay in
Taiwanese companies, which pay less but are willing to sponsor their
citizenship application because we foreigners are trapped by our legal status.
The second decision is about returning to Taiwan if you cannot accept this
unsatisfactory offer. (Jill, late 30s, engineer)

Jill had only earned $20,000 per annum in his first job since 2006 based on his strong
desire for settlement. As he said, “My only chance of staying in the United States was to
accept this offer.” Jill was referred to his second firm by a friend. They paid him $30,000
annually and sponsored his application for permanent residency. He stayed there until
2012, but left as soon as he obtained permanent residency. As Jill wanted to change his
job and work as a product manager, he was extremely frustrated when he left the ethnic
business and searched for a new position. He explained, “I had been with the same
company and industry for six to seven years, so my employment history was really
limited and the companies I applied to expected experienced candidates.” Despite the
problems he encountered in changing jobs, Jill was grateful for his current legal status
because “At least I have a chance of some interviews now. If I still had a foreign status, I

60
would have no chance. I strongly believe that you will not be invited for an interview if
you require sponsorship for a legal status.”
Arguably, their legal status not only affects these immigrants’ access to
employment, but it also constrains their career development. When junior professionals
gathered information about the amount or range of annual salaries in specific positions
and industries, they had insufficient knowledge and bargaining skills to negotiate;

When interviewers asked us what kind of salary we were looking for, we
were too honest. We just told them the exact amounts were paid in the past; as
a result, they just offered a little above the basic salary, even though it was far
below the market rate. These ethnic companies assumed that we should be
satisfied because they had increased our pay. We lost out in the negotiation in
the beginning because we were victims of ethnic businesses. (Jill, late 30s,
engineer)

Jill registered to marry his girlfriend in Taiwan in the United States and she quit her job
in Taiwan and moved to Orange County. They expected it would be difficult for her to
obtain a job locally without any local credentials. After a year, she became a California
resident, which enabled her to study at a State University by only paying a registration
fee. Jill described the advantages of a legal status on her job application;

She submitted her resume on Friday night, got a phone interview on the next
Monday, got an offer on Wednesday, negotiated with a counter offer on

61
Thursday, and accepted the offer on Friday. It only takes a week if you have a
legal status. (Jill, late 30s, engineer)

Student migrants are burdened by their legal status. Some of them are channeled to ethnic
businesses that usually pay less but extend their legal stay. Nevertheless, there are a few
exceptions. Marc, an officer of a Hong Kong-based bank, never thought about going back
to Taiwan when he studied for an MBA in Chicago in early 2000s because “American
life is awesome.” An ethnic bank in Downtown Los Angeles sponsored his green card
application, but Marc had to pay $5,000 in lawyers’ fees out of his own pocket. Based on
the study participants, some ethnic employers asked student migrants to pay fees for job
postings and document preparation. Post-2000 student migrants are more likely to have
taken a detour in terms of employment, which delays their acquisition of a legal status
and further hinders the reproduction of their middle-class status.
Some middle-class immigrants are small business owners. Tina immigrated to the
United States under her father’s sponsored application. Her father left Taiwan and came
to the United States to avoid debt because of a legal co-sign issue. This illegal journey
was a case of “sink or swim” for Tina’s father and his family. The father started a new
life in the United States with $800 he brought with him from Taiwan. Tina described how
her father was sadly cheated of $500 by an early wave immigrant with the excuse of
helping to buy a used car and rent a house. Yet, the father was able to use his craft of
watch making to earn a good living from his newly rich Taiwanese immigrant peers or
immigrants with old money in the prosperous era in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. Soon
the remain-behind family, including Tina, received an allowance of $2,000 per month,

62
and later immigrated together for reunification in 1986 when Tina was 18. Tina observed
that people who immigrate prior to the age of 15 generally adapt to the host society
without a problem. “I came when I was 18 and I had not studied hard so it was difficult.”
Tina had not learned English until she had to. She currently operates a watch and clock,
which his father handed over.

Highly Educated Housewives
Emma moved to Los Angeles to work for an ethnic business after obtaining a doctoral
degree in the United States in 2003. Highly educated migrants usually have a negative
perspective of their employment in ethnic businesses because they argue that the biggest
difference between ethnic and American businesses is pay. According to them, the
monthly pay in non-American firms is usually something more than $3,000, but it is
common to be paid $2,000 or less in Chinese businesses. Emma described her salary
when working for an ethnic newspaper; “the ethnic newspaper only paid me $10 an hour,
but my colleagues with citizenship got $15. I was paid $1,600 monthly before tax.” These
student migrants in ethnic businesses earn less than others who work in American firms
or have citizenship. Overall, they claimed that “the differencce could be over $10,000 per
annum” for similar positions. As noted earlier, they accepted such offers in exchange for
citizenship sponsorship by the employer.
When the family has native-born children, childcare forces women to opt out of the
labor market becsause they believe stay-at-home mothers are beneficial to child-rearing.
The mothers do not only avoid missing the child’s development, but they also want to
cultivate family education. Molly used to work for an ethnic IT company and prioritized

63
her parenting over her career and the family’s wealth. This is common among highly
educated immigrant housewives;

You are trapped by childcare. Since you value your children’s development,
you consider what kind of parenting works best. My friends, who graduated
from UC schools, also didn’t return to work in order to devote all their energy
to educating their children. The ages of 4 and 7 are the most important to
cultivate good behavior and customary reading. (Molly, early 40s, IT
Business Specialist)

Besides Molly and the other immigrant mothers in my interviews, I attended a Taiwanese
church with a congregation that consisted of many middle-class immigrants and found
that the parenting classes there delivered the similar message to parents. The pastors and
parenting teachers emphasized the importance of family education in terms of behavior
and how a religious belief can help the immigrants to guide their children away from the
social problems they perceived in America, such as drugs, misbehavior, the loss of family
values, and same-sex marriage. The middle-class immigrants reproduce the middle-class
status throughout their school education in the United States and they cultivate their
children with the same values at home, in church, and by choosing their friends for them.
They need to take care of the children at home while the men work as the family
breadwinner. Middle-class immigrants’ family life revolves around their children’s
education, and the schedule of Taiwanese immigrants, especially women, is closely
associated with their school-age children’s structured activities, as illustrated by Annette

64
Lareau (2003) in her study of the parenting culture of middle-class families. The children
of the Taiwanese immgirants have an average of two to three after-school activities a
week, such as piano lessons, Chinese, swimming, theater, abacus calculation, tennis,
soccer, tae kwon do, singing, and public speaking. All of these efforts are linked to the
Taiwanese immigrants’ American Dream of attaining or reproducing middle-class status,
since they believe that education is the way to achieve this goal in the host society.
As the children reach high school and college age, some women do not return to
employment, not only because the family can afford it, but also because the women find
it difficult to re-entering the labor market. However, some women work on a part-time
basis; for instance, Emma with a doctoral degree works as a tutor in a Chinese after-
school program.

Upper Class: Express Line to California Dream
It was evident from interviewing upper-class Taiwanese immigrants that the better-off
families in Taiwan enabled all their family members to migrate for school and business at
different life course in their lives. The educational migration scheme operated as a node
for upper-class Taiwanese to relocate their families and businesses. It also made their
immigration more flexible and complex in terms of the order of migration. Taiwanese
entrepreneurs who had a business in Taiwan came to the United States as investors or
expatriate professionals under an L1 visa.
2

2
L1 visas allow qualified foreign companies to relocate foreign employees to their U.S. branches and
affiliates. Some upper-class immigrants’ elderly parents came to the United States via their own
immigration application as investors instead of the adult children’s petition for family reunification.

65
Lily, the wife of a professional development associate (PDA) in San Marino,
recalled her first impression of America when she attended her younger sister’s wedding
in 1984 and was inspired to immigrate for a better lifestyle;

I think living in America is good because there are fewer customs. In Taiwan,
people need to propose a toast. You toast your friends and seniors, which
really bothered me. Here, people you don’t know say hi and good morning to
you when you walk on the street or go to the park. (Lily, late 50s, wife of
PDA)

Although her husband’s work in real estate construction contributed to a better-off family
lifestyle in Taiwan, Lily was not happy that his work involved alcohol. She explained that
“Men in the real estate business drink, play mahjong, and go to night clubs. I wanted a
simple life.” Lily’s family was her motivation to move. Her younger sister had studied in
Europe and then in Texas and like some other Taiwanese women, she had married a man
with U.S. citizenship and settled in the United States. At the same time, Lily’s older sister
came to Monterey Park, California, because her husband worked under an L1 visa in
1977. Moreover, Lily’s older parents had initiated their own immigration when their
children had moved to the United States one by one;

My father bought a 20-unit apartment block in Monterey Park when he visited
my sister. The sister in Texas moved to California to manage it. My parents
stayed in an apartment in the block whenever they visited. [Yu-Kang: Why is

66
Monterey Park?] My older sister referred a friend who worked in real estate to
my father and he decided to invest some of the family budget in real estate. It
also made their visits to the States easier compared to other older parents.
(Lily, late 50s, wife of PDA)

The advantages of upper-class families are cross-generational. Some of the elderly
parents obtained U.S. citizenship on their own for business purposes or their adult
children’s study. As I noted earlier, Lily’s father purchased an apartment block and asked
Lily’s sister, a student migrant, to manage it. Lily is not required to sponsor her parents’
legal status; instead, her parents instead funded her husband’s business.
Lily’s parents immigrated prior to her, but they retained a base in Taiwan and led a
transnational life. Lily and her entrepreneur husband brought their savings to the United
States and made a down payment of $130,000 for their first house in 1985. However,
Lily’s husband found it difficult to establish a new company and maintain legal status in
the United States. He had entered under a tourist visa, then a student visa, and then an L1.
As Lily recalled, “We explored many ways and had many migration lawyers assisting us
because Taiwanese immigration was so hot in 1985.” Nevertheless, their settlement
resulted in some conjugal conflict;

My husband took a part-time job at a toy company and I couldn’t do anything
but stay at home. Immigrant life in America is not easy because you have to
start again, even if you are rich. Many bad things were happening at that time,
such as scams. We lived on a budget for the first year and my stupid husband

67
loaned his classmate’s brother $2,500 for gambling. I was so angry! (Lily,
late 50s, wife of PDA)

A year later, her husband wanted to retain his profession in real estate, but Lily opposed it
because she was worried that they would be unable to recover their investment. In the end,
Lily’s father funded their first construction project in America. According to Lily, “The
three-apartment project really improved our finances because the real estate market was
starting to prosper.” Her husband working as a PDA soon expanded the number of
construction projects to Arcadia and San Marino. Lily maintained that property
development was a highly profitable business because of the low cost of construction.
They accumulated wealth from residential and commercial real estate from the height of
the real estate boom until the recession in the 1990s.
The migration of Taiwanese entrepreneurs to the United States, Canada, and
Australia reflects a transnational business circuit (Breznitz 2007; Drori, Honig, and
Ginsberg 2010). For instance, Mr. and Mrs. Chi, who participated in this study, were
transnational Taiwanese entrepreneurs, who transplanted their fashion footwear business
in Los Angeles and beyond in the late 1980s. The world’s leading sports brands, such as
Nike and Adidas, outsourced their production to Taiwan’s shoe manufacturing industry,
which dominated the global production.
3
Some outsourcing manufacturers, such as Mr.
and Mrs. Chi, began to establish their own brand. I visited their office and warehouse in
the City of Industry several times. This fashion footwear business encompasses design,
production, and trading. The company delivers new styles of shoes biweekly, which

3
As China opened her economy, the Taiwanese chain of outsourcing manufacturers moved there for lower
production costs. Most of the factories in China were owned by Taiwanese entrepreneurs.

68
intensifies the workload. The design team has to fashion shoes with style and various
materials, the production team has to track and monitor the factory production in China,
the sales team has to promote the products to buyers in Downtown Los Angeles, Taiwan,
Latin America, and beyond, the delivery team has to ensure the shipping with trunk
drivers, customs, and container terminals, and finally, Mrs. Chi has to check the finances
on a daily basis.
Mr. Wang came to the United States as a student migrant in the late 1970s. Without
completing his doctoral degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he
began to operate a business trading fake diamonds in Houston in 1983. He learned how to
operate this business by visiting stores and learning to advertise. Mr. Wang earned 2%
commission in cash, which meant that an order worth $3,800,000 earned him $76,000
cash. He used the profit from this business to invest in property or as he termed it, “sleep
with profit.” His experience suggests that 90% of property investment gave a return of
300% profit. For instance, Mr. Wang sold a property he had owned for seven years in
1989 and made a profit of $3,000,000.
Operating a business and investing in one both involve a certain amount of risk. Yet
the Taiwanese entrepreneurs in this group seldom incurred tremendous losses during the
economic recessions in the early 1990s, early 2000s, and between 2007 and 2009,
because they shifted their businesses and investment to other industries, products, cities,
and national borders very quickly to secure better profits and avoid unanticipated loss.
For instance, Lily’s husband left real estate construction and bought a lighting décor
factory in Boston, and a textile factory. As China continued to develop its economy based
on its policy of opening-up, Lily’s husband relocated his textile factory to China in the

69
1990s, and he now produces textiles for the interior of aircraft and yachts. The company’s
shares are listed on the Chinese stock exchange and it has a thriving market in the
aviation industry of the United States. As a result, the Taiwanese’s transnational business
circuit can be characterized as a link between Asian production and North American
distribution, a comprehensive import and export business and global retail chains
(Mengin 2015; Wong 2004).
Apart from the commercial real estate recession in the early 1990s, some Taiwanese
entrepreneurs in this study sold their businesses, restaurants, or stores during the 1992
Los Angeles riots when several Korean storeowners and staff were armed with rifles and
shotguns. Some of them were worried during the riot and searched for new opportunities.
For example, Mr. Chu closed his chain restaurant, explaining that “people could not tell if
I was Taiwanese or Korean.” The Taiwanese entrepreneurs also seek niches beyond
national borders, such as the business relocation of Lily’s husband from Texas to China.
Despite these entrepreneurs’ wealth, they were stressed about their business. As Lily
declared, “We were definitely more stressed because we were in business.” Mr. Wang
also expected his real estate investment to fail somewhat. He explained, “Of course, it
was wrong to invest in real estate because you only made 2% profit from a 10%
investment .” One of the upper-middle professionals who actively engaged in real estate
investment and the stock market also experienced this stress. Ralph mentioned, “The rate
of some property is 5.5% and has been adjusted to 4 point something. There are no better
offers during an economic recession.”

70
Professionals with Entrepreneurship
Four upper-middle class professionals—a manager at an American law firm, dentist,
Chinese physician, former accounts manager—were categorized in this upper-class group
because they were actively expanding chain clinics or investing in real estate and the
stock market. Ralph had been a legal and human resource manager for 11 years at an
American law firm. One of his clients was an NBA player. His household income
included his own income as a lawyer, his wife’s income as a financial analyst, and
revenue from their investment in the real estate market. Ralph owns at least ten houses.
He described his business as follows;

I own property from Los Angeles to Miami. My loans are paid by the tenants’
rent. This is quite stressful because I still need to pay the loan if I cannot find
tenants. Overall, it has taken ten to twenty years to finance, but it is generally
OK. It’s kind of dangerous, like leverage. (Ralph, early 40s, law firm manager)

Migration for graduate study has been the major avenue of the Taiwanese to immigrate to
the United States since the 1960s and Mr. Tsao was of the student migrants. According to
the formal accounting manager, Mr. Tsao, most of the Taiwanese student migrants in the
1980s were graduates from the National Taiwan University and the National Chengchi
University. In addition, he explained that,

These students were the best of the best because less than 10% of high school
students were admitted to college in Taiwan in 1970s. Students used to study

71
abroad with either government scholarships or family support. My parents
paid for me. In my cohort, we came to the United States with a dream to
establish our family here. Return was not an option. (Mr. Tsao, late 50s,
former accounting manager)

Having received an MBA from the University of Houston in 1982, Mr. Tsao
complemented his family-sponsored graduate study in the United States by moving to
Japan, where his parents ran business and then became naturalized. He learned the
Japanese language and obtained another Master’s degree from a prestigious private
university in Tokyo.
4
With his trilingual ability, Mr. Tsao was soon recruited by a famous
construction company in Japan with a substantial income and bonus. However, since
Japan requires the immigrant applicants to renounce their nationality, Mr. Tsao and his
Taiwanese-American wife hesitated to relinquish their respective Taiwanese and
American passports. As a result, Mr. Tsao resettled his own family in Los Angeles in the
United States and started his accounting career in 1989.
5
This clearly illustrates the ability
of upper class Taiwanese families to draw on a greater range of choices and be flexible in
their study, business, and place of settlement.
Mr. Tsao’s transnational work experience and trilingual background made him
attractive to headhunters. Not only did his income in the most famous Japanese
construction business based in Los Angeles reach $100,000 in 1991, but he was also

4
According to Mr. Tsao, his parents reported several hundred million yen in annual tax to the Japanese
government, and thus they were elligible for Japanese citizenship.
5
Mr. Tsao paid $20,000 as a down payment on a single-family house valued at $200,000 in 1989. I was
warmly welcomed by Mr. Tsao when I visited his current home in Arcadia, which has spacious front and
back yards, as well as fruit trees, such as guava trees, one of Taiwanese immigrants’ favorite for back
yards. Notwithstanding the value of the property, one square foot of the land currently costs $100 and his
house stands on 17,000 square feet. According to him, the property was valued at $ 2,000,000 in 2013.

72
promoted to the position of accounting manager and chief financial officer. He increased
his wealth by investing in the stock market. This enabled him to purchase his current
residence and one nearby for his older parents. His casual manner during the interview
revealed his pride in managing the property in Arcadia;

It is not easy to manage this house. I pay about $15,000 property tax every
year, which is cheap, because I bought the house very early, but my property
tax for previous years could have bought another small house. Not only do
you buy the house, but you also have to afford to manage it. Water and
electricity cost at least $500 and it costs $110 for a Mexican gardener. It costs
$1,500 for gardeners to trim the five tall trees in the front yard, which needs
to be done every two years. (Mr. Tsao, late 50s, former accounting manager)

Two upper-class professional men retired in their early 40s, but returned to work to kill
time or for fun; for example, Sam went back to dentistry but he only accepted limited
appointments. Mr. Tsao became a consultant for a Japanese shipping company and now
works for Los Angeles County for fun because he did not want to retire in his early 40s.
6

He expressed,

To be honest, my monthly income has been reduced from above $10,000
to $5,000. However, I don’t care because I have earned a lot from my

6
In terms of work as a civil servant, Mr. Tsao expected that it would cost private businesses a lot to hire
him considering his experience and his age. He chose to be a civil servant at the county office because of
the flexible working hours, health insurance and retirement plan, which he thinks will be useful in later
years. For instance, he uses the quota of $1,500 to purchase packages of insurance for himself and his wife.
In this way, his wife is able to negotiate better pay by not claiming her health insurance from the company.

73
investment in the stock market. I don’t need to work for money. I
accumulated enough in previous years at the Japanese company. I have no
interest in a career now. I have saved enough to retire and enjoy my life.
(Mr. Tsao, late 50s, former accounting manager)

They are not really interested in a monthly salary. Indeed, Mr. Tsao checked stock market
price trends on his laptop from time to time during the interview. He calculated that he
had paid $380,000 tax on his income in the previous year. The cases of Ralph and Mr.
Tsao echo other upper-class Taiwanese who began as entrepreneurs and aggressive
investors using the family income. On the one hand, the upper-class Taiwanese in the
study had started their own business with or without money from the family; on the other
hand, both the class-privileged immigrants and three professionals had strong
investments. In summary, it is clear that the immigrants maintained or obtained their
upper-class status through different levels of entrepreneurship in the process of
immigration.

New Generation of Upper-class Families
The majority of the upper-class Taiwanese also prepared their children for better
incorporation in terms of education so that they could excel at school and in their future.
These efforts were demonstrated by the mothers actively volunteering at school and the
parents’ guidance in after-school activities. However, it was relatively easier for them
than for middle-class parents because entrepreneurs and senior/managerial professionals
could afford to be more flexible with their time and money. Mr. Tsao’s daughter was

74
offered a job of certified public accountant at an accounting firm in the year prior to her
graduation. He guided her major in accounting, reasoning that a major in film would lead
to starvation, as well as monitored the friends she made from elementary school to
Arcadia High School because of the high value he placed on school district.

School districts matter because top universities value their reputation. All
school districts have students that are left behind in terms of their academic
performance. They have gays, drug users, and those who just like to party,
but an excellent performance at a good schools will generally make a student
stand out in college applications and scholarships. I agree that Chinese
parents put great emphasis on education and this results in competition
among the children and the Taiwanese parents in Arcadia and Temple City.
My daughter has learned seven different talents. Students cannot graduate
from Arcadia High without passing a swimming test, so she had to learn to
swim. (Mr. Tsao, late 50s, former accounting manager)

Although Mr. and Mrs. Chi have busied their work, they secured a good school district in
Rowland Height. Mr. Chi further related the emergence of good school districts to the
inflow of Asian immigrants, and Mr. Chi explained, “the school was not as good as it is
now. Taiwanese and Koreans moved in this area and Asian immigrants made the school
better. The more Asian students enroll, the better the school district is. Teachers are the
same!”

75
While the upper-class Taiwanese parents claimed their open attitudes to the
schooling of their American-born children, the parents are still involved in the schooling
process. First of all, most of these parents have experience of serving on the board of
education at the school where their children study or the larger school district. Mr. Wang,
Lily, and Winnie clearly mentioned the advantages of being the president of the school
board, such as greater opportunities of leadership experience secured for their children.
Next, the parents provide diverse talent classes for the children while claiming that the
children are free to continue or stop. Interestingly, all the immigrant daugthers have a
piano certificate of merit at level 10, just next to a professional certificate either in
performance or pedagogy. The parents likewise instruct the children’s selection of
undergraduate major. From the perspective of these upper-class parents, the children
should choose a major that provides a promising career with great financial return rather
than one that fits your interest but has no sufficient financial rewards. Mr. Wong guided
his daughter to study accounting instead of film studies; Sam pushed his son to study
dentistry and said to the son: “All you enjoy comes from my dentistry business. I have
told you how I make money and this route is the best. It is up to you.” Lastly, the
entrepreneur parents, such as Mr. Chi, are open and supportive when their children
choose to start up a business.
The making of new upper-class Taiwanese immigrants is happening across borders.
The Taiwanese used to immigrate to the United States via investment and lead a goose
family in the 1980s; they currently deliver babies for the U.S. citizenship. The privileged
Taiwanese immigrants prepared for dual citizenship by choosing to have a baby in the
United States so that their American-born child would have U.S. citizenship. This

76
approach of acquiring U.S. citizenship has continued and generated related ethnic
businesses, such as baby-mom care homes in the greater Los Angeles. The purpose is not
to live in the United States immediately. Instead, these privileged Taiwanese will use this
citizenship eligible to attend Taipei American School in Taiwan and then colleges in the
United States as well as to “immigrate/return” to the United States.
Taipei American School used to be exclusively for the children of overseas
Americans, diplomats, and embassy staff in Taiwan, but now a number of students are
Taiwanese, who were born in the United States and have permanent U.S. residency or
citizenship. Taiwanese law regulates Taipei American School to admit students who do
not hold a Taiwanese passport; yet, this prestigious school has become somewhat of an
avenue for education and immigration in another immigration trajectory for some upper-
and middle class Taiwanese families. Joana, like many of her classmates, came to the
United States for college in 2000 after completing her education at Taipei American
School. From her perspective, the course materials at Taipei American School are
identical to those at schools in the contiguous United States, and many of her “American”
classmates have been rooted in Taiwan and applied to colleges in the United States.
With the dual citizenship, the family just waits to immigrate until they finalize the
settlement plan. Those privileged Taiwanese in Taiwan whose children do not dual
citizenship also underwent the preparing process of educational migration at either K-12
education or higher education. Stachelle’s brother who stays behind sends his school-age
children to Los Angeles for English classes every summer. Pamela sent her two sons to a
private elementary shool in Taipei, which uses American course materials and instructs
bilingual courses because private schools are less regulated by the local government in

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terms of course design, to prepare for immigrating to the United States at any time.
Overall, the boundaries associated with citizenship, education, and place of residence are
more blurred for the upper-class Taiwanese in Taiwan and the United States than for
other class groups in the study.

Working Class: The Dimmed American Dream
Immigrants’ networks in the United States, especially family members, smoothen their
experience of immigration by providing housing, information, assistance, and jobs
(Menjivar 2000). However, their access to local and transnational networks is stratified.
America does not feel as familiar to working-class Taiwanese as it does to middle- and
upper-class immigrants, because the latter usually came as either student migrants or
transnational entrepreneurs and often had family members or friends who had already
migrated to the United States. On the other hand, working-class immigrants usually had
little or no advice or assistance during their initial settlement due to the limited family
networks and resources available to them in the United States. Grace brought everything
she expected to use in Mei-Guo, the United States in Mandarin, with her when she
entered this new land;

On my first trip to the United States, I brought a blanket, pillows, a rice
cooker, and even Taiwanese sausage, which was not allowed, but it was not
detected. Why a blanket? I asked my husband whether there were no blankets
in the States. He said he just preferred Taiwanese blankets, because American

78
blankets are kind of heavy. The pillows in the States, like those at hotels, are
too soft, so I had lots of luggage. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

Despite the lack of information about their departure, the settlement of working-class
immigrants is diversified because their entry to the United States includes winners of the
Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, illegal overstay, educational migration, and other visa
approaches.

Winners of the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
Winners of the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program rely on themselves and their stay-
behind family. Rebecca, a woman in her early 50s, came to the United States in the mid-
2000s because her family won the opportunity for immigration under the Diversity
Immigrant Visa Program. The family had a year to officially finalize the decision to
immigrate to the United States to American Institute in Taiwan, a de facto U.S. embassy.
Green Card Lottery winners do not receive a prize of millions; their prize is a ticket to the
American Dream.

Rebecca and her husband seized this opportunity and decided to
immigrate to California, despite their limited resources based on their middle-lower class
status in Taiwan. Since her middle-aged husband anticipated that it would be difficult to
transfer his career to the United States without English language skills or U.S.
educational qualifications, they became a ‘goose family.’ This refers to families whose
members are separated by great distances and the mother and children go abroad, while
the father stays behind to finance the venture. Rebecca’s husband remained in work in a
lower-level managerial position at a telecommunications company in Taiwan ($27,000

79
annually) and financed the process of immigration for his migrating family members—
Rebecca and the son. Meanwhile, Rebecca, the high-school-educated immigrant mother,
had struggled to make a life in the United States by washing dishes in an ethnic restaurant
for an hourly rate of $8 since 2005.
During the settlement years, when she was working in the ethnic restaurant while
her son went to high school, this goose family mainly relied on financial support sent by
the father from Taiwan every month. The flow of finances in Rebecca’s family did not
resemble the remittances discussed in many immigration studies, namely, immigrants’
remitting money back to the homeland to support the family they left behind (Abrego
2009). Instead, the stay-behind husband sent money in the opposite direction. Rebecca’s
husband provided monthly financial support of $2,000, which placed a critical burden on
her husband and the family left behind. It was almost the whole of his monthly income in
Taiwan, and he still needed to pay his own cost of living as well as that of his daughter in
Taiwan, and his elderly mother.
After some years, Rebecca was referred by a friend to a job as a clerk and she
became financially independent. Although her husband continued to send her money, the
amount now varied. Her income from the office work enabled this two-person immigrant
family to lead a humble, but affordable life and paid for their son’s tuition at a public
university. Throughout her two-hour interview, Rebecca seldom mentioned being happy
in the United States. She intentionally kept one question until the end of our conversation
and then answered it tearfully;

80
Would I make the same decision about immigration again? I really don’t
know. Was it worth it? I’m happy that my son is well behaved and is going to
graduate from UCLA. I’ll be OK if he chooses to work here or return to
Taiwan, but if he does decide to return, I want to go with him. I’ll tell you a
secret, but please don’t tell Joana [the person who referred her for the
interview] because I don’t want it to affect my work. I’m flying back to
Taiwan next week to divorce my husband. We’ve had so many arguments
over the phone during these years of separation and our feelings for each
other have faded. The years of separation will soon bring me a divorce. Was it
worth immigrating to the States? I really don’t know the answer, but thank
you for letting me talk about it. (Rebecca, early 50s, office staff)

Looking back over her immigration journey, Rebecca felt proud of her son’s educational
achievement at Arcadia High and UCLA; on the other hand, she had “sacrificed” her
marriage due to the family separation. Her mixed feelings reflect a bright future for her
son and an uncertain one for herself. This illustrates that, while the Green Card Lottery
provides some Taiwanese families, who lack sufficient finances and have limited network
in the United States, an opportunity to pursue the American Dream, this pursuit does not
always lead to a happy outcome.
Another lottery winner, Mrs. Chiang, also has a goose family and has bitter
memories of settling in the Bay Area. She recalled that “The first four years in Cupertino
were tough, and we did not even eat out at restaurants because we could not afford a
tips.” Mrs. Chiang received better and more stable financial support from her husband in

81
Taiwan than Rebecca and this enabled her to better adapt to the new society in the first
couple of years. Mrs. Chiang, who is a college graduate and speaks little English, worked
at T.J. Maxx soon after entering the United States;

When I applied for this job, I asked to work in the fitting room because I
thought my English wasn’t very good and in that position, I only needed to
say hello to customers. But I hated it because the fitting room was like a jail. I
had to stand for over two hours and I had no idea it would be so boring! (Mrs.
Chiang, early 50s, store staff)

Mrs. Chiang’s family relocated from the Bay Area to Southern California when her
daughter was admitted to UCLA. At that time, Mrs. Chiang appreciated institutional help
and her employer arranged a new position for her in a store near her new location in
Southern California. As she said, “T.J. Maxx was good to allow me to transfer my job to
the store in Southern California.” Her own earnings together with the financial support of
her husband enabled the three migrating members of the family—the mother, a daughter,
and a son—to make a better transition and adapt to U.S. society. The family enjoyed their
first vacation to Disney four years after settlement.
Mrs. Chiang’s husband will retire in two years and immigrate to the United States
for reunification, but she anticipates that he will find it difficult to adapt. According to
Mrs. Chiang, “He will have a tough life because he has to adapt to U.S. society from zero
and he will not have a job to focus on.” When comparing Rebecca and Mrs. Chiang, it
appears that the separation of goose families has mixed consequences. The incorporation

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of these families is based on the resources available to them across national borders. If
their American Dream was related to their children’s education, working-class Taiwanese
immigrants had achieved their goal; however, first-generation immigrant adults are less
optimistic about their own future because they work in the same low-paid positions for
years and have no U.S. credential to apply for better jobs. They feel inferior based on the
model minority myth.
The American dream can be achieved better or sooner if immigrants prepare the
journey well in advance in many respects. Yet not all prospective immigrants are well
prepared with respect to finances, especially Green Card Lottery winners with limited
resources. Rebecca’s family started their American dream, which was defined by their
son’s education, and the family spent most of their savings buying a tiny condo in
Arcadia in order to secure a better school district. As mentioned earlier, Rebecca
struggled to make her own life in the United States in the first two years by working as a
restaurant dishwasher at the hourly rate of $8 to reduce the burden of her husband who
only earns $2,000 monthly in Taiwan. At the same time, Rebecca felt extremely
frustrated when she found and failed to help that her son cried alone every night because
he failed to understand his school lessons and homework with his limited English.
Working-class immigrants do not usually have close relatives or friends in the United
States who can provide assistance with settlement. They therefore seek out local help.
Rebecca tried to forge a social network through Taiwanese Christian churches, but she
could not get used to Christian spirituality.

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Small Business Entrepreneurs
Some working-class Taiwanese immigrants take the same route to the American Dream
as the middle- and upper-class Taiwanese discussed in the previous sections, namely,
entrepreneurship. Peter immigrated in 2006 under an L1 visa. As an intra-company
transferee, his company later sponsored his application for permanent residency in the
sixth year. Peter decided to settle in the United States because he could not secure
promotion at the company’s headquarters in Taiwan and his transferee salary in the
United States was higher than it would be if he returned to Taiwan. In the end, Peter
thought about entrepreneurship as his next step because he thought that establishing a
small business would increase his family’s wealth. He started a business trading car parts,
but it has limited revenue. When I visited his warehouse in Ontario, the office only had
some wobbly chairs, a microwave and a small refrigerator for his meal boxes. Peter
opened his business two years ago and still lives modestly because of his struggling
business and the desire to save money. He wants to be able to sponsor his left-behind
wife and child to come to the United States soon.
Grace’s husband did not entertain the idea of running a business in the United States
until he visited his friend in Los Angeles. He helped his friend by repairing his computer
disk, a service that was pricy in the United States. Having identified this is a niche
market, Grace’s husband came to Los Angeles to start a small business with a local friend
in 2003.
7
While Grace’s husband was establishing his small business in Los Angeles, he
returned to Taipei once in the first two years while Grace was still working in Taiwan.
Her family kept pushing her to immigrate, “They kept saying that it was not good for a
married couple to live separately. The more they mentioned the possibility of divorce, the

7
According to her, his H-1B visa was easily approved in 2003.

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more I felt inclined to migrate for reunification. Our child was really young.” As a result,
Grace temporarily moved to the States under an H4 visa during her parental leave year in
2005.
8
Since H4 visa holders are not eligible for employment, she is a full-time
housewife;

I cannot get a mainstream job here. The only available jobs involve working
for ethnic Chinese, such as Banana Wireless. It’s impossible for me to enter
the American mainstream. However, it was my choice. I understood it before
I decided to settle. Although there is little discrimination against Asians in
Southern California, I still feel inferior. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

Grace felt inferior because she knew she would face downward mobility with respect to
social class and lifestyle after immigration, and starting a small business in electronic
accessories and computer services made return migration impossible for Grace’s family.
Despite the hardship, Grace and her husband kept convincing themselves that settlement
had been a good choice because of better education for the children and the nicer weather
in Southern California. In the end, Grace did not return to her job in a
telecommunications company in Taiwan, but settled in Los Angeles. However, their
computer service business has not proved to be profitable. When childcare is no longer
required, a dual income is a must for working-class Taiwanese immigrant families, not an
option. As soon as Grace became eligible to join the labor market, she had to work,
despite the limited pay;

8
The H4 visa is issued to dependent spouses and children of H-1B visa holders.

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I didn’t work until 2007, when my friend’s company needed a receptionist.
The company didn’t pay me well based on my illegal status to work and it
did not sponsor any documentation. I worked but couldn’t save money
because my salary of $700 only paid for a babysitter for my youngest child.
However, I still went to work because I needed to know how to live in the
United States, so instance, where to buy stamps and how to deposit checks at
the bank. Until then, I was only familiar with school areas and only knew how
to pick up my children from school. My friend’s wife taught me a lot, and
although she’s a friend, I was still ashamed. It’s fine when I look back at it.
You get frustrated easily, but you need to learn. (Grace, late 30s, office
receptionist)

Other Legal Entries
Britney, a Master’s degree graduate from UCLA, obtained citizenship by marriage. Her
award-winning work did not lead to a better career in the gateway city of world
entertainment because she had been impeded for years by a lawsuit brought by the father
of her child. This meant that Britney had to work in an office, as well as freelancing on a
part-time basis for other Taiwanese institutions and companies, in order to earn a tiny, but
stable, living allowance and pay her lawyer’s fees. In this way she was able to take care
of the newborn child and simultaneously finance the custody battle. The case of Britney
shows connected transitions of immigration, marriage, and class, which embody on
women.

86
Los Angeles is home to the largest proportion of overseas Taiwanese. The two
national carriers carry 1,500 passengers to and from Taipei and Los Angeles every day.
Since Britney worked in a Taiwanese airline’s largest overseas office in Los Angeles, I
was surprised to learn that she was only paid $20,000 per annum, which meant that life
for her and her young child in the Hollywood area was based on a tight budget. She had
been renting the same one-bedroom apartment since she finished her graduate studies in
film. She also rented the storage room to another Taiwanese student. As a single mother,
Britney struggled between her office work and her goal of a film-making career, between
her aspirations for the child (e.g. a talent class) and her limited income, between full-time
and part-time jobs, and between work, sleep, and childcare. According to one of her
friends I interviewed, it was not easy for Britney to meet up with friends on her days off
because of her part-time job, childcare, and budget. Yet, Britney tried her best to provide
a colorful childhood for her child, such as trips to eat out and a visit to Universal Studios,
which I joined.
Men who immigrate when they are middle-aged are more likely to experience
downward mobility. Mike, a security guard in Riverside, told me, “Lung kuen chien tan,”
which means that a dragon cannot make a difference when it is trapped in sand. In
Chinese myths, dragons are supposed to fly into the clouds, hide at the bottom of the sea,
breathe fire, summon wind, and call for rain. Mike was implying that he was lost in
America. However, although he expressed his frustration as an immigrant in the United
States, he curbed his emotion and kept his dignity by whispering to me in the kitchen
when his wife and children were in the other room. Mike had worked as a first line
manager in Taiwan but now he was a security guard in America. His downward mobility

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was the result of his non-U.S. educational credentials, limited English fluency, and the
limited transferability of his experience between the labor markets in Taiwan and the
United States, despite his citizenship sponsored by his wife as a registered nurse. Mike
had followed his wife to the United States for their children’s education. His wife
immigrated one year earlier than him because she wanted to ensure that her medical
profession would enable the family to lead a simple life and to become familiar with the
U.S. education system for their school-age children.
Mike’s wife works at night as a registered nurse and does extra shifts to earn
$80,000 per annum. Despite this substantial financial contribution, most of their income
and savings are spent on the house—a home for the immigrant family who has no
relatives in the United States. Based on the amount of their mortgage and the number of
their dependent children, the family can be described as working class in some respects;
for example, the house is barely furnished and decorated, the light in the rooms is very
dim, the children have no extra-curricular activities, and the house is inconveniently
located. Mike even apologized for the smell of dung that was carried by the breeze from a
ranch near his house. Although he seldom expressed his frustration at work and the
journey of immigration to the family, it was clear that Mike had sacrificed a developing
career and dignity he had in Taiwan in exchange for better education for his children.
Even though they have been expected to move upward toward the middle-lower class
economically because of the professional wife’s economic contribution and no family
dependents when the children become financially indepdenent, Mike’s family had
experienced downward mobility, especially in terms of Mike’s occupational trajectory.

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Illegal Entry
Compared to those immigrants who entered the United States legally, those who entered
illegally felt insecure until they obtained legal status. Two of the participants in this study
had a challenging adventure by illegally overstaying in the United States. Mr. Liu and his
wife wanted a better life and Doris aimed to start a new life after her divorce. Doris’s
friend in the United States referred her to a hair salon so that she could continue her
profession as a hairstylist in the San Gabriel Valley in 2002 and she worked there
illegally until she met her current husband and obtained a green card through marriage.
She was unable to drive or access any workplace benefits for seven years based on her
illegal immigration status and she was constantly worried that she would be arrested by
the police in a public space or her workplace;

I cut people’s hair every day and I was so lucky not to be caught by the police
or I would have been heavily penalized and deported. [Yu-Kang: Who would
report you as illegal?] Not customers but other salon bosses who were jealous
about your increasing business. (Doris, early 40s, hairstylist)

Doris would have continued with this stressful way of life because she was illegal and
constantly worried about arrest and deportation. Her marriage to an Asian man with
permanent residency had ended her illegality.
9
Doris’s husband, who works as a private
driver, has a limited income, which he supplements by operating a private shuttle service
to LAX airport. The couple is unable to apply for a loan to purchase a house because they

9
Doris’s husband has decided not to naturalize because he would have to give up his citizenship in Macau.
Doris, like many other Taiwanese, also holds dual citizenship of Taiwan and the United States.

89
have no taxation history based on their self-employment with limited profits. As a self-
employed couple, they will also not be entitled to retirement pension. Meeting a great
many newly-rich Chinese immigrants at work further dimmed their American Dream.
Doris told a story about ‘parachute’ customers, who were young Chinese student
migrants staying in the United States without their parents;

I cut the hair of a classmate of my son [a son from Jason’s previous marriage].
A haircut for men costs between $20 and $50, but do you know how much he
tipped? [She indicated the number 20 with a gesture.] They are fu-er-dai
[second-generation rich] from China. Money seems to be no object for them.
They only come to study but their parents buy a house that costs $500,000 or
more to enable them to live alone. (Doris, early 40s, hairstylist)

Doris’s husband joined the conversation over dinner and told me of a similar experience
his brother had of a rich Chinese parachute student;

The market in San Gabriel Valley is targeting these children from China. My
brother, who works in auto repair, said these children’s luxury cars get
smashed up just a few weeks after they buy them. He asked one boy if he
needed car insurance, but he said no, he could afford to pay $9,000 cash for
repairs. (Jason, early 40s, private driver)

With a limited income, this Taiwanese hairstylist and her husband did not look to the

90
future in the United States as optimistically as their middle- and upper-class counterparts.
Their frustration was not only based on comparing themselves with their Taiwanese
peers, but also the ethnic Chinese in their workplaces, who flaunted their wealth. During
my participant observation at her salon, Doris sometimes acquiesced to Chinese
customers’ demand to continually trim their hair when it was not necessary in order to
avoid incurring their dissatisfaction and to offer them more services.

Invisible Taiwanese Behind the Model Minority Myth
Their lifestyle and the affordability of children’s education help to explain why limited
household incomes in the United States cause lower-class immigrants to lead working-
poor lives. Some maintain this lifestyle because they were lower class when they arrived,
while others have changed in their lifestyle because of downward mobility after
immigration. The lower-class Taiwanese budget in many ways; for example, they restrict
restaurant visits, grocery shopping, home appliances, and educational opportunities for
their children. The working-class immigrants interviewed in this study had encountered
many situations like this since their immigration;

I have to walk everywhere with my children because we have only one car.
We only have one cellphone too because the fee, including tax, is $60. I don’t
want another line for myself. If I am going somewhere and need a phone, I
borrow my husband’s a day before because he can be reached on his office
phone. Our fruit is always apples and bananas because they are the cheapest.
If oranges are on promotion, we have oranges. We go to 99 Ranch Market to

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shop for groceries at the weekend because I can’t walk too far carrying the
shopping. When the children see snacks at 99 Ranch, I have to firmly say no.
Not being able to afford snacks for them makes me really stressed. We don’t
know what tomorrow will bring and, after all, they are just snacks. The
children will not go hungry without them. I always tell them that I’ll buy
snacks next time. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

The participant observation data reveals the same pattern. I accompanied some immigrant
mothers on grocery shopping trips between 2013 and 2015. The working-class
immigrants usually visited a 168 Supermarket or 99 Ranch Market for meat, food, and
discounted items because it was cheaper. A big box of 12 mangos costs less than $3. In
contrast, the upper- and middle-class immigrant mothers visited the Japanese market,
Mitsuwa, for food. They didn’t care about the price, only the quality of the meat and
seafood, as well as their family members’ favorites. They felt less stressed about buying
expensive items, such as imported Japanese beef, when they wanted to make a hot-pot for
dinner.
In addition to consumption at grocery stores, lower-class immigrants limited their
meals. Robert, a former truck driver, ordered a burger (not a meal) for his delivery trips.
Irene, an acupuncturist, skipped lunch or optioned spoiled eggs for lunch. Taiwanese
people like drinking bubble milk tea, also called tapioca tea, from teashops, but the
price—$5—deters working-class families. These habits are incorporated into the lifestyle
and parenting of some working-class immigrant mothers;

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When we first arrived here, my daughter wanted to drink boba milk tea. I was
stunned when I saw the price in the teashop. Oh my god, why is it so
expensive? Plus tax is added. It’s cheap in Taiwan. I daren’t buy drinks for
them and me. Not buying drinks has gradually become a habit. (Grace, late
30s, office receptionist)

The majority of immigrants in this group tend not to eat out because of the prices and tips.
Working-class participants, such as Irene, Doris, Britney, and Grace, are less likely to
visit Taiwanese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley because they think authentic Taiwanese
flavors in restaurants are too expensive;

We do not eat out because it involves taxes and tips. When friends suggested
eating out, I always agreed, but when the time came, I invited them to my
house instead and. I treated them to dumplings at home rather than eating out
because I don’t dare to eat out because of the price. (Grace, late 30s, office
receptionist)

Grace, together with Irene and Gloria, described their change of lifestyle, which further
reflected downward mobility during the process of settlement. Grace’s use of air-
conditioning clearly reveals her lifestyle associated with her social class after
immigration;

93
I kept complaining about the hot weather in Taiwan during my last visit.
Although it’s also hot in summer in the Valley area, I don’t not turn the AC
on in the States. I still feel OK with just a fan. (Grace, late 30s, office
receptionist)

They dimmed the light at home and in the office during my visit. Moreover, the family
usually has only one car or no car at all. Grace gave an example of the inconvenience:
“We only have one car. It is not easy for me when my husband drives to work.” She
walks for grocery shopping and school pick-ups. Some working-class Taiwanese
immigrants and their children take a bus to commute from San Gabriel Valley to
Downtown Los Angles and Westwood for work or school. As noted earlier, a dual
income is a must, not an option when childcare is not required in working-class families.
When immigrant wives become available to the labor force, they must work despite
limited pay.
Lastly, household finances play a central role in working-class immigrants’ lives.
Some working-class Taiwanese in the United States have moved from the middle-lower
class in Taiwan to the lower class in the United States. As Grace said, “My life went
down after immigration”;

Unlike those rich immigrants or refugees with government support, I brought
all my savings, only $8,000, with me to the States. I told my husband we
would be finished if his monthly salary wasn’t paid on time. The rent was the
main expense. We rented this house for $2,000 because it is in a better

94
environment for the children. They need to study at good districts. If we
didn’t have his salary, we would be $1,000 short every month. We were so
stressed then because we were always worried that the salary wouldn’t arrive
on time. We economized on everything. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

The working-class immigrants in this study found it more difficult to make ends meet
than their middle- and upper-class counterparts. For example, Mr. Liu, a former factory
worker, earned $3 an hour in the 1980s, and Rebecca, a former restaurant worker, earned
$8 an hour in the 2000s.
10
Mrs. Wong, a former clerk in the U.S. Postal Service, is
currently having to choose between medical care and her savings because she suffered an
occupational injury and was fired a year before she was eligible for retirement. When I
interviewed Melody in 2013, she was a full-time middle-class housewife, but she became
a caregiver for the elderly after her divorce in 2015 for which she was paid $12 an hour.
In addition to the effect of low pay, it could be argued that critical transitions and the
mortgage on their property keep the immigrants locked in the status of working class.
It was also noted that immigrants without family support in the host society are
forced to deal with critical issues, such as finances, on their own. The working-class
Taiwanese discussed above did not seek financial support from their families in Taiwan.
When immigrants face critical financial issues, they seek assistance from friends in the
United States rather than family in Taiwan, even though they hesitate to ask, or fail to get,
it. For example, Britney, who worked as ground staff for a Taiwanese airline, said, “I feel
shy to borrow money from friends,” and her friends had refused her request. Although

10
According to the Department of Industrial Relations in the State of California, their hourly wages were
close to the State’s minimum wage in the two eras. See
http://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/minimumwagehistory.htm

95
working-class Taiwanese immigrants who experience downward mobility in terms of
income, lifestyle, jobs and a lower social class status tend to resolve their issues over time,
they never reveal their suffering during their first years of settlement to their families in
Taiwan;

I didn’t tell my family any details of my suffering until recently. They asked
me about my immigrant life in the first couple of years and I couldn’t tell
them anything negative. Yet I didn’t dare buy a small pack of snacks for the
children. My children wanted me to buy them snacks, but I didn’t dare. Now I
can tell you as if it was a joke. After some years, I was able to confess to my
parents that I had suffered. I disliked dining out and chose to cook at home in
order to save money, but when they asked me if I ate regularly and well, I
always lied to them. It was sad. It’s not like that now. (Grace, late 30s, office
receptionist)

Since the working-class Taiwanese are plagued by financial problems, both parents and
children lead invisible lives in the ethnic Taiwanese and Chinese community in the San
Gabriel Valley. Moreover, invisible lives extend to immigrant children because the
parents generally have lower education aspiration. As mentioned earlier, providing a
better education for the children was the major reason for immigration for many
participants across all class groups. The working-class Taiwanese tried their best to
educate their children, and explored U.S. education and public schools since they had not

96
been educated in the American system. Yet their less-pushy parenting style received
negative attention from their immigrant peers.

The educational environment is less stressful in the United States. I do not
advocate talent classes. But one child of mine learns swimming. Another likes
painting. I told them to feel free to tell me what they like and I will bring
them to learn if it is not expensive. Again, after-school programs are not on
my list. Some of my friends condemn me for not allowing the children to
learn Mandarin. I personally think that it does not work because I am lazy
about teaching and revising for them. Their dad and I do not require them to
speak Chinese at home. Interestingly, they automatically speak Chinese to us
but they sometimes stop delivering messages because of their limited
vocabulary. They think their dad and mom cannot understand English. (Grace,
late 30s, receptionist)

Grace is also less ambitious about her children’s education, whereas middle-class
Taiwanese immigrants spend time and money on arranging after-school activities and
summer programs. The working-class Taiwanese immigrants only enroll their children on
lower-price programs.

It is not a summer school per se to learn English and math from morning to
afternoon. It is a program offering sports classes from Monday to Friday, and
it continues for four weeks from July. Take the tennis class for example, 20

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sessions cost $150. It is affordable. The class size is large, but I do not expect
that they will learn. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

During the interview, her children came to talk about what they were going to do after
my visit. Grace pointed out her child’s limited communication in Mandarin. She
explained why it is less meaningful for her to let the children learn Mandarin formally.

You see their Chinese vocabulary is limited. They can communicate, but they
keep repeating limited word choices. It depends on luck with respect to their
Mandarin. But their English at least is better than ours. I have to take care of
three kids. They write in Chinese practice books only when you enforce it. It
is not beneficial for their future. They won’t listen to you when they become
high-school students. I also found that the [American-born Taiwanese]
children cannot write Chinese characters in order, and they wrongly write a
character from right to left. They really regard Chinese character writing as
painting. I think it is meaningless. I have no reason to send them to learn
Chinese. It is my excuse for my laziness…My friend sends her children to
Chinese school on Sunday, from 8am to 12pm. The school has a good
reputation. Why? Because teachers assign a lot of homework for a week, you
need to write every day and it works best. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

As a result, her children are not learning Mandarin at Chinese classes or after-school
programs in the way that the children of upper- and middle-class families do. Instead, she

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merely guides the children into knowing more about Chinese writing or conversation
when they show an interest. Grace provides an example: “When the children are
interested in what Chinese characters I’m writing in a [Line] message, I hold their hands
to write on the smartphone. Their levels of interest determine how much I teach them.”
Working-class Taiwanese immigrant parents are accordingly less ambitious about their
children’s talent and academic performance than their middle-class counterparts, who
encourage their children to learn more and win any award they can.
Their parenting styles are structurally intertwined with family resources. For
instance, the Saturday Chinese class charges $450 in Temple City and $525 in Irvine for
a school year (30 weeks); after-school programs that provide homework assistance and
supplementary English/math charge $200 (three days a week) or $270 (five days a week)
in Temple City. The American dream, which immigrants define and achieve through
education, is pursued differently by immigrant families according social class. Working-
class families with school-age children try their best to select an affordable talent class.
The children usually do not attend after-school programs or have extracurricular
activities. High-school students and their families aim to be admitted to a public
university, preferably one nearby, in order to avoid the additional expense of tuition and
dormitory fees. The children of some research participants did not study at college, or
else went to less well-known schools or community college.
During my interviews, working-class Taiwanese immigrants often hesitated to tell
me about the colleges where their children had graduated, and tended to hide information
about their children’s talents. On being probed they felt embarrassed that their children
had graduated from schools, which they assumed I would not recognize, and which they

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thus felt shameful to share. The schools in question, such as the second tier of UC
schools, have good reputations but do not fit in with the narrow mindset about education
among the Taiwanese community in Southern California. For instance, UC Riverside is
known as UC Reject or UC Retards in the Taiwanese community in Southern California.
As a result, the working-class Taiwanese found it stressful to compare their efforts for
their own children, and their children’s achievements, against those of middle- and upper-
class Taiwanese immigrants in terms of college. Mr. Liu’s children do not complete
higher education; Doris’s daughter studies at a community college; Mike’s children study
at UC Riverside. Yet, exceptions do exidt: Rebecca’s son graduated from UCLA in 2014
and Irene’s daughters pursued graduate study with the financial support of her divorced
husband.

All or Nothing: Mobility of Junior Professionals in Ethnic Businesses
Some junior professionals who work in ethnic businesses have similar lifestyles and
financial problems, added to which they gamble or trust in luck for an opportunity to
obtain legal immigration status. As noted, student migrants generally work after
graduation under the Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows them to pursue a
temporary career for a year to search for U.S. employers who are willing to sponsor them
for a H-1B non-immigrant working visa.
11
These foreign workers with H-1B status
cannot leave the employer who sponsored them until they have obtained permanent
residency; otherwise, they will have to leave the United States. All student migrants
without citizenship are limited to this option.

11
STEM graduates are eligible to apply for a 17-month extension after they complete the OPT.

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According to students who migrated prior to the 2000s, especially those who
graduated in the 1980s, they found employment easily and their employers tended to
sponsor them for permanent residency, while more recent student migrants are faced with
a multi-stage process to obtain U.S. permanent residency. Some student migrants have
moved to the middle class over the years, which demonstrates their mobility. In contrast,
Frank is a student migrant who is still struggling to obtain legal status.
Having graduated from the USC with a Master’s degree, Frank works as a junior
engineer in a Taiwan-based company in an industrial suburb of Los Angeles in the San
Gabriel Valley. Frank accepted this job, which pays less than $30,000 per annum,
because he planned to settle in the United States with his girlfriend. Although he
currently works under an H-1B visa, his company has not promised him an application
for permanent residency. Since Frank cannot freely transfer from the sponsoring
company, he puts up with his work and low pay in return for a legal work visa, which
constitutes a promise of future permanent residency. His annual pay is normal for
Taiwanese professional migrants working in ethnic businesses. Frank shares an apartment
in Cerritos and lives on a planned budget. According to him, he is unable to properly plan
his settlement until he obtains permanent residency. Due to his uncertain immigration
status, he remains in the same company and works hard to please his employers in the
hope that they will sponsor his application for permanent residency.
Despite the ambivalence of his working-class lifestyle and middle-class profession,
Frank prefers a more comfortable life in the United States and has no plans to return to

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Taiwan. During his few years of working in the United States, he has realized the
difference in labor conditions; therefore, return migration is not a priority;
12

The laws in the States care more about workers’ rights. You can sue if your
rights are violated and the company has to deal with it. In Taiwan, you dream
of getting off work by 8pm. You laugh and feel lucky if you get off by 11pm.
The pay in Taiwan cannot be compared with the pay in the States. I don’t
know why you get paid such a lot in America when you have such a low
workload and everyone works so slowly. For instance, they only check once
with the related department when you ask for a tracking number. If they don’t
receive the number, they just shrug their shoulders and say no to you. They
don’t try to follow up and push for delivery. Then, they leave the office on
time and still get paid on the day. It doesn’t matter to them. It is so strange.
(Frank, 32, engineer)

Frank also drew on his girlfriend’s experience when describing why they intended to
settle in the United States and hesitated to return to Taiwan. Although his girlfriend had
been referred to some headhunting firms in Taiwan during her return visit, she had
realized that student migrants are less valued in the job market back in the homeland;

She worked for L’Oréal in Taiwan and now she works for a PR
company in the States.
13
She also has a diploma in the States. The

12
Although Frank works for an ethnic business, he is still able to know about this from interacting with
Americans in partner companies.

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headhunting firms in Taiwan told her that this was only comparable to a
Master’s from the National Taiwan University [the most prestigious
school in Taiwan]. They said she was not over-qualified for any
position and she would need to restart as an assistant. She freaked out
when she heard the word “assistant.” This was what she had done in
Taiwan prior to studying abroad. Why should she do the same assistant
job after getting a Master’s degree abroad? (Frank, 32, engineer)

Recent student migrants hesitate to return to Taiwan, where baby boomers have remained
in senior positions since the recession. This absence of mobility constrains the career
development and salaries of the younger generation in the Taiwanese labor market. On
the basis of his girlfriend’s experience, Frank felt frustrated about this absence of
occupational mobility.

The headhunting firms did nothing to help and just acknowledged the current
conditions in Taiwan: the older generation is not retiring. The generation in
their 30s and 40s cannot be promoted. It squeezes younger workers’
opportunities. We cannot see the top of the mountain when we have almost
reached the age of 30. Everyone is occupying his position and no one is
leaving in the poor economy. (Frank, 32, engineer)

As a result, some student migrants, such as this unmarried couple, plan to settle because
they consider the United States to be a better environment in all respects. Like this

13
The public relations company is owned by Asians, but not Taiwanese or Chinese.

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couple, Taiwanese junior professionals in ethnic companies forge connections with their
peers in order to share information about the job market, ask for referrals, and build
informal support groups. During the participant observation at a Taiwanese teashop in
Alhambra, I found three single Taiwanese engineers and marketing specialists in their
late 20s updating each other on their progress at work. They talked about their work, the
procedure for an H-1B visa application, and the timelines for permanent residency
applications.
Junior professionals in ethnic companies are unable to save money to buy a house
based on their low wages ($30,000 per annum) compared to those of their junior
counterparts who worked in Silicon Valley for Microsoft ($80,000 per annum), Oracle
($90,000 per annum), and Google ($100,000 per annum) in 2014. Similar to what some
sociological studies of ethnic enclaves find, immigrants do not always benefit from living
and working in ethnic enclaves; in fact, these enclaves have a negative effect on their
economic outcome (Sanders and Nee 1987; Xie and Gough 2011).
Some Taiwanese junior professionals have gone off-track after obtaining higher-
education qualifications in the United States because of their immigration status and jobs
in ethnic businesses. Take STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
graduates with master’s degrees in the United States, for example: some Taiwanese
engineers had failed to join the fast-track of professional immigration through jobs in
Silicon Valley, and were only able to work in Southern Californian ethnic businesses,
which gave them legal but temporary status to work in the United States. Mobility also
heavily depends on immigration status. For instance, engineers in ethnic businesses put
up with limited salaries in return for their employers’ promises of sponsored work visas

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and possibly U.S. citizenship. While they hold sponsored status, engineers cannot freely
transfer to other companies that do not sponsor work visas or permanent residency. They
are only able to switch jobs after they obtain permanent residency. As a result, permanent
residency plays the role of enabling junior professionals to freely find better opportunities
on the mainstream job market, without restrictions from their immigration status. Their
fortunes in ethnic businesses are strongly tied to immigration status in the making of the
American dream. In a nutshell, prior to obtaining permanent residency, junior engineers
live in a situation similar to the working poor with respect to income, lifestyle, and
practices of transnational caregiving. The junior engineers’ situation also applies to junior
professionals in ethnic media, marketing, and other administrative jobs in this study.
Junior professionals can win the race for the American Dream and anticipate a
middle-class status as long as they obtain permanent residency and have access to
mainstream jobs. They will lose the game if they fail to obtain permanent residency or
even an H-1B visa and have to return to Taiwan. A 30-year-old graphic designer returned
because his company in Burbank would not sponsor either permanent residency or a
repeat of an H-1B visa. Kelly left her job as a salesperson at Victoria’s Secret Underwear
for the same reason, despite her consistently high sales revenue. Li-Ting was working as
an unpaid intern while waiting for a possible transition to a formal position after OPT. An
accounting specialist who worked as an intern in an ethnic accounting firm under an H-
1B visa faced the decision to return to Taiwan because “the company has no interest in
sponsoring a green card.” The American Dream had been lost to these former migrants I
interviewed in Taiwan. When I shared these cases with a former accounting manager,
who was categorized as upper-class, he told me, “None of the Chinese bosses are stupid.

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They are smart. Every Chinese accounting firm in Los Angeles is exploiting student
migrants without sponsoring them for a green card.” Similarly, Li-Ting and May were
working as interns without pay while waiting for possible transition to formal positions
after OPT.
In short, working-class Taiwanese are able to achieve social mobility and become
relatively better off over several years. They can then be categorized as middle-lower or
middle class in terms of household income. Junior professionals’ class transition is very
likely to occur after they have obtained permanent residency because they can transfer to
a better job in their profession that usually requires citizenship but pays well; therefore,
their upward mobility is arguably mainly associated with their immigration status. This is
expected to affect junior professionals more that blue-collar, self-employed, and office
workers, because their U.S. educational qualifications help their search for middle-class
jobs in the American mainstream.
Based on the interviews and participant observation, Taiwanese immigrants can only
move out of the working-class category thanks to either additional income earners in the
household after marriage or the absence of dependents. These immigrants are expected to
achieve social mobility; yet, some may remain in the category of working poor. It could
be said that any critical transition can keep them as working-class or move them
downward from the middle to the lower class.

Stratified Flexibility of Obtaining Citizenship
Lily achieved the American Dream based on her husband’s real estate business, which
defined her financial status and lifestyle. Her family’s migration, including her sisters,

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parents, and herself, reflects the flexibility of the visa status in the settlement process.
The flexibility of visas associated with economic resources is commonly found in the
upper-class group.
Lily’s younger sister came as a student migrant (F-1), but transferred to the status of
intra-company transferee (L-1) to legalize stay. The intra-company transferee visa is for
foreign workers in managerial positions in the U.S. office of the same employer outside
the United States. In Lily’s case, the employer was her father, who purchased a 20-unit
property in Monterey Park in 1977 when he visited California under a tourist visa. The
sister obtained citizenship by marrying an American citizen. The parents soon
immigrated as investors (EB-5), but remained living in Taiwan. Lily’s older sister came
as a family dependent of her husband, who was an intra-company transferee (L-1).
Although the family network was able to ease Lily’s “settlement” under a tourist visa (B),
she still hesitated to ask for their assistance in 1984, not only because she wanted to save
face, which refers to reputation or dignity in the Chinese culture, but also because her
family relationships are not close as Lily described.
Despite the isolation Lily experienced, the family support still worked. Her sister
escorted her to the DMV for a driving license test and her parents funded her husband’s
first property project in Arcadia. Meanwhile, Lily became American after using a tourist
visa and the dependent visas of her husband as a student, intra-company transferee, and
investor. Similarly, Nancy immigrated to the United States with her husband, who is an
expatriate, working as a manager in the U.S. office of a Taiwanese company. When her
husband started his own company selling computer parts, Nancy helped with the
accounting and administration with her business major.

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In addition to intra-company transferee, which the entrepreneurs in Taiwan can
obtain in advance, some entrepreneurial families immigrated under Direct Investment and
Regional Center Investment (EB-5). For instance, Mr. Chen came as investor to start a
hotel business because his wife, who comes from one of the richest families in Taiwan,
secured the funds for his project from her stay-behind parents. He did not encounter any
problem with his legal status and he continued to expands his business from hotels to
trade and real estate. He promotes Los Angeles property to wealthy Chinese investors.
Yvonne and her husband immigrated in early 2000 to provide a better education for their
son. Based on their restaurant experience in Taiwan, they opened a Taiwanese restaurant
in Hacienda Heights and another three in Irvine and Arcadia within a decade. These
entrepreneurial families were able to obtain citizenship in less than five years.
Two thirds of the middle-class immigrants used to stay as student migrants. They
obtain citizenship through their employment, which took eight to ten years. They worked
under a working visa (H1-B) for up to six years and asked their employers to sponsor a
citizenship application. Despite their high educational attainment, more women were
employed as semi-professionals and clerks than professionals. Some highly educated
women were full-time housewives, who cared for their children until they were ready to
enter a college. Apart from those (semi-)professionals and unemployed housewives, some
families had the idea to accumulate wealth by assigning the men to start a business (e.g.
computer gadgets and auto parts) and the women kept their salaried jobs. Their access to
American citizenship was relatively simple, but stable.
The settlement of the twenty one working-class respondents in this study was
relatively diverse. Three of them had entered the United States as tourists but overstayed

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illegally and they worked as factory laborer, hair stylist, and fung-shui specialist. Two
Taiwanese immigrated under the diversity visa program, but their homeland resources
and lack of U.S. credentials constrained their mobility. They now work as store staff and
office receptionist. Two men entered as dependents of their immigrant spouse and
currently work as warehouse and office security guards based on the poor transferability
of their job experience after immigration. They were ill-prepared for settlement in terms
of financial and educational capital. However, four former student migrants were
supposed to enter the mainstream American life but they were left behind because they
were constrained by legal status and critical life transition. Britney has not moved up the
social scale because she has struggled between childcare, employment in an ethnic
business, and the huge fees connected to a divorce lawsuit, which has lasted for more
than five years. One couple was laid off and struggled between the loss of employment
benefits and medical costs, and lastly, family transitions led to downward mobility when
two women moved down to this group because of a critical family transition. Gloria and
her artist husband immigrated as aliens of extraordinary ability (EB-1A), but went
bankrupt when their business failed, and Melody, who married a Taiwanese American,
failed to obtain a salaried position after her divorce because she had worked as a full-time
housewife since she immigrated and had no U.S. credentials.

Conclusion
Despite there being no consensus as to the meaning of social class when it is used as a
tool for a sociological analysis, most scholars frequently categorize the American
population in a stratification system based on some factors, such as economic power (e.g.

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income, wealth, and occupation), status ascription, group life, cultural differences, and
political power (Gordon 1949; Wright 1996, 2009). I traced the immgrants’ economic
resources in the homeland, as well as their first and current jobs in the host society. The
Taiwanese described in this chapter had various channels of emigration, settlement, and
incorporation, but the reproduction of their original class status played a crucial role in
these processes.
In this chapter, it was shown that the individual’s class-making during the
immigration process is linked to the class resources they had in the homeland and they
earned the host society. Immigrants from the same ethnic group are not channeled into
the same segmented process of settlement and incorporation. Instead, the Taiwanese
settlement is segmented within the group. This settlement process also presents a
transnational reproduction of social class: the settlement of Taiwanese immigrants in the
United States is linked to their homeland resources and corresponding pathways of
immigration. Most cases suggest the transferability of social class across national
borders. Prospects of mobility is arguably stratified because it significantly articulates
with their access to legal status.
This stratified settlement suggested three common types of Taiwanese immigrant
families, which I define as upper class (entrepreneurs), middle class (professionals, semi-
professionals, and small entrepreneurs), and working class (manual laborers, small
business starters, and clerks). Although the Taiwanese immigrate to the United States in
the same way, they face different types of incorporation. For instance, some Taiwanese
acquire economic capital after immigration by utilizing entrepreneurship. Based on their
existing resources, there are two kinds of businessmen, namely, rich and starter

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entrepreneurs. By the same token, as student migrants have settled, newcomer migrants
face a different reception and they tend to experience structural obstacles. The Master’s
students who migrated before 2000 were less likely to report problems with obtaining
citizenship, even if they initially worked in an ethnic business. Those who migrated after
2000 are more likely to live precariously because it takes longer to obtain citizenship,
which is their passport to better employment and benefits.
In contrast to the public’s perspective, some Taiwanese immigrants who came under
the diversity program and stayed illegally experienced limited mobility for themselves.
They and their children may not drain America’s resources, but all these cases clearly
show the diversity of Taiwanese immigrants. Empirically, social class does not only
stratifies immigrants’ migration, settlement, and incorporation in the host society, but it
also stratifies their transnational involvement of eldercare provision.
Based on the examination of stratified settlement, the chapters as follow will be
demonstrated that immigrants’ social class were found to be related to their family
culture and their capacity to provide transnational eldercare. Conceptually, the levels of
transnational caregiving, in fact, reflects the immigrants’ socio-encomic incorportation
and the transnational reproduction of class formation surrounding the cultures of family
eldercare. Middle-class immigrants will be the focus of the next chapter.

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Chapter 3: Middle-Class Immigrant Families: Polymediated Care

The middle-class Taiwanese immigrants include senior and managerial professionals,
engineers, doctors, professors, administration specialists, and a banker. Despite some
variations within this class, these immigrants’ experiences coherently demonstrate the
struggle involved in transnational caregiving. They struggle to establish their career and
their plan of return migration; they struggle with parenting in America and caregiving
across borders; they struggle with two shifts of caring for both the older and younger
generations, either when living together in the United States or across borders. When
faced with transnational caregiving, the middle-classes try their best to care about their
parents emotionally through telecommunication technology. They ideally seek a sibling
in Taiwan to act as the primary caregiver or recruiting a migrant caregiver if necessary.
Care for the elderly is managed by transnational collaboration of family members. Some
of the immigrants in this group have tried to petition for family reunification by
sponsoring their elderly parents to live in America for their later years. Before the
reunification, the elderly parents come to the United States regularly for a period of time
over several years in order to meet the criteria for permanent residency. Although the
immigration run of the older generation is good for providing families with intermittent
reunification, temporary reunification causes competing care work and family conflicts in
the tentative immigrant family.
The middle-class Taiwanese immigrants in this study lead a good life, residing in
houses in Temple City, Rosemead, Pasadena, Monterey Park, Monrovia, Hacienda
Heights, Chino Hills, Irvine, and Dana Point in California. Most of the married women

112
work in order to maintain a dual income and coordinate their children’s transport between
home, school, and after-school activities with their husbands. They sometimes alternate
home cooking with buying meals at restaurants because of the limited time they have
after finishing work. Some married women do not work because their husbands’ pay
from a managerial position or the IT industry is sufficient for them to be full-time
housewives. They prepare breakfast for the family, drive their children to school in a
CRV, shop for groceries in a Japanese market, meet their friends for lunch, do occasional
volunteer work at their children’s schools, pick up their children from school or after-
school activities or sports, and then prepare dinner. Some of them even pay Mexican
domestic helpers $20 per hour to clean the house.
As noted earlier, I measured transnational eldercare in terms of emotional support
(transnational emotional connections and home visits), instrumental support (the
arrangement of a primary caregiver and direct personal care), and financial support. The
following table captures the intensity of care and the extent to which participants made an
effort to provide eldercare across borders in selected dimensions. Data from interviews
was coded as 0 (none), 0.5 (sometimes), or 1 (frequently).

Table 3-1 Means of Transnational Eldercare Provision Intensity by Gender
Emotional
Support
Return
Visits
Caregiver
Arrangement
Personal Care Financial
Support
Men(N=33) 0.24 0.36 0.33 0.00 0.27
Women(N=50) 0.77 0.73 0.41 0.33 0.26
* 0=None, 1=Frequent

Based on Table 3-1, middle-class women’s effort of emotional support and return visit is
the most dominant form of transnational eldercare. I will show that middle-class

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immigrants, especially women, accomplish these through polymediated care across
national borders. According to the anthropological work of Madianou and Miller (2012),
middle-class immigrant women’s practices of transnational eldercare are best defined as
polymediated because they rely heavily on a wide variety of free or low-cost
telecommunication services to provide emotional support to elderly parents, check on the
parents’ wellbeing, communicate with stay-behind family caregivers, and maintain kin-
keeping connections on a regular and frequent basis from a distance. In addition, middle-
class women return to the homeland more frequently than the men and provide direct
care, as I suggest from interview data. Both men and women coordinate with stay-behind
family for arranging the primary caregiver and provide money to parents.

Emotional Support
The immigrants experience family separation for either a short or long period of time.
Some maintain the hope of reunification and apply for green cards on behalf of their
parents via family reunification, while others decide not to invite their parents to
immigrate in their old age. The first generation immigrants retain their ties of affection
with the stay-behind family despite having their own new family in the United States.
Compared to the transnational practices of later-generation immigrants, which have been
examined based on identity and opportunities in the global market, the first generation
immigrants continue to engage in transnational practices, mainly for family members,
especially elderly parents. Therefore, how middle-class immigrants care for their elderly
parents, what family meanings are emerging, and how they respond to national borders in
their transnational caregiving practice are all examined starting from this section.

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Most Taiwanese immigrants care for their elderly parents across borders. A group of
them described their intergenerational relationships as being more familiar with the daily
lives and schedules of the stay-behind parents, compared to those who responded in an
evasive way when asked about their interaction with their parents during the interviews.
It can be argued that the intergenerational relationship between the immigrants and their
parents affect the content and frequency of their emotional support. Aries, an assistant
professor at a prestigious university, can clearly describe her mother’s life in Taiwan,
partly because their transnational contact is intense and partly because the two
generations have regularly visited each other across borders for the past ten years.
According to interviews with Aries in Los Angeles and her mother in Taipei, the
mother’s schedule is as follows;

Table 3-2 An Example of Elderly Daily Schedule
Time Activity
5am Wake up for hiking
6am Return from hiking
Breakfast
Morning Skype; Volunteer at a religious affiliation or hospital
Lunch
Afternoon Take a nap
Evening Hiking
Dinner
Source: Aries and her stay-behind mother

Aries’s practice of caring for the elderly does not need to be intimate because her mother
is active and capable of taking care of herself. I met her mother in Taipei to find out
about her life in retirement and with the possible aim to confirm the information I had
received from Aries in Los Angeles. Her mother goes hiking twice a day (in the morning

115
and evening) near her apartment in Taiwan. In Los Angeles, Aries expressed that “She
[her mother] values heath very much. Some farmers plant vegetables on the hills and she
likes to buy some when hiking.” In Taipei, her mother told me, “I need to take care of my
health in order not to become a burden on my children.” When I met her mother in Taipei,
she showed me a lot of photos she had prepared for the interview. Most of them were
related to her work as a volunteer. This is because the mother is focusing on voluntary
work in her later years, which is associated with her religion. She implied during our
conversation that her life was managed very well by volunteering at affiliated hospitals in
different locations on the island of Taiwan. From Aries’s perspective, “it is better for her
[her mother] to have something to focus on so that she will not think about my absence.”
In the face of family separation, transnational care is mainly practiced by making
international phone calls. Aries’s mother makes an international call whenever she misses
Aries. However, she hangs the phone up after it has rung a few times so that Joyce can
see the number of the missed caller in Taiwan and call her back as soon as she can. In this
way, her mother does not need to pay for international calls in Taiwan and the immigrant
pays the lower tariff when making calls from the United States.
Intense international calls over the years have exhausted some immigrants’ energy
and emotion. Aries explained,

I sometimes felt stressed. My mother would call me when I was busy. She did
not want to talk about anything important, and I would say I was in a meeting
and would call her back. I sometimes missed her calls for one to two days and

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I realized I felt easier during those two days. I think it was fine because she
was busy with her own stuff in Taiwan as well. (Aries, 40, assistant professor)

As a result of long years of family separation, Aries dreams of family reunification in the
United States.
Technology changes the forms of transnational contact. Video calls were not widely
available until the early 2000s and the early wave of Taiwanese immigrants contacted
stay-behind family via calling cards. According to Alex, his transnational contact with
stay-behind family had changed since “technology has been developed and made it
better. International calls cost a lot when I was student. I clearly remember that it was
$2.4 for the first minute.” Apart from free video calls via the internet, it has cost Aries
around $30 every month for international calls in the past ten years.
However, international phone calls are less intimate than chat applications,
Facebook photos, or video calls, in which middle-class immigrants describe their lives in
America in terms of the weather, meals they have had, and scenery they have explored,
and most importantly, provide updates to their elderly parents on the status of their
American-born grandchildren. When Ching-Yi shared information about her family’s
lives with posts, photos, and messages on Facebook and chat applications, “they [the
parents] would say they wanted to go to that park on their next visit.” Sharing
information through new forms of telecommunication enables immigrants to prove to
their elderly parents that they are safe in America. It matters for their elderly parents,
based on the interviews with the adult children and some of the elderly in Taiwan.
Sharing information through new forms of telecommunication also provides topics their

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parents can use for conversation during free or low-cost international calls, and even
arouse the stay-behind parents’ interest in visiting or immigrating to the United States.
According to the women in my study, video calls provide a more co-present experience
for kin-keeping between immigrant women, their American-born children, and their stay-
behind parents in Taiwan. As Ching-Yi describes:

My mother likes to talk to me because I have two younger brothers and I am the
only daughter. She always pours her heart out to me on Skype. She shares both
good and bad things about my family. I have a video call that probably lasts for
at least half an hour with my parents-in-law in the afternoon of every day or two
days because they want to see their beloved grandchildren. I just have to put the
camera facing the place where the children are playing and running around and
they are happy. (Ching-Yi, 35, office worker)

Ching-Yi makes international video calls to her stay-behind parents and parents-in-law, both
before and after work, to generate digital opportunities for transnational grandparenting
(Nedelcu 2017). The middle-class women generally have a routine schedule of
polymediated contacts with their stay-behind parents. One transnational characteristic of
emotional support that Taiwanese immigrants need to negotiate is that they need to live in
two time zones. These international calls have to be placed at a specific time, as which
Aries explained;

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5-6pm in L.A. is 8-9am [the next day] in Taipei. I can initiate a video call
with my mother from 5pm to 9pm, and even continue to midnight in Los
Angeles. This time works for us. With video calls, my mother won’t feel too
lonely at home in Taipei. She won’t feel that I am far away. She cooks or
watches television and the computer is always on for video calls. (Aries, 40,
assistant professor)

Emotional support through new forms of telecommunication, such as Skype and
FaceTime, characterizes a major form of transnational caregiving among middle-class
women. As existing research on transnational caregiving highlights, new forms of
telecommunication enable migrating adult children to acquire a more embodied and co-
present experience of affective and emotional responses (Baldassar, Baldock, and Wilding
2007; Francisco 2015; Madianou and Miller 2012).
By comparison with previous avenues of transnational communication—such as
international calls through operators prior to the 1970s and direct international calls after
the 1970s—the development of communications technology (Skype since 2003 and
FaceTime since 2010) has helped individuals to contact those who live across borders
and time zones. This advancement is meaningful to immigrant families, because it is
affordable and convenient to contact each other through international calls and video calls,
but it also demonstrates the limitations of family separation that cannot be resolved by
technology, such as physical togetherness in terms of hugs, eating together, and mourning
at funerals. As Alex explained:

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My mother lives with my brother and her grandchild. It should be awesome,
but to be honest, I’ve found that something is missing in her mind. This child
[i.e. Alex] is far away. He can only be seen during video calls. My mother
tells me “I am happy because I can see your face via video calls, but it is still
a pity that I cannot serve you the meals I used to cook for you.” (Alex, early
40s, ethnic media director)

The immigrants and their stay-behind parents fail to experience physical togetherness on
specific occasions—such as the Chinese New Year dinner, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day,
and parents’ or grandchildren’s birthdays—and in daily interactions, such as the hugs
elderly parents give their grandchildren. This is internalized as a loss caused by family
separation. Since free video calls allow the immigrants to synergize their lives with those
of their stay-behind family, these regular and intensive contacts lead to strong emotional
ties between them and their stay-behind parents.
Yet unfamiliarity between immigrants and parents-in-law still exists. Women felt
relieved of the gendered expectations of daughters-in-law while their American-born
children were young: the grandchildren often join the conversation with the elderly
generation in Chinese on the phone. As noted, Ching-Yi just put the camera facing the
place where the children are playing and running around to please her parents-in-law. There
was no need for Ching-Yi to find topics of conversation, because her parents-in-law always
liked to see and talk about their grandchildren. The grandchildren are always the central
subject of international calls. However, the immigrant women felt stressed when their
American-born children grew up because, as an English-speaking generation, they began

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to forget the Chinese language and lost interest in joining the calls. Some immigrant
women told me that the phone conversations between grandparents and grandchildren
were often filled with silences, or were simply strange. In these cases, the immigrants felt
that they had at least fulfilled part of the gendered expectation by serving as bilingual
translator of some words or the whole message. They perceived themselves as conducting
the symbolic labor of eldercare as daughters-in-law in this way.
Married immigrant women are willing to provide emotional care for their stay-
behind parents-in-law, not only because of their ethnic culture and commitment to care,
but also because they are embedded in a dual framework of reference surrounding
eldercare labor. As Nina said, “I provide a limited amount of care to my parents-in-law
[compared with women in Taiwan]. Why wouldn’t I? Doing it symbolically is fine, too.”
While some of the women acknowledged that this was only a front-stage performance
due to their distant relationship with their parents-in-law, their symbolic care work
through new forms of telecommunication was incorporated into their parenting in the
United States. As Mrs. Huang reasoned, “you have to be a good model of eldercare
provision for the young generation. You may not expect your American-born children to
care for you in the traditional [Chinese] way, but you still have to have a subtle influence
on their behavior.” Thus, the women reproduce and transmit the traditional family value of
reciprocal support through their own eldercare labor.
Yet the polymediated care is dominant but not completely prevailing in this group.
Communications applications on smartphones enable free and real-time conversations
between immigrants and their stay-behind family members. According to Tina, a store
manager in her early 40s, “I don’t contact my father every day because he’s probably

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enjoying playing mah-jongg somewhere, but I check on him via my sister on Line [a chat
application] once or twice a week.” In fact, Tina currently cares for her mother in Los
Angeles and her sister cares for the father in order to deal with the parents’ complicated
conjugal relations. Video calls provide a more copresent experience for immigrant women,
their American-born children, and their stay-behind parents in Taiwan.
Lastly, immigrants also participate in family activities from afar in order to care
for their older parents: for instance, they make restaurant reservations for their parents’
birthdays and wedding anniversaries as well as doctor appointments.

Intergenerational Relationships
Aries admitted that she highly values the family in terms of her frequent video calls (at
least 3 hours every day, if available) and transpacific trips (3-4 times a year) with her
mother during her family separation across borders. As she confessed, “My dissertation
supervisor could not understand why I was rush to get the job done. Maybe she did not
understand how much we Chinese value our family.” Yet not all immigrants express such
strong affection or care about their stay-behind elderly parents as much as Aries does.
Moreover, communication technology has shifted the definition of interaction across
generations and borders of adult children. Similar to other Taiwanese, Nina came to the
United States to study. She described herself as independent and passive about initiating
international calls to her parents. In terms of the frequency of contact, Nina reflected
“when I came to the United States, I would call him on holidays and his birthday. I would
particularly say happy birthday to my father.” Nina felt closer to her father than her
mother prior to her immigration, but she contacted her mother more often because her

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father did not know how to use apps like Skype. Being aware of this decline in the
relationship with her father, Nina began to push her parents to learn and become
Facebook users in 2014.

This year I started to encourage him to use Facebook. I post as many photos
as possible. Some of my friends asked me, ‘is it scary that your parents and
in-laws are your Facebook friends?’ But I think it is a way for our elders to
express their care for us. They want to know what we are doing now just as
they did when we were children, and especially since we are not in Taiwan,
we should post photos of any travel, big meals, and everything. In so doing,
they can know how we are living in the United States. (Nina, late 30s, office
worker)

Nina’s change also did not occur in a vacuum because it was the result of a family
conflict in Taiwan. Her father left home after a dispute with her mother and no family
members were able to contact him. This was the moment that stimulated her to network
more closely with her family in Taiwan.

When he left home, he answered my international call and complained that he
had no-one to talk to. I listened and kept encouraging him to learn to use a
computer and Facebook. Now he can call me through Skype to share his days
and complaints. In this way [technology communication], he can know about
my day and I can also know what he is doing. I can chat with my mother

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about how to cook a specific dish. This technology communication is the
modern way. Skype makes it possible to see the person or photos that
couldn’t be seen over the phone. You can see the person when you turn it on
and turn it off when you do not want to be disturbed. (Nina, late 30s, office
worker)

While Nina greatly appreciates the advantages and improvements of communication
technology, the access and usage of this technology is a problematic issue for the elderly.
For instance, the access and usage of information services are unequal across classes,
which results in social inequality in digital engagement among the elderly. Their rejection
of communication technology becomes an obstacle that hinders their immigrant adult
children from being more emotionally supportive or exchanging information with them
across borders.
Although the immigrants or the stay-behind siblings had arranged computers or
installed applications on their smart phones, the elderly parents I visited in Taiwan still
had a passive attitude toward the use of applications on smart phones to send messages to
their migrating children. The immigrants need to initiate the contact with their parents.
The parents’ digital engagement may decline if the adult children lose their patience in
instructing them how to use these applications because the elderly forget quickly and the
adult children have to repeat the instructions many times. Therefore, this new technology
communication across borders and generations is frustrating for some of the elderly.

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Many elderly parents do not want to try these new things. Then you have to
teach them. For instance, you need to demonstrate it to them when you are in
Taiwan so that they will know how to call us using a video. They will try it if
they discover that it is fun. Our elderly parents are like ours children. They
spent time teaching us when we were kids, so why shouldn’t we spend time
teaching them now? (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

Free video calls enable the immigrants to synergize their lives with those of the stay-
behind family members and this is more easily found among immigrant women. These
frequent and intensive contacts do not intend to justify strong emotional ties with the
stay-behind parents, but some immigrants feel more obligated to maintain intense
emotional support, particularly in cases of elderly people living alone.

I feel that my mother is very dependent on me. I have been here for 10 years
and I need to talk to her for at least one hour every day. For example, we
talked on Skype for 7 hours. I was busy doing my stuff while she watched me
on the screen. Although my younger brother lives in the greater Taipei area,
he lives in Linko [It takes an hour driving from this place to where the mother
lives]. I think gender matters. Boys interact with their mothers less than girls.
(Aries, 40, assistant professor)

People use Facebook to share their lives with posts, photos, and messages. Facebook is
not just a platform for immigrant families to exchange information, but an avenue for the

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immigrants to stimulate their stay-behind parents’ interest in visiting or immigrating to
the United States. Information becomes a source that enables the immigrants to
demonstrate to their parents that they are safe in America, as well as providing the
parents in Taiwan with topics of conversation they can discuss during international calls.
As for the immigrants, international calls provide less solid evidence than Facebook
photos and video calls that describe life in America in terms of the weather, their meals,
the scenery they explore and most importantly, the status of the grandchildren.

My dad is retired. His health will suffer if he does nothing. He will lose his
own self-worth and value. I send him these photos so that he can comment on
them. He may talk about my weight. I think I only need to let him nag to do
something. So I tell my friends, ‘I mean to let my parents know me from
Facebook. They will see that life is fun in the United States and ask to join me
the next time. (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

Nina used this advanced communication technology to support her immigration to the
United States.

I cannot imagine how people do without this. You needed to write letters in
the old days. It was too tough. I wouldn’t have chosen to immigrate if I had
lived then. Our culture teaches us that children should not travel too far if
their parents are alive. Also, you have to respect your parents and take care of
them. (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

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The immigrants also use video calls to confirm any situation they feel is problematic
during the international calls. Nina tends to “check via different avenues and confirm it
through computers [video calls].” She becomes more careful because her stay-behind
family cheated her. These lies are defined as cheating when the stay-behind family and
the immigrants hide negative information from each other or tell a white lie in order to
avoid conveying negative news about their lives. Nina was angry when she found out that
she had not been advised of her father’s stomach surgery until it was over. She expressed,
“Why didn’t you tell me in advance? If something had happened [to the father], when
were you going to tell me about it? What’s going on?” Nina was so angry because it
would have been very painful if something bad had happened, although he was fine in the
end. The existence of transnational lies may present the failure of emotional care. The
Taiwanese immigrants’ appreciation of communication technology is mixed because
limited physical togetherness still exists.
In terms of Aries’s transnational care, her arrangement is embedded in her
relationship with her mother caused by her family background and the available care
resources in Taiwan. Her mother lives alone because her stay-behind younger brother
lives in another city and her father became a monk and lives in a temple. Aries has not
lived with her father for over 30 years since he became a monk. She contacts him much
less frequently in person and on the phone than she does her mother. As she said,
“Basically, I am only responsible for my mother. As a monk, my father is supposed to be
cared for by the people in the temple.” Like Aries, some immigrants also indicated that

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conjugal relationships of elderly parents complicate their eldercare provision across
borders. Aries’s care work has been fully directed to her mother.
Taiwanese women’s transnational care also includes the age cared to parents-in-law.
Some Taiwanese immigrant women in Los Angeles offload their care work of parents-in-
law because they are “benefited” from the death of parents-in-law or her spouse’s
complicated family relationships. Janet, an office work in her late 30s, joked at her
“unburdened” labor to parents-in-law because they passed away prior to her marriage.
Aries’s care of her father-in-law is very limited compared to that of her own mother. Her
mother-in-law died prior to her marriage and her father-in-law passed away sometime
after her marriage. Aries also talked in a joking tone but appreciated her situation, “I
married a free man. I am exhausted from looking after my own mother and I would go
crazy if I needed to care for parents-in-law as well. It would be crazy!” Her husband and
the family members on his side arranged for her father-in-law to live in a seniors’ home
affiliated with his religion after he had a stroke. Her husband and his three older brothers
shared the cost of the caregiving service, which amounted to $180 a month for each son.

Gendered Calls
The practice of international calls is based on gender. The Taiwanese women make
contact with the stay-behind family more often than the men. The first indicator is the
frequency of international calls. The immigrant men are less likely to call their parents
across borders. Samuel, a priest, illustrated his limited care to his stay-behind parents.

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They are in good health, but I still worry about them because they are old. As
people age, they have some ailments. When talking to them on the phone,
they do not say too much. They only sometimes reveal their pain to my wife
and wish their daughter-in-law would forward messages to me. (Samuel, early
50s, priest)

The immigrants usually make international calls to Taiwan weekly or regularly,
depending on their relationships or need. Immigrant women call their biological parents
and remind their husbands to call their parents. It is also common that the women make a
call to the men’s parents and ask the men to converse with them and give them a short
update about their life. Among the couples contacting the stay-behind parents less
frequently, the men are also less likely to make calls to their parents and are even less
willing to talk to their parents-in-law. Yet the women still bear some responsibility as a
daughter-in-law by calling on specific dates. Otherwise, the immigrant couples try to
avoid talking to their parents-in-law because they do not want to or do not know what to
talk about due to growing unfamiliarity, which is worsened by a long period of family
separation across borders.
As a result, the physical distance and family separation associated with immigration
provide these women with the space to escape from this cultural responsibility of care
work. It is often found that Taiwanese women care for their own parents more often and
better than they care for their parents-in-law. This cultural split occurs in the process of
immigration. It can be argued that immigration has changed the care work of the

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daughters-in-law among immigrant women, while the non-immigrant Taiwanese women
in this study still shoulder this cultural role and provide intimate care.

Return Visits
Return visits become routine, a kind of ritual for middle-class immigrant families and
their stay-behind relatives. According to Kim (2012), wives of middle-class Korean
sojourner migrants take their children to visit their parents-in-law in Korea for longer
periods to maintain the cultural ideals of filial co-residence and support. Similarly, with
few exceptions, the middle-class Taiwanese immigrant women in my study return to
Taiwan every year or two years. It can cost an immigrant family of four $6,000 for four
air tickets during peak season.
They usually stay at home with their parents(-in-law) during these visits, and dine
out with their parents, relatives, and friends. They also take care of household chores to
compensate for their absence. For instance, Amber said, “I clean, mop, and wipe the
windows during the few days in Taiwan. I want to do as much as possible. I guess it’s a
form of psychological compensation for being absent from home all the time.” The
middle-class immigrants accompany their parents to certain places to strengthen their
interaction and renew their intergenerational attachment; for example, they visit specific
local markets to shop for groceries, and enjoy eating snacks from the same street vendors
they used to frequent together in the old days. During return visits, they also pay attention
to their parents’ health and everyday needs to ensure that they have a good life as they
age in Taiwan. Nina was concerned about the way her father was adjusting to life in
retirement, and she constantly worried because “he really didn’t know what to do after he

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retired. He felt he was not important anymore.” She made the following observation in
Taiwan:

He prepared breakfast every day and then walked to the metro station with
my mother, who still works, and walked back home to prepare another kind
of breakfast for my brother. After my brother left for the office, he walked the
dog and fed the dog when they returned, which was almost noon. He then
went out to buy vegetables, cleaned the house, and collected my mother from
the metro station in the evening. I was relieved to see that they interacted a lot.
(Nina, late 30s, office worker)

Middle-class women particularly observe their parents’ condition and interactions
between family members during their return visits, because they can generally detect any
white lies with which their stay-behind relatives might have been intentionally hiding
information to ease their emotional burden. For example, Nina recalled: “My dad was
bitten by a dog that belonged to our family… When I asked my younger brother, he told
me it was nothing… In fact, when I visited Taiwan and saw it in person, I found it was
terrible.” These lies from beyond borders continue to drive some immigrants to dream of
family reunification in America when they reflect on the deficiency of care resources in
Taiwan, which reflects the limitations of emotional caregiving across borders. Aries
shared her similar experience;

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I planned to take care of my mother in the year I was married when I returned
to Taiwan for the wedding ceremony. At that time, my brother planned to
study abroad for a Master’s degree after working for a couple of years. My
husband, brother, and I flew to San Francisco together, leaving my mother
alone in Taiwan. When she was walking home after completing her volunteer
work, she was hit by a car and fractured her ankle, and there was no-one in
the family to help her. She asked the car driver to call for an ambulance to
take her to hospital and she stayed in the hospital alone for a week. She only
called her sister to take care of her if necessary. Do you know how I found
out about it? I could sense that my mother was tired from her voice on the
phone. I asked her what was wrong and she just said, “I feel exhausted after
my volunteer work at the hospital.” I thought she sounded strange, so I called
my aunt to check and she told me, “You mother was injured.” When I
realized my mother had lied to me, I cried and cried. I immediately applied
for leave of absence for a semester from my school and flew back to Taiwan
to take care of her for two months. I think a lot about that moment. (Aries, 40,
professor)

The adult children need to negotiate to decide who will be the main caregiver. It is
possible for someone to bear the responsibility for providing care when the rest of the
siblings hesitate to do so. Thus, immigrants maintain regular contact through new forms
of media, or return to Taiwan to deal with suspected transnational lies and confirm the
truth about their parents’ health.

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As Baldassar (2001) suggests, the role of return visits magnifies the continuing
connections of the first-generation immigrants and their families. However, the regular
transpacific visits reflect the class privileges of some immigrant groups because of the
prohibitive cost. Ken, the IT business specialist reserved his annual leave for his
grandparents when they were alive, and due to this, he felt sorry to his wife because they
have not had a honeymoon trip since their marriage. They used their annual leave to
return to Taiwan to attend a family wedding ceremony. They seldom travelled anywhere
but Taiwan in their immigrant years. He further commented,

We will return to Taiwan next year for the family. Her grandmother and
parents are alive too. Our annual leave is all for them. Our children have
grown up and they are first and third grade, respectively. We send them back
to Taiwan for two months in the summer. (Ken, early 40s, marketing manager)

Return visits become a family ritual for immigrant families and their stay-behind relatives.
It should be noted that the immigrants’ return visits are determined by the life course of
their family members, particularly the age of American-born children and the health of
foreign-born elderly parents. It is more likely for the immigrant family to return prior to
the year the American-born children attend school. When the children attend school, the
return trip will be better organized to coordinate with their summer camp. Some of the
American-born children also attend maths camps or Chinese classes in Taiwan.
If the immigrants’ children have not attended K-12 schools, the middle-class
Taiwanese immigrants in Southern California are likely to bring the children back to

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Taiwan at any time, especially when airfares are cheaper. As noted, a nuclear family
spends $6,000 to travel back to Taiwan in the summer. As Nina expressed, “We spend a
great deal of money on vacations, so we just regard it [return visit] as a vacation.” For
immigrants, the cost of a return visit is like the cost of a trip to other destinations.
However, a distinguishing characteristic of the trips of immigrants is the destination
because they prefer to return to the homeland for caregiving and providing opportunities
of grandparenting for the elderly, and this pattern remains until their parents’ death.
Moreover, the total expenditure of some immigrants can amount to at least $10,000
if counting gifts and daily living expenses and may rise to $20,000 if the immigrant
family takes an added trip to Southeast Asia or Japan and goes shopping in Taiwan. It is
also possible for the immigrants to spend less if the stay-behind family insists on hosting
them. This applies to some immigrants who travel alone. Nina said, “When visiting
Taiwan, everything you use is from home. It’s nothing for your parents to pay when you
eat out. They are happy seeing you back. I can eat with the family. Actually, return visits
are cheap for me. I only need my air fare.” Generally, most Taiwanese immigrants stay
with their elderly parents and parents-in-law, dine out with relatives, and have medical
checks for immigrants themselves during their return visits to Taiwan.
The immigrants try to provide more intimate care if they can. They pay attention to
their parents’ health, special needs, and daily life to ensure that they have a good life as
they age in Taiwan. Grace was concerned about the way her father arranged his time
every day because she worried that, “he really did not know what to do after he retired.
He felt he was not important.” She made the following observation;

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He prepared breakfast every day and then accompanied my mother to work
on the metro before walking back to prepare another kind of breakfast for my
brother. After my brother left for the office, he walked the dog and fed the
dog when they came back. It was almost noon. He then went out to buy
vegetables, cleaned the house, and picked up my mother at the metro station
in the afternoon. They have a lot of interaction and I feel relieved when I see
it. (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

The reason some immigrants try to observe their parents’ situation during their return
visits is because of the lies that are told during international calls. As Nina explained,

My dad was bitten by a dog owned by our family in Taiwan but my mom
described the situation as very serious. I confirmed this with my younger
brother, who informed me that it was nothing. However, my brother’s words
are sometimes unreliable. Although he said it was nothing, I found that it was
terrible when I visited in person. (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

Over years of family separation, it is common for Taiwanese immigrants to propose
reunification to their parents after they obtain permanent residency or become naturalized.
If the family separation continues, immigrants will be more serious about the provision of
care for their stay-behind parents and make efforts to coordinate with their siblings who
remained in Taiwan. The immigrants also entertain themselves by thinking about return
migration for the care of the elderly.

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The Arrangement of Caregiver
Middle-class immigrants ideally want their elderly parents to live with stay-behind
siblings in a multigenerational household. They are reassured about their parents’ family
caregivers in Taiwan, despite being separated by immigration. Not only can middle-class
immigrants, mostly women, confirm their parents’ wellbeing and health, which they can
observe during telephone/video calls, but they can also ask their siblings to keep a check
on them, visit them when they have significant problems, and escort them to hospital for
treatment when necessary. Traditionally, the oldest son is responsible for caring for older
adults in later life, and this tradition remains solid in some areas of Taiwan:

Men are responsible for taking care of older parents in the Kinmen tradition.
This unwritten tradition is that the oldest son inherits the parents’ legacy; the
remaining siblings need to volunteer to relinquish their share of property and
land if the oldest son takes care of the parents well. (Jing-Han, early 50s, civil
servant)

Jing-Han and his siblings provided monthly financial support to his oldest brother as the
primary caregiver. Jing-Han also appreciated his sister’s commitment, which continued
even after she married. He recounted, “My oldest sister is financially stable because she
married a fisherman, who provides crabs when he fishes. She lives in another village on
Kinmen and visits my parents regularly. She even gives them more of an allowance in
private.” All the adult children in Taiwan, its outlying islands, and the United States

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participated in caregiving by dividing the care labor. They paid their share of the elderly
parents’ monthly allowance, visited them regularly, and provided physical care and
cohabitation. According to Jing-Han, he had expressed his intention to the stay-behind
family to renounce his land inheritance so as to follow the custom of demonstrating his
appreciation of his brother’s caregiving.
Overall, kin networks positively mediate the immigrant women’s worries and
stress, and also help connected family members to reinforce the sense of family closeness
(Amin and Ingman 2014; Baldassar 2008). Most of the stay-behind siblings act as primary
caregivers, and few of them recruit migrant caregivers to assist with this.

Transnational Collaboration: Politics of Family Care
The commitment to transnational caregiving or transnational parenting of Salvadoran
migrants across the globe is subject to change due to settlement difficulties with regard to
finances in the host society (Abrego 2014; Merla 2014). I suggest that the picture of
family commitment in transnational families becomes complete when these findings are
extended from the immigrants to the stay-behind siblings who are assigned as primary
family caregivers. This is because their availability and sustainability are always
changing according to their shifting commitments, the health of the elderly, and the
family politics among siblings. It was found in this study that care arrangements
worsened when elderly parents were sent to (low-end) senior and nursing homes because
all the adult children’s care commitments and collaboration had failed to address the
parents’ care needs.
Multiple directions of care exchange are emphasized in the care circulation

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framework, and a wider network of households is considered in order to challenge the
framework of one-to-one care in research on global care chains (Baldassar and Merla
2014a, 2014b; Kofman 2012). Immigrants in this study made an effort to collaborate with
their stay-behind siblings—and sometimes with paid caregivers from Southeast Asia—in
the process of caregiving. I therefore propose the complementary concept of transnational
collaboration in order to consider family politics in the process of negotiating eldercare to
accommodate parents’ preferences about where to live out their old age.
The notion of collaboration facilitates a wider perspective on the family negotiations
that underpin the provision of eldercare, and hence contributes to the care circulation
framework, which has previously overlooked family politics and the process of
negotiating caregiving between immigrants and their stay-behind family members. The
notion of collaboration also raises the question of the sustainability of the collaboration
itself, because adult children’s collaboration in eldercare provision is based on the
commitment of connected adults. A stay-behind sibling acts as the primary caregiver,
which immigrants regard as an ideal arrangement because family caregivers are more
reassuring than paid caregivers in terms of trust and affection.
Aries, the assistant professor, cared intensively for her biological mother at a
distance, while maintaining limited connections with her stay-behind father-in-law. Her
mother accused her of being an unfilial daughter-in-law when her brother-in-law sent her
father-in-law to a senior home.

My husband’s father was still energetic in spite of the strokes. He looked
forward to our return when I got my Ph.D. because his son [my husband]

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would be returning too. My husband mainly lived in Taiwan until he married
me. Then, he turned down a job offer at a prestigious commercial bank in
Taiwan and we moved to the United States, although I always planned to
return for my mother and father-in-law. After the Filipino migrant caregiver
of my father-in-law ran away, my two sisters-in-law did not care for him at
home, but sent him to a senior home. (Aries, 40, professor)

Senior and nursing homes are somewhat stigmatized in Taiwan because the elderly who
live there are assumed to have been abandoned and the adult children are regarded as
lacking morality in terms of caregiving. Due to this stigmatization, this arrangement is
usually hidden and becomes a secret that it only shared within the family. Aries recalled
her visit to her father-in-law during one of her return trips:

It is rumored that the staff at the senior [nursing] home feed sleeping pills to
the older patients. All the older adults sat in wheelchairs in the living room
and waited to be fed rice porridge by a caregiver. By the time the last older
adult was fed, the rest of the group had fallen asleep. Every one of them was
asleep (Aries, 40, professor).

Adult children who send their elderly parents to senior care homes in Taiwan are
somewhat stigmatized by their neighbors, because they are perceived as having
abandoned their parents and thus are lacking morality. Therefore, although some senior
and nursing homes are expensive because of the stratified and marketized care service,

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Taiwanese families are unlikely to discuss this form of caregiving for fear of gaining a
bad reputation among their neighbors and extended family. Aries’s husband failed to take
further steps or negotiate when the stay-behind brother relinquished his role as primary
caregiver and paid for the services of a migrant caregiver. As Aries explained, “We
couldn’t say anything about his decision, partly because my husband and I did not
participate in caregiving practices and partly because we are abroad.”
As a result, physical absence directs the immigrants to negotiate with stay-behind
siblings with little demanding power. Although these middle-class Taiwanese immigrants
want to fulfill all the dimensions of caregiving labor, they struggle to do so across borders
because they are busy settling in and acculturating themselves and their American-born
children and they are unable to step in eldercare by returning. Many of them commented,
“There is nothing I can do about it, and I feel very helpless sometimes.” This frustration
occurs among some middle-class Taiwanese, who fail to collaborate caregiving well.
The notion of collaboration acknowledges the contribution of the care circuit
framework with its approach to transnational caregiving in terms of multiple directions of
care exchange and flow. However, the care circulation framework cannot be
straightforwardly applied to Chinese families, where the circulation of care is less
possible when older Chinese parents prefer to live out their old age at home. This makes
transnational collaboration in caregiving more important in the case of Taiwanese
immigration to the United States. If the older parents aim to age at home and will not
consider migrating during old age, the notion of collaboration arguably takes better
account of intergenerational and intragenerational family politics in the processes of
decision-making and actual caregiving. Middle-class Taiwanese immigrants generally

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seek to collaborate with their stay-behind siblings in Taiwan, and possibly with migrant
caregivers from Southeast Asia, in order to provide physical care and daily assistance in
response to their parents’ needs.
This notion of collaboration emphasizes that the immigrants actively ensure that
elderly parents have a caregiver while regularly providing other forms of care, such as
return visits, emotional support through calls, video chats, and other forms of
communications technology, and allowances if required. Moreover, they share the cost
when the family caregiver needs to hire a supporting migrant caregiver. Despite these
immigrants’ strong obligations of filial care, they still need to collaborate with family
members across borders, and possibly to integrate paid foreign migrant laborers into the
care work due to the contested commitments of stay-behind family members and the
sustainability of family collaboration.

Instrumental Support
Despite the presence of family caregivers, middle-class immigrant women are most likely
to return to the homeland to assist with personal care. Amber retuned twice every year
during her settlement period to help her sister and father provide personal care for her
mother, who was suffering from cancer. Iris, a full professor, returns to care for her stay-
behind father during every academic summer vacation. These immigrant women also
return to their home country for family emergencies, depending on the stay-behind family
caregivers’ ability to cope. As Nina, a married office worker, explained, “I will stay in
the United States as long as my brother can manage. If he can’t, I will fly back.” Yet
compared with their upper- and working-class counterparts, the middle-class women are

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the most likely to return to care for their parents if they need them. Linda took on the
transnational role of primary caregiver because of her gender and availability:

My parents are alone in Taiwan. My older brother lives in Brazil and my younger
brother is in the Netherlands. I will probably return to Taiwan this month to care
for my father, who has to have surgery. I have to go back. Sons are not
responsible caregivers to their own parents. Daughters still care for the family in
the country of origin, even when they marry outside of it. (Linda, 40, housewife)

Immigrant men, who provide care are celebrated when doing so. In one news article, a
Taiwanese man was celebrated when he returned from Los Angeles to Taipei to visit his
109-year-old grandmother every month for 11 years. Some immigrant men rather than
their spouse do return to Taiwan for family emergencies. However, this was usually the
case because wives had to stay behind and care for school-aged children in the United
States. The gendered structure of family care is seemingly dislodged by immigrant men’s
return for family emergencies, but the hope of transformations is made glim by the notion
of women being better nurturers for children.

Financial Support
Middle-class immigrants tend to provide less financial support to their elderly parents,
and this especially applies to housewives who make no financial contribution to the
household but still have the power to manage the finances. Overall, they explained that
this was because their parents were fiercely self-sufficient and independent, and would

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therefore be likely to decline any offer of a regular allowance. Rather than remitting
regular financial contributions, these middle-class immigrants presented their parents
with red envelopes as belated Chinese New Year gifts to express respect and love during
their return visits. More often, they chose medical supplements, clothing, and other gifts,
such as a vacuuming robot or water purifier, to give to their parents during their return
visits to Taiwan or their parents’ visits to the United States. They see gifts as a medium of
caring (King, Castaldo, and Vullnetari 2011; Singh, Robertson, and Cabraal 2012). Mac, a
herbalist in late 30s, redefined filial care;

24 Paragons of Filial Piety [A classic text of Confucian filial piety written in
the Yuan dynasty] cannot apply to us in the 21th century. You no longer need
to wrap yourself with the father's blanket to warm it to ensure his comfortable
sleep at night. You also do not undress and lay on the icy surface of the
frozen river to catch carps for his mother. Will your parents feel happy if you
give money to them rather than caring about them? We should teach them
how to eat and live well. Tell them what vegetables are the best. I will buy
some supplements if they are good for them. (Mac, late 30s, herbalist)

Several immigrants shared their indirect approach of providing financial support. They
asked their parents to open a Citibank account, the only U.S. bank in Taiwan, and deposit
some of their savings in U.S. dollars to this account, where the stay-behind parents can
withdraw cash in New Taiwan dollars for allowance by visiting local bank ATMs.
However, their parents seldom use this and wish to keep for the children.

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Lastly, Mr. Lin, a stay-behind father of an immigrant son, explained: “Adult
children are not baby birds and they should spread their wings and fly. He needs to
establish his own family. It must be tough in the United States. We still have savings.”
Instead, reciprocal support flows across generations is in the middle-class family. Aries’s
mother gave her half of the $290,000 she paid for a condo with two rooms in Pasadena.

Surveyed Experiences
This study also gathers Taiwanese experience of transnational eldercare provision with
surveys between 2013 Fall and 2014 Summer. This questionnaire includes a series of
questions about the immigrants’ values of filial piety, frequency of intergenerational
support in a scale of dimensions to each parent (i.e. one marred immigrants may have up
to four parents), as well as information about parents and themselves.
This non-random and self-administered survey was dispatched to most interview
participants, and I asked them to refer their colleagues, friends, and neighbors to
participate in this survey. I asked the entrepreneurs if their coethnic employees are able to
answer the questionnaire. I also left some questionnaires in a barbershop and a hairstylist
helped ask her customers to fill in the questionnaire when they feel bored during a perm.
The survey participants mailed back to the researcher with a stamped envelop. A total of
185 questionnaires are collected from 300 dispatched. After reviewing the questionnaires,
this study presents 436 child-parent dyads from 170 valid questionnaires. It should be
noted that some of the parents have settled in the United States, but I will specify them if
necessary. More information is available on Appendix III to VII.

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Based on Table 3-3, instrumental support (care when parents are sick; provide direct
care) is the least possible form of transnational care due to geographic distance. By
contrast, the middle-class immigrants are most likely to provide emotional support, give
advice, and help decision-making either several times a year or at a weekly/monthly base.
It helps to confirm what qualitative data has suggested. As they reported, assisting in
household chores and transportation occurs from once/twice a year to several times a year.
As interview data suggests, these intergenerational support possibly occurs when the
immigrants return to the homeland and provide instrumental support in the homeland or
when their parents visit them in the United States. It is also possible that 61 out of 239
older parents settle in the United States. Nine of them (15%) live with the survey
respondent; 26 of them (43%) live with the survey respondent’s sibling in the United
States; 25 of them live separately; one of them lives at senior home. It confirms the
family (58%) remains the primary source of eldercare after family reunification in the
United States. Lastly, almost two third of them do not provide money as eldercare.

Table 3-3 Intergenerational Support to Parents; Middle Class (N=239)

NEVER
ONCE/TWICE
A YEAR
SEVERAL
TIMES A YEAR
MONTHLY WEEKLY DAILY
EMOTIONAL
SUPPORT
33.9 7.5 24.3 5.4 15.9 13.0
PROVIDE INFO
& ADVICE
37.2 8.8 27.6 8.4 13.8 4.2
HELP MAKE
DECISIONS
38.1 6.7 35.1 5.4 9.6 5.0
HOUSEHOLD
CHORES HELP
63.6 16.3 13.4 0.0 5.4 1.3
ESCORT
ASSISTANCE
46.0 16.7 20.1 2.1 11.7 3.3
CARE AS THEY
ARE SICK
72.4 8.8 12.1 0.0 3.8 2.9
PROVIDE
DIRECT CARE
91.2 4.2 3.3 0.0 1.3 0.0
FINANCIAL
SUPPORT
64.9 9.2 18.0 4.2 1.7 2.1
In proportion (%)

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Despite that survey data has not suggested gendered difference in providing care, I do not
ignore that some men do provide care. Men provide more assistance in transportation
than women (See Appendix V). Interview data also explains that the middle-class couples
arrange the men to return for his own parents not only because the men return for “his”
elderly parents and sons can make decisions, but also because the couples believe that
women are better nurturers for children when one of the parents is out of town. Now I
turn to present another means of dislodging this gendered structure of family care.

Men’s Approval
As Sun (2012) finds, middle-class immigrant women made calls to their husband’s older
parents. I further find that some women requested their men to converse and update their
own life shortly because of distant relations between immigrant women and their in-laws.
The Chinese family is not always ideal and intergeneration relations are not smooth
as the traditions suggest. People tend to hind bad family relations; yet some years of
rapport with study participants and talking about the family issue at a foreign land away
from Taiwan helped me gather some negative family experiences that relate to their
attitudes and provision of transnational eldercare. After my interview with Abby, her
husband complimented some notes for my research as the couple encountered me again
at a Taiwanese restaurant in San Gabriel. He said, “I want to add that I did not want my
child to learn Mandarin because I do not want them to converse with each other because
my father will pass down bad values to my child.” One immigrant man shared his
religion conversion story that intersected with family issues at the end of a mass. He said;

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I do not have a model father at home. He drank when I went home as a
schoolchild [He choked at the stage]. As he drank, you know, many bad things
happened. It is not a shame to share my family experiences. Now I know God
love me. I love Denise and Jonathan [his two young children]. (Steven, late
30s, officer worker)

In fact, Steven does not require his wife for transnational eldercare to his stay-behind
father. Similar to the case of Steven and Abby’s spouse, some immigrant families face
complicated intergenerational relations between men and their parents. Women in these
families actually are able to escape gendered expectations of transnational eldercare for
the parents-in-law. Interestingly, the immigrant women have no necessity of meeting the
gendered expectations when families become disrupted; the women were more likely to
bear such expectations when families remain intact. Accordingly, the gendered structure
of family care is seemingly dislodged by men’s approval.

The Immigration Shift: Representing the Chinese Caregiving in the United States
Most student migrants invite their elderly parents to come to the United States when they
intend to stay; for instance, Nina invited her parents to attend her graduation. During the
parents’ trip, the student migrants are able to introduce them to the American way of life
and environment to alleviate any worries they may have.

I felt like they needed to come to my graduation ceremony. This was a rare
opportunity to have fun with them for a period of time. I think it is a must for

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all student migrants. I did not work last year but accompanied my visiting
parents-in-law on a trip. I knew that living with my parents-in-law in a small
apartment would be stressful, but I thought to myself ‘how much time will
you have to enjoy your parents-in-law’s company?’ In the end, it was must-
do worry-free fun. (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

As the middle-class Taiwanese start to settle, their sense of achievement is demonstrated
by the realization of the American dream, as particularly evidenced by the lifestyle in
Southern California, which includes home ownership, the (re-)production of a middle
class family status through migration, and other symbolic strengths, such as holding a
U.S. passport. Middle-class immigrants generally dream of family reunification, especially
when they believe they can provide their elderly parents with a better life in the United States
compared with Taiwan. This intention significantly increases when no family caregivers are
available in the homeland:

I invited my parents to age in the United States and they have flown to Los
Angeles for a couple of months every year since the application was
submitted. I don’t know if they really want to settle here because they are OK
with my stay-behind brother, but I want to play my part. Although they will
not make a decision until some years after they obtain permanent residency,
we have to apply and obtain a legal status for them. (Denise, early 40s, full-
time housewife)

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As illustrated in this quote from Denise, Taiwanese immigrants propose family
reunification when they become eligible to sponsor their parents. The older adults are
required to physically stay in the United States for more than half of the five years of the
application period in order to prove their interest in immigrating to the U.S.
administration. Thus these elderly parents visit their migrating adult children and
grandchildren across the Pacific as part of the legal process of reunification. These visits
not only provide the three generations with temporary reunification, but they also
constitute a form of probation that emotionally paves the way for permanent settlement.
These transpacific visits are more immigration-oriented than the trips other older adults
make for fun and to attend brief family gatherings.
The immigrants are full of enthusiasm during get-togethers and arranged activities
during these parental visits. They escort their parents to ethnic or western restaurants and
grocery stores, shopping malls, and city, state, or national parks, as well as encouraging
them to join in family, school, and social events with their American-born grandchildren.
At the same time, the immigrants introduce them to immigrant friends’ parents,
neighbors, affiliated churches, and other older adults to establish a network on their
parents’ behalf. As a result, elderly parents can evaluate their prospective relationships
with people, the neighborhood, and social life after settling in the new society. While the
immigrants introduce their parents to local customs, festivals, and English phrases that
can be used in emergencies in order to help the older generation better assimilate into
American society, their generational interactions at home and in public settings remain
traditional, as illustrated by the immigrants’ respect for their elderly parents, frequent
concerns about their health and needs, worries about them being bored, reminders to

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them to take their medication, and other intensive caregiving behavior.
Apart from student migrants’ graduation and wedding ceremony, many elderly
parents do not think about transpacific visits until the couple has a baby, when they can
come to share the joy of a new family member. It is very common for Taiwanese mothers
to visit the United States for the confinement of their adult daughters or daughters-in-law.
This postpartum care is traditionally provided for a month when the women need specific
meals, cannot lift heavy items, should not touch scissors, and cannot wash their hair for a
month, etc. after they have had the baby. It is a moment of celebration for the
transnational family. Alex recalled, “My wife was surprised at the gifts for our child from
my father-in-law. They filled the room.”

Postpartum care is not an easy job and we hesitated to ask my mother-in-law
to stay longer, so I asked my mother to take a turn for the remaining period of
postpartum care. They felt happy to have a grandchild in the United States,
but we couldn’t force them to stay. They have their own life and familiar
environment in Taiwan. We couldn’t give them a burden. (Alex, 40s, ethnic
media director)

The month of postpartum care is clearly a custom retained by the first generation and it is
also a family ritual. It results in the fortification of a nuclear family. During my
fieldwork, I observed the Taiwanese immigrants referring to family as their own family
in the United States. Alex was one of these, as he explained “When I talk about ‘family’
with my Taiwanese peers, I am usually referring to my wife and child. It would be

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interesting to specifically mention the extended family in Taiwan.” Thus, the transpacific
visits are a platform on which to participate in the multigenerational and extended family.
Elderly parents usually visit the United States for grandparenting, which is a core part
of life satisfaction for older Chinese people. These international trips please the adult
children, who are thereby able to fulfill their caregiving responsibilities, and also please
the older adults, because they can interact with their grandchildren. Mrs. Hsu, an older
mother, expressed her joy at holding her baby granddaughter: “She is my granddaughter
so of course, I need to come because I don’t know how many times I have left to see
her.” Her son in Los Angeles later explained, “I want to give my mother more time to
have fun with her grandchildren as long as we can fly back to Taiwan and she can come
to the United States. We have to do our filial duty to our parents and make them happy.”
Despite the emotional satisfaction engendered by eldercare provision, immigrants
are ambivalent about temporary or permanent reunification. They encounter problems
with transplanting traditional Chinese eldercare provision during the making of a middle-
class family in the United States. Middle-class immigrants’ family life revolves around
their children’s education, and the schedule of Taiwanese immigrants, especially
mothers, is closely associated with their school-age children’s structured activities, as in
Annette Lareau’s (2003) study of the parenting culture of middle-class families. For
instance, Janet’s two sons attended different sports and music classes, which exhausts her
energy after work and on weekends. Other immigrant children in this study usually take
piano, Chinese, swimming, theater, abacus calculation, tae kwon do, and singing classes
every week. Overall, middle-class Taiwanese immigrants make their children attend three
after-school activities every week. All these efforts are linked to the Taiwanese

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immigrants’ American dream of attaining or reproducing middle-class status, and they
believe that education is the way to achieve this goal in the host society. Yet the
interview data reveals an additional shift of family care at home, because older adults
have to adapt to this social environment every time they visit. Immigrant professionals’
continuous efforts of incorporation for themselves and their American-born offspring
generate schedule conflicts, and they find it difficult to maintain intensive caregiving in
the host society in terms of their time and care resources.
Immigrants generally find that their parents are more dependent when living in the
United States, because older adults are unable to assimilate and they have to rely on their
immigrant adult children. The middle-class men in this study helped with transportation
and leisure activities, while the women fulfilled most of the care work. The immigrants
would introduce their parents to the community where they lived, explain the food on
restaurant menus, and even prepare them for the citizenship exam. Both Denise and Lucy,
housewives in Irvine, told me that her mother and some elderly parents of her immigrant
peers felt dumb because they could not understand the conversations in restaurants
(including Chinese restaurants operated by later generations of Chinese immigrants),
blind because they could not read most street signs in English, and handicapped because
they needed a lift from their adult children to go anywhere. When elderly parents felt
unwell, the immigrants—usually the women—had to search for, and then escort them to,
the best-known Chinese clinics, dental clinics, and acupuncture centers from in-person
and online referrals. While I was heading to Irvine for following up with Denise, the
meeting place was changed to a coffee shop nearby an acupuncture clinic where Denise’s
mother was visiting because the mother did not feel well after arriving to the United

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States. The clinic is 30 minutes away from Denise’s home.
Such escorting is more complex in California than in Taiwan. This is partly because
medical services in California are scattered over a wide area, whereas it is easy to take
taxis or public transportation for medical services in Taipei, and partly because the
immigrants have to translate when their elderly parents visit doctors who cannot speak
Chinese, or accompany them when they are anxious about seeing a doctor in the United
States, even one who is bilingual or shares their ethnicity. Olivia, a friend of Denis,
summarized her extra care work after elderly parents, who had previously only visited,
had settled in California:

Living with parents in the United States is more exhausting than living
together in Taiwan. I am responsible for transportation and translation here. It
is easy to go to hospitals on the metro or in a taxi in Taipei and I don’t need to
translate there. (Olivia, 38, housewife)

Overall, immigrant adult children’s experience of visiting parents suggests that
acculturation in immigrant families is dissonant. This dissonant acculturation occurs
when older adults settle without any acculturation, immigrants juxtapose cultural
preservation and new adaptation, and American-born offspring grow up with selective
acculturation. Dissonant acculturation mainly appears among Taiwanese immigrant
families because of the transference of culture across different generations within the
household. It is challenging for Taiwanese immigrants to transplant filial care to the
United States without any incorporation, but they still try their best to maintain the

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traditions of Confucian eldercare—the middle-class Chinese form.

Better or Worse
Ken felt that he was “lucky to buy a house at a low point. The price of property dropped
dramatically in 2008 and 2009.” He elected to live in Chino Hills, a location that
indicates his plan to petition for family reunification.

We chose a house close to the American grocery store, Albertsons, which is
across the street and within walking distance, so even though my parents do
not drive, they still can go shopping. I do what I am supposed to do, such as
subscribing to Taiwanese cable channels and Internet phones so that they can
easily keep up to date with their friends and other relatives. Although they
cannot meet in person every day, they can still talk to them by making
international calls and they can also watch Taiwanese news and TV programs.
Chino Hills is an American neighborhood rather than a Chinese one, but there
is a Chinese neighborhood 15-20 minutes away. We are lucky because there
are some elderly Taiwanese in our district, who are of a similar age as my
parents, so they can hang out together (Ken, early 40s, director IT business).

Despite the fact that Ken’s father has not formally settled in Los Angeles, he looked
relaxed sitting on a bench in a park while I conversed with Ken in the interview. The
immigrants make every effort to ensure their visiting parents’ needs are met and they are

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comfortable. This period is a testimony for the family to evaluate the possibility of family
reunification, whether the parents are in the process of applying for a green card or not.
Caregiving during intermittent reunification does not only represent care and
capacity, but the transplantation of the three-generation household also faces the
challenge of two care shifts in the immigration context because the immigrants care for
their American-born children and foreign-born elderly parents differently. On the one
hand, the lives of middle-class immigrant families revolve around their children’s
education, and on the other, they assist their healthy parents to acculturate in terms of
lifestyle, language, and social life in the community. Not only are the elderly parents
required to re-adjust to this social environment every time they visit, but the immigrants,
mainly the women, experience a shift of caregiving at home, introducing their parents to
the community where they live, preparing them for a citizenship exam, providing
intimate care, and even explaining the food on restaurant menus.
A grandmother who came to the United States for immigration purposes and to take
care of her granddaughter told me, “I feel like I’m living in jail. I can’t go anywhere
except this community and I can’t churn men zi [chat from door to door in the
neighborhood].” The lack of or few social interests forces the parents to stay at home, and
the immigrants are aware of their boredom as a result of living in an unfamiliar country.
Annie, an immigrant adult interviewee in my study, made the following comment;

My mother mostly stayed at home. She disliked watching TV although we
had set up many channels with Taiwanese TV programs. When we got home

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after work, she asked us to take her to the grocery store to buy some eggs. We
knew she just wanted to go out (Molly, early 40s, IT specialist).

The daughters-in-law always feel stressed to pay attention to such details. While the
middle-class men in the study help with the transportation and leisure activities, the
women do most of the care work, reminding the elderly parents to take their medicine at
the scheduled times, helping to translate from English to Chinese over the phone,
teaching them the exam material for naturalization, and accompanying them to the
examination room, even though the doctors are bilingual. As I described, Olivia feels
more exhausted when she cares for parents in the United States because the parents are
much more dependent in many respects. Olivia escorted her mother-in-law who
immigrated to clinics and Denise accompanied her mother who was visiting to
acupuncture clinic, despite bilingual doctors they visited.
As a result, the immigration shift refers to a specific kind of caregiving distinct from
the local caregiving that occurs in proximity and in the same country in terms of the
acculturation work with elderly parents. The differences in the care labor for the two
generations are embedded in the power dynamics across generations. The immigrants can
educate their children with authority, whereas they need to respect their parents and
sometimes obey them. Also, the immigrants make the immigration shift to help their
parents to acculturate, but they sometimes feel frustrated because the latter feels
constrained, unhappy, or bored in the United States. The immigration shift creates a
varying sense of achievement for caregivers, compared to childcare, because immigrants’
children grow up and assimilate into U.S. society, whereas their parents are fragile and

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fail to assimilate. Finally, the parents’ dependency is expected to amplify as they settle
down in a new country in their later years.
The unfamiliarity between immigrant couples and their parents-in-law based on a
long period of family separation makes the parents-in-law’s visits a challenge. Nina
described her experience of being a daughter-in-law in the United States. “My parents-in-
law are nice, but we sometimes have different opinions. It always happens. I feel stressed
even when they are just sitting there without talking. When they cough, I wonder if they
need something. Having to focus all your attention on them is what creates the pressure.”
Since this intermittent role as a daughter-in-law places an emotional burden on immigrant
women in the United States, it is likely that intermittent reunification makes long-term
reunification a less welcome option for middle class Taiwanese immigrants and their
stay-behind parents. Also, as time goes by and their health begins to deteriorate, the
elderly parents are less likely to fly to Los Angeles as they age. From the perspective of
Samuel, who settled in the United States in 1993, his elderly parents are less willing to
immigrate and they are too old to travel across borders as time goes by. Samuel laughed
as he said, “My father and mother told me that they would not fly to Los Angeles any
more. I should fly back to Taiwan. [laugh] They did not want to take any more flights.”
As a result, the elderly parents give up family reunification in America and the
immigrants have to return to Taiwan once a year or every two years.

Plans of Return Migration
Some immigrants decide not to petition for family reunification because they evaluate
that their parents will have an easy later life or their parents refuse to immigrate. Marc, a

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senior banker at an ethnic bank, has returned to Taiwan regularly, once every year, since
we first met in 2009, but he returned more often for family emergencies in 2015.
Meanwhile, he is more likely to think about a return plan for the family when he has
worked in the United States for ten years. The ten-year plan is based on a rational
calculation based on his eligibility for social security benefits when he retires. Family
reunification in the United States has never been his plan, “Living in America is very
boring. They [His parents] have no friends here. They cannot speak English. Why would
they want to come? Why come to America when they live well in Taiwan?” According to
Marc, his parents have only visited Los Angeles once during his ten years as an
immigrant, and they had no desire to immigrate to the United States. This discourse could
be rational thinking, but it also reveals a somewhat less close relationship between the
immigrants and their elderly parents, as well as an attitude toward family reunification in
the United States that is less welcoming. A man in his early 50s expressed the following;

They come to the United States for visits. They never think about settling here
[in the United States] because their friends are in Taiwan. They come here at
most for fun. If they lived here, it would be boring for them to stay at home
for the whole day because we all work. They cannot drive and speak English,
right? We would need to go everywhere with them. (Samuel, early 50s, priest)

Like many Taiwanese immigrants, Nina had determined the possibility of family
reunification in the United States. She said, “My father tried American life once when he
attended my graduation ceremony. He looked tired for a few days and felt bored.” Nina

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realized that she and her father have two different circles of friends. His is in Taipei and
hers is in Los Angeles. She did not apply for green cards on behalf of her parents because
she realized that “At the moment, they would like to visit for the short term instead of the
long term.” Elderly parents who have more social ties with stay-behind adult children, the
extended family and friends are less likely to immigrate for their adult child in the United
States. They entertain the idea of return migration to care for parents when their
American-born children graduate from colleges and become independent.

Moral Struggles
Some immigrants expressed the view that family separation is not something they want.
However, the work environment in the United States is what really makes the immigrants
reluctant to return to Taiwan. For instance, the banker is going to postpone his ten-year
plan to return for further consideration. Similarly, Nina will not return until her career is
well established and her parents need her.

When they are too old to lead a colorful life, I will arrange it [their care] in a
different way. I do not exclude the return option...While my parents are in
good health, I think I should work hard for my career until I am well
established. It is my self-expectation…If I was not established in the United
States and chose to return, I would only be able to find a job in Taiwan that
paid $700 a month. Many Taiwanese students in the United States have
experienced this. Is it worse for student migrants to get a $700 job? When
you have not established a specific stage in the career, you cannot find a job

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above a specific level. You are still required to work longer hours, which is
common in Taiwan. You cannot see the sunrise and sunset at all. Therefore,
you should work harder for a professional career, take care of yourself, and
save money while your parents remain fine. Then, if you really need to return,
you can lead a life in Taiwan for a while with these savings. (Nina, late 30s,
office worker)

The consideration of a better career in the United States is more predominant among
immigrants who had previously worked in Taiwan. Nina expressed her rationale as
follows;

When I worked in Taiwan, I had no time to talk to my parents because of my
extra work every day. When I got home every day, I did not see them because
they were sleeping. I cared for them less than I do now in the United States…
I needed to work weekends sometimes. The working environment in Taiwan
does not allow you to interact with your family a lot. It is even not sure if you
can save money even though you work hard…Working in the United States is
better: You can think about your parents for a week or two. You can
accumulate your work experience. It is definitely worth it to stay. (Nina, late
30s, office worker)

One engineer man also revealed that family separation is practical because “you need to
be selfish and think about your career first. If you return for your parents, your career dies

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very quickly in Taiwan and they cannot take responsibility for that after their death.” It
seems that, although immigrants may retain the plan of return migration in the early years
of settlement, they eventually abandon it because they are more concerned about their
children’s education than caregiving for their parents. Then, they have to collaborate with
stay-behind family members to find a primary caregiver for the parents in need.
Therefore, in addition to providing emotional support via international calls, the
immigrants participate in caregiving across borders by care collaboration to ease their
moral struggles.

I came back from Taiwan a couple of weeks ago, and in those two weeks, I
particularly observed their interaction. Although my brother was busy, he still
relied on the family for some stuff. My parents paid attention to what my
brother might need at work and my brother paid attention to what my parents
needed in their day-to-day life. It was great to see them looking after each
other. I feel emotionally released. I can make this analysis because I am far
away from them. (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

The stay-behind siblings of Taiwanese immigrants assume this caregiving work because
of their commitment to the extended family. Mr. Lim, who is in his sixties, retired and
became a caregiver to his elderly mother in Taiwan because his two older sisters married.
One of them then immigrated to the United States and the other to Australia. As the stay-
behind caregiver, he expressed, “Since they live abroad, caregiving is beyond their grasp.
Their assistance in caring for our mother is very limited, but they come back to see her

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and be seen by her.” He rationalized his caregiving responsibility by contextualizing his
immigrant sisters’ situation, saying “We cannot control everything. It is possible that they
really want to provide care but fail due to distance, work, and their own family.” The two
immigrant sisters made little effort to negotiate the care of their mother with their stay-
behind sibling because their stay-behind brother, Mr. Lim, automatically takes care of her.
However, fairness of caring labor may matter among siblings. The question of
fairness depends on people who do not adhere to this custom. This happened to a family
on the wife’s side of Jing-Han. The other siblings were dissatisfied with the care the
oldest son was providing to the parents and refused to sign a document to give up their
part of the legacy, thereby forcing the primary caregiver to provide better care. In short,
this custom is a cultural mechanism by which the primary caregiver is assigned by
integrating the distribution of the legacy and the adult children use it as a sanction to
monitor the quality of the primary caregiver’s care.

Yu-Kang: What if the oldest son does not take care of the parents well?
Jing-Han: This happened in the extended family on my wife’s side. The
oldest daughter-in-law controlled the elderly parents’ public financial
allowance of $200 a month and their rotating savings [a type of private loan
club]. The other siblings were angry and refused to sign a letter of
renunciation, so they went to court.

The local culture/custom of elder care provision is also contested. Jing-Han explained
that he is lucky because his oldest brother in Kinmen shoulders the responsibility for care.

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He said, “My father stayed in Kinman [an outlying island of Taiwan] when most of his
adult children migrated to Taiwan for study and work, but my oldest brother also stayed
in Kinman and takes care of him.” He collaborated with his siblings to arrange the care of
his father. The other siblings also visit him regularly or irregularly as well as providing
him with a monthly allowance. As he said, “We siblings pay our share of the allowance
for our father every month.” He also tried to provide intensive support to his mother
when he relocated to Taiwan for work for four years.

In the four years I worked in Taiwan, my mother became sick and lived with
me because Taipei has a better medical service and it was convenient for her
to see a doctor at the National Taiwan University Hospital. But my younger
brother and I took turns to look after her when she had surgery and treatment
for gallstones. (Jing-Han, early 50s, civil servant)

Jing-Han’s family observes the culture of elderly care provision and he wanted to follow
this tradition by surrendering his right to any legacy.

I told my oldest brother that, if the legacy was divided into small parts of
land, I would forego my share if he asked me to, but he declined because he
thought it would damage his reputation in the neighborhood. [Researcher
asked why] Society is changing and if I gave up my part of the legacy, he
would be regarded as selfish for not sharing it with his siblings. He will lose
face [reputation] in the local village because others may not know that I

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volunteered to renounce it. My brother is reasonable because he knows that
our father refused to move to Taiwan and the rest of us send him money and
visit him regularly. (Jing-Han, early 50s, civil servant)

Thus, Jing-Han incorporates the intimate care provided by his stay-behind sibling with
regular visits and participates in caring for his elderly father with an allowance. Not only
does Jing-Han successfully engage in transnational caregiving to ensure the provision of
care to his elderly father, but his family also retains the traditional care arrangement,
which is the most favored arrangement among the middle-class Taiwanese in America.
Therefore, it is argued that this division of care labor is based on a deep negotiation
between the immigrants and their siblings and with collaboration and participation, the
immigrants feel assured that their elderly parents are being cared for. In all respects, both
the immigrants and the stay-behind siblings are acting as a family.
1
Moreover, a greater
number of siblings obviously serves as a safety net that enables baby boomer immigrants
to better negotiate the division of elderly care labor with their non-immigrant siblings
and assign the primary caregiver. However, this custom is currently less predominant and
the meaning is also changing in the local communities. The current law in Taiwan also
intervenes in the “fair” distribution of a “legacy,” or inheritance to adult children
because the law used to favor male descendants whereas married daughters were like
spilled water [not part of the family any more] as described by Jing-Han.
Similarly, Samuel’s caregiving is relatively limited and he has returned to Taiwan
less frequently in the past few years even though his father was 90 years old in 2013.

1
Regarding the sibling who is unable to care, one of Jing-Han’s brother is exceptional because of his
investment failure. Jinh-Han expressed, “We siblings even take care of his debts. I paid his property loan.”

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Samuel has two older brothers who remained in Taiwan and another who immigrated to
Canada. Despite his limited caregiving, he feels comfortable with his brother caring for
their elderly father and is clear about his father’s health. When describing his father’s
condition, he said;

He is very old and has some chronic diseases, but he is still active and is
capable of taking care of himself. As he is old, he has a slight hearing
problem, but he is healthy, sleeps well, and is able to eat. I should thank God.
(Samuel, early 50s, priest)

Some stay-behind family members outsource the work of family caregiver to a migrant
from Indonesia because they are busy at work. For instance, Aaron still felt grateful for
this arrangement whereby his elderly father is cared for by a migrant caregiver, who lives
with the family of the adult son because “they live together like a family. At least they
can keep a check on my father.”
However, not all immigrant families’ caregiving arrangements are without tension.
Some immigrants are continually sandwiched by the different opinions of family
members who remain in Taiwan. They also have to step in to solve conflicts between
elderly parents and family caregivers and they tend to lean toward supporting the
caregivers based on their appreciation of them.

I think elderly people like my mother are more likely to complain about the
people who live with them. She sometimes complains to me that my brother,

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who runs his own business, ignores family members and brings his emotions
home. I tell my mother that he is the only one who has stayed with her, so she
should be thankful for that. I really cannot say anything to my brother. I just
listen to his complaints as a way to encourage him. I would never say
anything bad to him. My mother sometimes blames me and says ‘Why should
I blame your brother?’ I reply ‘Why should I help you to blame him?’ It’s so
weird. Everyone talks about it differently. (Nina, late 30s, office worker)

The immigrants would not complain about their stay-behind siblings because they are far
away and make little contribution to the day-to-day care; thus, they are likely to express
their support of the family caregivers in any dispute about the caregiving in the stay-
behind family. Nina always expressed her appreciation during her return visits by saying
“Thank you for staying at home and taking care of dad and mom.”

Conclusion
This chapter contains the results of interviews and participant observation that were
utilized to examine the way in which middle-class Taiwanese immigrants in the United
States reconstruct and organize care for their elderly parents who remain in Taiwan or
visit to the United States. By exploring the agency and constraints of transnational
caregiving and examining selected dimension of intergenerational care, this chapter
argues that Taiwanese immigrants who embody two cultures negotiate a kind of
compromised cross-border elderly care based on their resources, cultural values, and
geographical constraints—polymediated care. In response to the constraints of distance

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and separation by national borders, Taiwanese immigrants also engage in transnational
caregiving by collaborating with stay-behind siblings.
As I incorporate how researchers of gerontology examine intergenerational supports,
the immigrants’ transnational eldercare provision is divided into different types of
assistance, namely, emotional, instrumental, and financial support. It shows what
dimensions of eldercare the immigrants are able to provide and try to intensify these
forms of care—emotional support and return visit—and what other dimensions of
eldercare their stay-behind family play a greater role—instrumental care. It also suggests
that these stay-behind parents, baby-boomer generation, are able to afford their finance
and have no necessity of receiving financial support. It is how middle-class immigrant
families organize eldercare across national borders.
This chapter also entails another two significant pieces of findings. One is
romanticization of family care. Some scholars suggest that the family is still functioning;
some argues that the family is becoming disruptive. My study, based on middle-class
immigrants, presents mixed findings. Some Taiwanese immigrants return to homeland to
care for stay-behind parents, such as Iris who returns to care for her stay-behind father
every summer. However, some immigrants refuse to provide transnational eldercare
because of poor family relations or fail to coordinate with stay-behind family members
who decline to act as the primary caregiver, such Aries whose brother-in-law sent the
father-in-law to institutional care. In contrast to existing scholarship usually assuming
that transnational caregiving is organized without conflict, this study demonstrates a
bumpy process of family collaboration with respect to eldercare arrangement.

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The other is gendered care. It is clear that middle-class women provide more
transnational eldercare to parents who remain in Taiwan across dimensions of
intergenerational support. Regarding the role of daughters-in-law, I further argue that
some immigrant women remain fulfill gendered expectations not only because of cultural
expectation as previous research suggests but also because of different frames of
reference which the immigrant women compared with their relatives or friends in Taiwan
with respect to care labor. The immigrant women were more “accepting” gendered
expectations as daughters-in-law because their role as daughters-in-law has become
minimized due to separation after immigration, they had strategies for resolving
embarrassment resulted from unfamiliarity by deploying American-born descents in
navigating intergenerational conversations, and incorporated their own behaviors into
parenting strategies, in which they aim to transmit this “Chinese family values” to
American-born children.
Taking the transnational caregiving experience of middle-class immigrants as
reference, the next chapter focuses on the experience of upper-class counterparts.

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Chapter 4: Nouveau Riche: Outsourced Care

The middle-class Taiwanese immigrants in the United States, who are the majority, were
examined in the previous chapter and it was demonstrated how they strive to keep up
with the Wongs while struggling to achieve immigrant incorporation and participate in
transnational caregiving, mostly by polymediated care. The middle-class immigrant adult
children are sandwiched between two worlds, either geographically or culturally. Some
of them aim to climb up to the upper class through entrepreneurship. Most of these
would-be upper-class immigrants currently run a business and invest in real estate or the
stock market to achieve their goal, while others have realized their American dream in
the Golden State.
These nouveau riche live in San Marino, Arcadia, Rowland Heights, Irvine, and San
Bernardino. Some of them mentioned the value of their property, but I obtained more
information from the property assessment information system at the Los Angeles County
office. The mansions I visited were priced above two million at least. The upper-class
Taiwanese, especially those who immigrated in the 1980s, are generally more likely to
organize or attend civic groups in Southern California, such as professional associations,
alumni associations, benevolent associations, ethnic group associations, and politically-
oriented groups or serve as advisors for the overseas Chinese Affairs Council of the
Taiwanese government.
Most of the upper-class participants in this chapter are entrepreneurs who have a
stable and profitable revenue stream. They are self-made millionaires rather than
inheritors of old money. They operate firms that trade in jewelry, car parts, wines, food,

169
fashion goods, and accessories; three men own independent or chain 3-star hotels or
higher. Three participants are (the wife of) property development associates, who focus
on property development in Arcadia, San Marino, and San Bernardino. This group
includes some retirees and housewives. Some of the wives of the Taiwanese
entrepreneurs in this group assist their family business in terms of accounting. Some have
their own professional career, such as a managerial position in fields like finance and real
estate, while others have a part-time job for fun, such as lecturing. Most of these women
have experience of serving on the board of education at the school where their children
study or the larger school district.
Lastly, four professional men who have affluent investments in business, real estate
or the stock market are categorized in this group because both of their household income
and caregiving strategies are more inclined to upper-class cohorts. They include doctors
owning a chain of clinics in Southern California as well as a current lawyer and a former
accountant at a very senior managerial level. The middle classes can be more clearly
categorized as college-educated white-collar professionals (middle class), less-educated
semi-professionals (lower-middle class), and highly educated and affluent professionals
(upper-middle class). According to the study of Ehrenreich (1989), highly educated
salaried professionals such as lawyers, engineers, and professors have advanced academic
degrees, work more flexibly, and are well paid. However, three upper-middle class
individuals are categorized as the upper class in this study because corporate élites earn a
substantial income and add to it by investing in the stock market, real estate, and
businesses. Their wife works at a managerial position in finance and accounting.
Therefore, their wealth is substantially comparable to affluent Taiwanese entrepreneurs,

170
as was revealed during the interviews and participant observation. Yet half of the would-
be upper-class participants categorized as upper-class currently have a part-time job after
retiring early in their 30s or 40s because they feel bored.
Whether or not the stay-behind elderly parents of upper-class immigrants live with a
family caregiver, the immigrants always recruit Taiwanese or Southeast Asian caregivers in
Taiwan to assist with their transnational eldercare duties. Overall, upper-class immigrants,
both men and women, have a distant attitude toward providing emotional support and
intimate care for elderly parents from afar, despite their class privilege. These privileged
immigrants outsource their transnational eldercare labor to disadvantaged women through the
global care chain. The provision intensity of their transnational eldercare is summarized
in the following table.

Table 4-1 Means of Transnational Eldercare Provision Intensity by Gender and Class
Emotional
Support
Return
Visits
Caregiver
Arrangement
Instrumental
Support
Financial
Support
Upper-class
Men (N=13)
0.11 0.07 0.29 0.07 0.72
Upper-class
Women(N=15)
0.25 0.17 0.42 0.04 0.67
Middle-class
Men (N=33)
0.24 0.36 0.33 0.00 0.27
Middle-class
Women(N=50)
0.77 0.73 0.41 0.33 0.26
* 0=None, 1=Frequent

Based on Table 4-1, two patterns exit: (1) the transnational provision of financial support
prevails in this upper-class group, compared to other forms of filial care across borders, and
(2) upper-class women generally provide more care than men, except little contrast in
instrumental support and financial support.

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Unlike either their middle-class counterparts, who provide intense emotional support,
upper-class immigrants are less likely to care for the stay-behind parents by providing
emotional support and traveling back to homeland. While both middle-class immigrants and
upper-class immigrants are comparably able to arrange the primary caregivers to the parents,
I will demonstrate their different approaches. The former takes family members; the latter
takes paid service. I therefore define upper-class immigrants’ practices of transnational
eldercare as “outsourced.” In the following section, I demonstrate selected dimensions of
intergenerational support across national borders: they tend to outsource their filial
obligation to paid professionals and family members and claim that this arrangement is in
the best interests of their (sick) parents.

Emotional Care
Upper-class immigrants generally do less emotional and kin-keeping labor to maintain the
connection across family generations and borders, despite having a flexible schedule.
Apart from those who have their own careers, other upper-class women are full-time
housewives or are responsible for the accounts, general affairs, and human resources of
the family business. None of the upper-class immigrants, both men and women, stays in
touch with stay-behind parents using new forms of telecommunication, but the women
would sometimes check on their wellbeing with stay-behind siblings(-in-law).
Nancy and her husband worked hard to establish their trading business of computer
components, and their successful immigration and affluence enabled them to petition for
family reunification for her parents-in-law, who nevertheless chose to live in Taiwan.
Rather than returning back to Taiwan, the couple prefers inviting the stay-behind parents

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to visit. Despite their visits in past years, Nancy and her children still feel less familiar
with them, which is probably based on her lack of emotional support and
multigenerational communication, compared to the middle-class participants in the
previous chapter. Based on the interview, there was no specific concrete expression of
their cross-border contact and emotional support. Nancy acknowledged that a distant
grandparent-grandchildren relationship existed in her family: “my children have little in
common with my parents-in-law to sustain a long conversation. My son is only likely to
talk to my father-in-law about NBA.” Notably, Nancy’s communication is much less
intense and regular compared with her middle-class counterparts, which most upper-class
women attribute to their busy workloads in the family business or their own careers. In
fact, I was able to have long, relaxed interviews with them in their homes or nearby cafés
during the day, and I only observed three of the women to be busy when I visited them in
their offices or restaurants.
Based on the interviews with upper-class immigrant men, like Mr. Tang, they have
neither intensive nor regular contact with their left-behind parents. Interestingly, the
businessmen argued that international calls were very expensive in the late 1970s and
early 1980s, despite their increasing wealth. They seldom described how
telecommunication technology helped them to maintain a polymediated form of
emotional support, as their middle-class counterparts do. Instead, they tended to share
their old-fashioned experience during their settlement years in the 1990s. They contacted
their parents irregularly via telegraph at first and then later by means of the fax machine
in their office. The men contacted their stay-behind parents only on important dates, such
as Chinese New Year.

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The telegraph machine had large size type and you had to prepare the content
of the message with a draft. Dadadada…the telegraph had many holes. There
were codes that would be further decoded. The reason you needed a draft was
to save money because the telegraph fee depended on the time taken to type
and transmit the message. (Mr. Tang, early 50s, retired businessman)

Mr. Tang further acknowledged the role of technology in facilitating the current vibrant
transnational connection, when he expressed, “Technology changes your life. We can talk
to each other face to face in a phone call. It is high technology and cheap.” Yet, the
advanced communication technology in the recent decade did not encourage him to
maintain a transnational connection with his stay-behind family from the 1980s until his
father’s death in the 1990s, and even until now.
Based on the interview with Mr. Tang in Los Angeles, the immigrant son proposed
reunification for the elderly parents but they decline because they prefer living in Taiwan.
Mr. Tang also regards reunification as unnecessary because “it is good to live with my
younger brother in Taiwan.” Mr. Tang’s mother in her late 70s lives with one of her stay-
behind sons and conversed slowly to me. During the visit, the elderly mother expressed
more concerns about her immigrant son. In fact, the stay-behind son expressed, “My
brother [Mr. Tang] did not call too much.” These immigrant sons, such as Mr. Tang,
argued that international calls were very expensive, despite the fact that some of them
were wealthy.

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Mr. Tsao, the former accounting manager, also did not contact his parents via
international calls when he lived in Los Angeles and Tokyo, respectively. He described
his limited conversation with his father, “I could not talk to my father for very long to
express my care. I think it was about two minutes on average, just like my sex life. It is
probably because men dislike having a conversation, especially between father and son. I
never know what to say and neither does he.” To justify their minimal contact, the men
tend to relegate eldercare labor to women. They presume it’s women’s labor, i.e.
daughters and daughters-in-law. While Mr. Tsao aimed to conclude it with gender
difference, he would be surprised to know that women in the same class, such as Yvonne,
Mrs. Chi, Mrs. Kao, Nancy, and Christina, also do not maintain phone contact on a
frequent and regular basis.
1

Unlike their middle-class counterparts, upper-class Taiwanese rarely stay in touch
with their remain-behind family members via international calls. In addition, the upper-
class immigrants are less pushy to confirm the parents’ health. While middle-class
Taiwanese immigrants tend to hide negative information from their stay-behind family
members and vice versa, Nancy is more confident about the information she receives
from the other side of the Pacific Ocean. As she expressed, “My oldest brother shares
everything.” Again, her conversation with her brother reveals a calm form of transpacific
connection with her parents and family members. “We sometimes figure out ways of
prevention” was her greatest expression of transnational caregiving. She concluded, “I do
not feel guilty because I try my best.”

1
His wife is a second generation Chinese American and, according to Mrs. Tsao, has no such beliefs of
filial obligations to parents-in-law.

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Return Visits
Upper-class immigrants are much supposed to travel to the homeland with their financial
resources; in fact, they are less likely to make regular return visits.
The former Japanese chain-restaurant owner, Mr. Chu, and his wife did not return to
Taiwan for family emergencies and his mother’s death in 1991. Mrs. Chu reluctantly
admitted this, but Mr. Chu explained, “She [The mother] would not wake up, even if I
returned. My sisters took care of her.” Mr. and Mrs. Chu volunteered little information.
They were quite detached about making arrangements to care for their cross-border
parents. Some even clearly articulated that they did not have a close relationship with
their parents; thus, they neither returned to Taiwan regularly to provide care nor
petitioned for family reunification.
Mr. Lo also described, “We are not close. I have no reasons for return visits. If I
return to Taiwan, it is for fun rather than for them.” Mr. Lo’s resistance to his original
family further unloads his wife’s filial obligations as a Chinese daughter-in-law, but it has
affected her transnational involvement in terms of return visits to her own parents
because Mrs. Lo does not control the family finance. Based on the interviews, some
upper-class Taiwanese immigrants do not provide any care for their elderly parents
without detailing the reasons, probably due to a desire to maintain their privacy.
In addition, Mr. Chi seldom return to Taiwan because he believed his brother is able
to check on the mother at a medical care center. He expressed, “She [the mother] cannot
speak and recognize me now.” Mr. Wang also believes his brother who lives with and
care for his mother well and has no necessity of regular return visits. When they do
return, upper-class immigrants invite their stay-behind siblings to join them on domestic

176
and international trips to compensate for their absence, to show that they appreciate their
long-term care labor, and to provide them with a break. Moreover, the immigrants are
even absent from family emergencies and funerals.
Lastly, upper-class immigrants’ lower frequency of return visits partially relates to
the circumstances of their elderly parents. In the cases of Mr. Dai, David’s wife, Mr.
Tsao, Shelly, Winnie, and Yvonne, the parents(-in-law) arrived for reunification. Due to
this, the immigrants are less likely to return to Taiwan for elderly parents. In the cases of
Nancy, Sam and Christina, and Ralph’s wife, the elderly parents are the most able to visit
migrating adult children in the United States.

Parental Visit
When elderly parents visit, the immigrant women feel more stressed and they do more
care work than the men. Nancy recounted her experience of living with parents-in-law;

I believe they feel it is less convenient because they need transportation. I told
them that we would drive them if they asked in advance. We buy some gifts
on the way home from work because they are the most respected members of
the family. We eat out. We take them out, for instance to the beach, if we
have time. In earlier years, they visited the East coast. They visited other sons
in Chicago and the Bay area. We are lucky that they are both healthy.
(Nancy, 52, wife of a businessman)

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During the parents(-in-law)’s transpacific visits, their interaction with their grandchildren
is strangely distant. The women see frequent visits as increasing family tensions across
the generations, reflected in their conflicting habits and meal preferences. As Nancy
attempted to analyze:

They [the parents] can walk to the market in Taiwan at any time to buy what
they want, but we go grocery shopping once a week here. They like soft food,
but my children like crunchy food. The young generation thinks that soft
vegetables are not nutritious. (Nancy, 52, wife of a businessman)

The visits of parents raise more tension across the generations, based on the immigrant
women. As a result, the upper-class immigrants tend to arrange trip to generate fun
experiences for the elderly parents. In so doing, they also could minimize the time they
stay and interact with them under the same roof. Like the other upper-class immigrants in
this study, Nancy uses entertainment as a way to provide care when her parents-in-law
visit the United States. She recalls: “in previous years, we traveled together to Russia,
Europe, Brazil, the east coast of America, Alaska, and Mexico. I went with them for fun.”
Nancy used an entertaining way of caregiving for her parents-in-law’s visit. “They retired
early and travelled a lot on their own and with us.” Apart from the abovementioned trips,
Nancy escorts her parents-in-law to malls to buy souvenirs for their relatives and friends,
even if they do not ask her to do it.
Nancy was able to provide costly caregiving with her class privilege, which also
reflects the fact that her parents-in-law chose her family as the major place to stay when

178
they visited the United States. As she reasoned, the affluent stay was one of the major
reasons the parents-in-law liked to stay with Nancy’s family instead of her other brothers-
in-law in San Francisco and Chicago. She concluded, “I don’t feel guilty because I try my
best.” Not only do upper-class Taiwanese provide their visiting parents with entertaining
and costly forms of caregiving, such as travel. If the parents plan to settle in the United
States, the immigrants prefer purchasing another property nearby and hiring a domestic
helper who could speak Mandarin avoid problems of multigenerational cohabitation.
Ralph, a legal manager at an American law firm, and his wife are busy for
managerial positions and parenting with “concerted cultivation.” While they currently
live with his parents, Ralph also sees more problems of multigenerational household,
such as the parenting style. As a result, Ralph arranges many international trips and cruise
packages for aging parents. The parents traveled to Alaska, Brazil, Europe, and Japan in
2013. Ralph regularly supports his cohabiting parents’ travel back to Taiwan if they are
homesick for their relatives/friends and other destinations for fun.

They like to travel. They flew back from Taiwan six months ago and will
travel again next month and then to Taiwan again after that trip. They have
relatives and friends in Taiwan. My uncle is close to them and they travel
around Taiwan together. (Ralph, early 40s, law firm manager)

One reason behind the trip sponsorship is to avoid multigenerational interactions. The
men also see more cost when the parents visit them. Ralph’s mother-in-law plans to visit
them, but Ralph would have to discuss the possibility of unexpected accidents and

179
associated insurance with her left-behind family to support her stay. Ralph shared this
with me, lowering his voice while his wife was in another room.

If her mother visits us without insurance, I cannot afford $210,000 for
medical services if she gets sick. I cannot afford $50,000 let alone $210,000. I
do not want to invite my mother-in-law to America because of the high cost
of medical services for the elderly. Her mother is not a citizen, so it is not
easy to purchase insurance. Even if you have money, it is still very pricy,
especially for people over 72 or 75. I discussed the issue of buying insurance
for my mother-in-law’s visit with her son, from both the Taiwan and the U.S.
sides. (Ralph, early 40s, law firm manager)

Besides health insurance over the trips, they also worry about the financial consequence.
Sam, a 50-year-old dentist in Rowland Heights, shared the following account; “I allowed
my father to drive my sports cars, but you know, he cannot really drive a car in the
United States. He has crashed several of my cars, including a Porsche and a Ferrari.”

The Arrangement of Caregiver
Unlike the middle-class immigrants, who mostly relied on unpaid care provided by family
members to elderly parents, all the upper-class women I interviewed arranged paid care for
their stay-behind parents(-in-law). Christina said, “because my husband arranges most of
the eldercare, I can focus on caring for the children.” Sam, her husband, shared:

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Around ten years ago, I sent my parents to Shanghai, China, and hired two
butlers to take care of them, one to drive them and the other to manage the
household. It’s very cheap there [in China]. I paid $300 each for their salary.
My parents could go anywhere and get anything done at home if they used
the butlers. However, the quality of medical services in China is not very
reliable, even in a big city like Shanghai, so I sent them back to Taipei and
hired a domestic helper there. One day, they complained that it was kind of
noisy at their current house in the Xin-Yi district [the most expensive area of
real estate in Taiwan], so I bought an apartment in Muzha [a suburb area of
Taipei city] online while I was in California. The pictures looked really nice.
But I shouldn’t have done it because my parents disliked it after living there
for a while. That was fine. I can use it myself when I travel back to Taiwan.
(Sam, early 50s, chain dentist clinic owner)

Some upper-class immigrants even paid family caregivers. Nancy described the care they
had arranged for her stay-behind parents-in-law: “although my father-in-law had surgery
before, he can care for himself now. My husband and his brothers hire their sister to
accompany their parents in the daytime, like a job.” Nancy’s siblings in Taiwan currently
take turns to accompany their mother as her Alzheimer’s comes and goes. At least one of
the left-behind siblings is responsible for taking her walking for exercise; otherwise, she
gets lost on her own. Yet, Nancy does not check her mother’s status directly and
regularly, but relies on updates from her siblings. “They will tell me the truth because I
cannot help since I am far away,” she added.

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Paid services, including caregivers and medical care centers, have generally become
a prominent strategy for upper-class immigrants to care for their fragile parents. The
respondents reasoned, “a nurse is better at giving injections and cleaning the urine bag.
I’m not a professional, so I may cause them pain,” or “it’s a different era now.
Professional services are better.” Such statements suggest that upper-class immigrants
rationalize these outsourced arrangements because they believe that professional services
can better serve the needs of their elderly parents. For instance, Mr. Chi’s mother stays at
a medical care center and his brother may visit once a week.
Upper class Taiwanese immigrants are able to outsource their obligation to care for
the elderly to a paid professional, claiming that this is the best option for their sick
parents. Even though the parents live with stay-behind siblings, most of them financially
support the stay-behind siblings to recruit a paid caregiver to assist. Mr. Tang came to the
United States as an expatriate in 1984 and then became a shareholder of the Taiwanese
electronics trading company in Orange County. He owned a couple of firms and sold his
shares in order to retire. According to Mr. Tang, his father had declined his invitation of
family reunification because he had immigrated to Taiwan as a Mainlander post-WWII.
2

His mother declined more firmly because she prefers the bustle of life in the small city of
Hsinchu. As a result, his elderly mother lives with his younger brother in Taiwan and a
caregiver from Indonesia. It is argued that these upper-class Taiwanese undertake flexible
transnational caregiving, which is activated and sustained by strong financial resources.

2
Based on the interviews, many privileged mainlanders immigrated to the United States because some of
them regarded Taiwan as a stop-over rather than home. His parents’ decision may be explained by their
strong roots in Taiwan.

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Instrumental Support
Upper-class immigrants seldom return to provide hands-on personal care when the
parents need it. They generally find it more difficult to provide personal care. Lily
expressed her cultural assimilation in terms of eldercare;

Elderly parents in the U.S. eventually move to senior homes if their adult
children are at work all day or their spouse is too old to care for them. Things get
out of control and it’s impossible for us to care for them if we are busy at work
and leave home early and return late. We can’t beat the clock. (Lily, 56, property
developer)

These upper-class immigrants tend to adopt the eldercare arrangements they perceive in the
host society, whereby frail older parents move into senior homes and medical care centers for
their retirement and old age. As noted earlier, upper-class immigrant immigrants, both men
and women, tend to outsource their filial duty to paid professionals by claiming that
professional service is in the best interest of their elderly parents, especially if the latter
are sick. Again, this outsourced pattern of eldercare provision in a transnational setting likely
becomes more prevalent if the parents(-in-law) immigrate to the United States. Mr. Dai
rotated the responsibility of aged care to fragile mother with his two brothers in Los Angeles
month by month, and the sons finally decided to send the mother to medical care center to
secure “fairness” among siblings and life quality “worsened” by care duty. In terms of
fairness from this rotation arrangement, the brothers argued, for instance, that the month of
October has one more day than the month of September, or someone picked up the mother

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one hour late. As a result, none of the brother provided instrumental support and transferred
this hard labor to professional service until the mother’s death.

Financial Support
Most of the upper-class immigrants provide the stay-behind family with an allowance and
financial support. In fact, they benefit from the fact that their siblings(-in-law) are usually
in the same social class, and so may not need financial support, such as Mr. Chi and Mr.
Wang. However, most of them still insist on paying some of the fees related to the care of
their elderly parents, taking gifts for their siblings during their irregular return trips,
relinquishing their right to any inheritance to compensate for their absence, and funding
the activities of their parents and siblings. Some means of financial support are not
necessary monetary, they are not also flowing to the parents.
Married women tend to be less involved in caring for their biological parents and in-
laws, paying materialized care to their parents, or giving gifts to the left-behind primary
caregivers and siblings as compensation for their lack of cross-border care for their
elderly parents. Nancy appreciated her mother. From Nancy’s perspective, her mother
was able to age comfortably and freely, but she focused on caring for her grandchildren
too much, including during her only two visits to the United States to see her two
children.

She felt lonely as the youngest grandchild had grown up. She had a strong
sense of loss and frustration. She showed signs of Alzheimer’s. She insisted
on cooking for my brother’s family, but the young ones did not appreciate it

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because they have their own way of cooking, such as using less oil. But I was
also worried that she felt useless because the children did not need her help.
(Nancy, 52, wife of businessman)

However, Nancy’s filial care has been reduced to financial support, which, she believes,
helps her stay-behind siblings with respect to eldercare provision. Other upper-class
immigrants provide financial support to the remain-behind siblings, rather than directly to
the parents, to participate in their share of filial obligations and even directly outsource
intimate care to paid caregivers and seniors’ homes.
Sometimes, the immigrants’ financial support is implicit to the elderly care. As her
younger brother and older sister take care of the mother well, Nancy aims to do more
during her return visit when her caregiving mainly consists of entertaining. She
expressed, “I treat them for fun and relaxation.” Her caregiving policy of “just do your
best” has a cost to some extent. One way of doing “her best” is to arrange tours for the
family whenever she returns to Taiwan.

Whenever I go back to Taiwan, I try to bring all my siblings together for
different activities that are easy for them to do. I organize trips to the east
coast, Japan, and Mainland China. They are able to take a break during the
vacation and we can all take this opportunity to recall our memories. (Nancy,
52, wife of businessman)

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Nancy took nine family members on a luxury tour from Taiwan to Japan and when I
asked her what it cost, she replied, “I think the total cost was acceptable. They care for
her so well. I am so lucky to have them. We all have a good relationship and are not
picky about each other. Either God or Buddha is looking at us from above, and of course,
Christians do not ask for reward.” Without frequent telephone contact and substantial
caregiving practices, most of Nancy’s caregiving for her mother is transformed into
compensation for left-behind siblings as primary caregivers.
Those immigrants who do not provide financial support to stay-behind family at all
relinquish their right to any inheritance to compensate for their absence. Mr. Chi plans to
relinquish his right since his brother, also upper-class entrepreneur in Taiwan, has paid
the fare of senior homes for the sick father. Mr. Wang relinquished his right to an
inheritance of at least two hundred million Taiwan dollars, around US$7 million, to
appreciate his brother’s effort and compensate his own absence of filial obligations.
Overall, their financial care consists of entertaining their parents during their visits to
the United States, assisting the family caregivers with money and the recruitment of paid
service, gifting the stay-behind family members, and relinquishing the right to any
inheritance. These immigrants may not actually provide their parents with money, but
transform it into compensation for left-behind family members.

Surveyed Experiences
The examination of aged care that upper-class immigrants provide to elderly parents
shows that a group of them (at most 10%) frequent their care to parents. In these cases,
all of the parents(in-law) have immigrated to the United States. In fact, 72 out of 170

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elderly currently live in the United States. As a result, this intense care occurring in the
same country does not present to their care flowing to parents who remain in Taiwan.
This pattern based on surveys echoes what interviews find: The upper-class immigrants
are most likely to bring the parents to settle in the United States and least likely to
experience family separation across border. Overall, financial support is the most
significant forms of eldercare provided by the nouveau riche.

Table 4-2 Intergenerational Support to Parents; Upper Class (N=170)

NEVER
ONCE/TWICE
A YEAR
SEVERAL
TIMES A YEAR
MONTHLY WEEKLY DAILY
EMOTIONAL
SUPPORT
42.4 14.1 27.1 3.5 8.2 4.7
PROVIDE INFO
& ADVICE
39.4 7.6 23.5 10.0 10.6 8.8
HELP MAKE
DECISIONS
45.3 9.4 24.1 3.5 10.0 7.6
HOUSEHOLD
CHORES HELP
61.8 10.6 20.6 2.9 1.8 2.4
ESCORT
ASSISTANCE
42.4 14.1 27.1 3.5 8.2 4.7
CARE AS THEY
ARE SICK
65.9 4.1 18.2 2.4 2.9 6.5
PROVIDE
DIRECT CARE
84.1 2.9 8.8 0.6 0.0 3.5
FINANCIAL
SUPPORT
45.9 10.0 24.1 11.8 2.9 5.3
In proportion (%)

I further look at the difference of gender. Acknowledging that the women are still more
likely to provide emotional support, give advice, and help parents make decisions to
parents(in-law), I find no gender difference in other dimensions of eldercare. Upper-class
women do not provide more direct care either daily or when the parents are sick. It
confirms the qualitative data that the immigrants, both men and women, subcontract labor
of intimate care and household chores to paid service. Also, there is no gender difference
in the pattern of financial support and assistance in household chores. All suggests that

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the outsourced care of upper-class immigrants helps upper-class women unpack the
traditions of gendered care.

Unpacking the Traditions of Gendered Care
Except three full-time housewives and two having their own career, the women in the
entrepreneur’s family busied their jobs at a position of accounting, general affairs, and
human resources at the family business. With their flexible scheduling available to the
entrepreneurs as they claimed, the women involved children’s education and even
participated in school board elections.
The examination of the gendered division of household labor at home provides a
window to the gendering process of the upper-class family and the negotiations of
eldercare provision. As I interviewed and observed, the gendered division of household
labor at home is mixed in this group: The majority of the women bear the responsibility
of house chores, such as cooking, but they would outsource paid service for managing
other house chores while the women’s husband did not care about the ways the women
manage the private sphere. Arguably, the women did not confront their men for unpaid
labor in the second shift because they resisted this traditional role by subcontracting or
just because they accepted traditional gender roles and they have plenty of time available
at home. The majority of the women recruited part-time domestic helpers for household
chores at the hourly rate of $20.
Interestingly, all of the upper-class women seldom stepped in providing direct care
to parents(in-law) across national borders either because their husband had arranged a
primary caregiver for the parents or because the women provided financial assistance to

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the stay-behind siblings in organizing intimate care to their own parents in Taiwan. None
of them regularly contact the stay-behind family via international calls, free video calls,
and chat applications, which the middle-class counterparts did, because they continued to
reason with their busy work from the family business or their own career. However, I was
able to visit most of the women’s houses or met with them in nearby café for, or
interviewed at the daytime. Only three—Mrs. Chi, Mrs. Chu, and Yvonne—noted
themselves as too busy to meet in the daytime, and I observed that they usually stayed
late at the office or restaurants because of their accounting work that involves
exportation, international banks, and fiscal closing dates.
The women did not need to bear the traditional gender roles as daughters-in-law
from afar because their husband had arranged materialized eldercare provision that
unloads the women’s eldercare responsibility of daughters-in-law. The women also
minimized their roles as daughters and thus assisted in eldercare provision to their own
stay-behind parents with financial support. Compared to middle-class women, the upper-
class women seldom have to negotiate the gender role of daughters-in-law because their
spouse has arranged paid care for his parents. With respect to transnational eldercare, a
gendered division of transnational eldercare found in the middle-class family did not emerge
in the upper-class family where both men and women tended to purchase care labor and did
not physically perform intimate eldercare from afar and in the United States. Briefly
speaking, women in the upper-class family generally did not embody the same notion of
filial piety and eldercare provision that middle-class women have. While probing what
filial duty means to them at interviews, I got similar responses from half of the wives in this

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group. Winnie, for instance, reasoned, “Our filial piety is not determined by how others
evaluate you. People in the United States do not mind your own business.”
Throughout the interviews, the upper-class immigrant women were quite calm about
making eldercare arrangements for their parents-in-law across borders. Some of the
upper-class Taiwanese immigrants interviewed did not provide any eldercare for their
parents, but declined to give their reasons, probably based on a desire for privacy. Some
clearly expressed they did not have a close relationship with their parents-in-law; thus,
they played a limited role as daughters-in-law in providing transnational eldercare.
However, most of their parents-in-law were assisted by paid caregivers to help personal
care, accompany at home, and escort their sick parents to medical care centers. Thus the
women transform the gendered expectation of a daughter-in-law by transferring their
filial duties into professional care provided by market service.

Family Reunification
This group is most likely to petition for family reunification, which usually requires
enough finance from the adult children or the elderly parents to afford residential
arrangements and healthcare. It also requires the sponsorship of legal status. Although the
care is no longer transnational, the discussion of upper-class immigrants’ caregiving in
America post reunification will echo their peers’ experience of providing transnational
care for their stay-behind parents, all of which suggest a flexible arrangement of care for
the elderly and an outsourced form of care.

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Reunification without Sponsorship
It was found that some elderly upper-class parents obtain citizenship on their own
without being sponsored by their adult children. For example, when their children
continued to move to the United States one by one, the parents initiated immigration on
their own. As I cited in chapter 2, Lily’s father purchased an apartment block and asked
Lily’s sister, a student migrant, to manage it. Lily is not required to sponsor her parents’
legal status; instead, her parents funded her husband’s business. The advantages of upper-
class families are cross-generational. Some of the elderly parents obtained U.S.
citizenship on their own for business purposes or their adult children’s study.
Similar to Nancy, Ralph immigrated later than his parents did as investors in 1982.
The United States was the chosen destination, partly because his parents were worried
about his younger brother’s anticipated achievement in Taiwanese education at the K-12
level and the future, and partly because the family was worried about a possible political
and economic disturbance after the breaking off of diplomatic relations between Taiwan
and the United States. Again, Ralph’s parents landed in Costa Rica first because they
were refused a visa to the United States. His father soon continued their trading business
after relocating to Los Angeles, while his younger brother and sister studied at K-12
schools. However, Ralph stayed in Taiwan alone as a teenager throughout his high school
and higher education because he was almost 18; therefore, he was unable to join his
family in Los Angeles until he completed the compulsory military service.
3

3
It is common for school-age sons to remain in Taiwan when the family immigrates if they turn 18 years
old. Another example is that Mandy’s parents immigrated to the United States by overstaying, called “jump
off the airplane” among the Taiwanese. It refers to visitors entering a country legally with a tourism visa
but overstaying illegally. Mandy’s parents petitioned for a family reunification visa some years later for
her, her older sister, and her younger brother while leaving her older brother behind because of the
regulation in Taiwan that men cannot leave the country without completing compulsory military service,

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The transplantation of the upper class not only reflects the efforts of the adult
children and native-born children in the United States. The elderly parents of the upper-
class Taiwanese also have the advantage of obtaining U.S. citizenship on their own. This
even helps adult children immigrate and do business. In short, some of the immigrant
adults may not provide care for their parents; rather, their settlement is supported by their
parents. Lastly, it should be noted that some upper-class immigrants, like Mr. and Mrs.
Chu as well as Mr. and Mrs. Lo, even did not propose to petition for family reunification.

Residential Arrangement
Another aspect of family reunification to consider is the residential arrangement.
Compared to other Taiwanese, the upper-class Taiwanese elders and immigrants are most
likely to get together in the United States in terms of their capacity of affording “good”
housing. The elderly parents either live with their immigrant adult children or alone in a
separate house or seniors’ home.
Mr. Tsao invited his elderly parents with Japanese citizenship from Downtown
Tokyo to age in the United States after he had settled in Arcadia, California, for 7 years.
Yet, his businessman father continued to fly between Los Angeles and Tokyo every
month during his first year of resettlement in Los Angeles to prepare to close his business
and sell his house in Japan. Mr. Tsao shouldered this care responsibility as the oldest son,
“I am the oldest son. I have no choice but to take care of them.” Mr. Tsao’s younger
brother, who had been naturalized as Japanese for decades, also immigrated to Arcadia
(two blocks from Mr. Tsao’s house) because he perceived Japanese society as somewhat

particularly when they turn 18. Her brother immigrated at the age of 23 after completing a college degree
and military service.

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xenophobic. His sister remains in Taiwan with her Taiwanese husband. Mr. Tsao
described the housing he arranged for his parents, “They live in an independent spacious
unit in the back yard. It is a suite, including a kitchen, bathroom, and central air
conditioning for AC and heaters.” The unit for his parents cost $150,000 in 1994.
According to Mr. Tsao, despite the fact that his parents do not have the traditional
mindset of family cohabitation and adult children’ care provision, he has found a way to
blend the two generations’ preferences, which means that they are less engaged with each
other, by ensuring that they keep their house in Taipei.

My parents are sympathetic by not requiring us to live under the same roof.
They are more open and less traditional. Their food is different from what we
younger generations eat. We eat separately and have no conflict. Both
generations maintain their privacy. Another example is that I have a daughter
but no son. My brother also has a daughter. My parents have contemporary
values. Our family will end without any male descendants. (Mr. Tsao, late
50s, former accounting manager)

Since Mr. Tsao’s entire family, apart from his sister, immigrated to Los Angeles, his
elderly care is not transnational. Since his parents’ immigration to the United States, Mr.
Tsao’s transnational engagement with Taiwan has decreased over time. He explained, “I
do not go back to Taiwan. I would not know what to do because a third of my college
classmates studied and immigrated to the United States.” Since the parents immigrated to
the United States, the remain-behind members provide transnational caregiving in the

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opposite geographic direction. As a result, Mr. Tsao’s stay-behind sister visits the United
States regularly to see her parents. The sister in Taiwan undertakes transnational
caregiving in terms of international calls and regular visits to Los Angeles.
After Mr. Tsao’s mother passed away, his father began to date other women in 2009,
but not for the purpose of marriage in order to avoid legacy issues, but he moved to
another house in Arcadia in 2011 to avoid his native-born granddaughter from being
confused about his complicated relationships. In general, Mr. Tsao undertook less care
for his elderly father, either when the two generations lived together or when the father
lived alone nearby. In addition to undertaking less intergenerational contact, his
flexibility in arranging housing at different stages characterizes the caregiving of the
upper-class Taiwanese.
Ralph’s parents live with him in a spacious house with a suite consisting of four
rooms and a library in Temple City. His brother lives in Chino Hills and his two sisters
live in Taipei and Rowland Heights, respectively. As for Ralph, he is more financially
capable than his siblings of providing care for his elderly parents, but the situation is
complicated by intergenerational relationships.

My older sister and younger brother also live in California, but the oldest son
is responsible for caring for elderly parents. My sister is on her husband’s
side after marrying out, which is very traditional. When I proposed to my
wife, I asked if she was OK about living with my parents because I have to
consider providing care for them as they grow older. She was OK. In addition

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to my [financial] ability, caring for them also involves getting along. I have a
better relationship with them. (Ralph, early 40s, law firm manager)

The identity of the primary caregiver for the elderly is a cultural matter. It is also a class
matter. Unlike other members of the upper-class entrepreneur cohort, Ralph still
shoulders the caregiving responsibility as the oldest son in the United States although he
lived alone in Taiwan for high school and college when his father brought his siblings to
America for their education. His sister in Rowland Heights visits their parents irregularly,
“she buys moon cakes [for the Autumn festival] and takes them out to eat.” However,
Ralph explained that his brother seldom visits because he is not on good terms with his
parents and his wife does not like them. As a result, the matter of assigning the primary
caregiver reflects complex family relationships. Like many of the Taiwanese in this study,
Ralph summarized the process of assigning the primary caregiver, “Each family has its
own bible that cannot be understood by others.” Yet Ralph criticized his American-
educated brother for being irresponsible because “he does not think caregiving is any of
his business.”
However, Ralph has experienced problems of maintaining a multigenerational
immigrant household, which result from cultural differences by class, generation, and
society.

I educate my children the ways of interacting with and respecting to
grandparents and parents. It is an excellent part of Chinese culture. Living
together has pros and cons. The pros are to help each other and pass down

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good values and the cons are that my parents educate my children in the ways
that I think wrong. For instance, they ask my children to pee on the vegetable
farm in the back yards. They think that to pee anywhere is fine but I do not
think they could teach my children in that way. I sometimes tell it from the
smell. They have traditional concepts in daily life. Also, they indulge my
children because they are grandchildren. They never act a bad guy for
discipline. As a result, we have to play this discipliner role. When we arrive
home, the children would have seen TV programs for two hours or longer.
They [my parents] do not listen to me when I raise my concerns. (Ralph, early
40s, law firm manager)

Lastly, the various residential arrangements for the elderly are partially affected by the
parents’ preference, as well as the household’s financial flexibility. For instance, Mr.
Tsao said that his father declined his offer of cohabitation to accommodate his own life.

I want to care for my father in person but he declines because of his girlfriend.
What can I say? Men cannot live without women. He sees his girlfriend three
times a week and no overnight stay is allowed. He smart not to get married
again because he plans to leave a legacy for his children. (Mr. Tsao, late 50s,
former accounting manager)

In addition, Mr. Tsao described his parents as less traditional because the parents did not
require him to have male offspring.

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Pricy Healthcare in the United States
It was shown in the previous chapter that health insurance for their elderly parents was
the greatest concern of middle-class Taiwanese immigrants and this also applies to their
upper-class counterparts, notwithstanding their wealth. Ralph clearly demonstrated the
cost of medical services in the United States, which is not appreciated by the upper-class
Taiwanese immigrants, despite the fact that they can afford insurance packages for the
elderly.

My father needed cardiac surgery. One hospital quoted $40,000 and the other
$20,000. I really don’t know the reason for such an exaggerated difference in
the price of this medical service. My father received PCI [Percutaneous
Coronary Intervention] and had three coronary stents and the final bill was for
$210,000. Who can afford that without insurance? Most ridiculously, the fee
did not include the cost of the diagnosis. The main surgery would have cost
less than $10,000 without the many additional medical checks and the use of
the equipment. I was surprised when I saw the bill. It included the surgery
and three nights of stay and detailed cotton sticks, tubes, and other bits and
pieces. This amount [$210,000] is an annual salary for most people here. You
need to try your best or network in order to negotiate a discount. Not all the
middle class can afford this. Even if you are in the upper class or a lawyer or
a doctor, how can you lead a stable life because you may need advanced

197
surgery that costs $210,000 in the future. (Ralph, Ralph, early 40s, law firm
manager)

Elderly people over the age of 65 have government medical insurance, which pays for
some medical services, but they or their families need to pay any amount that exceeds the
public-supported credit. Ralph finally had to pay some hundreds of dollars for his father’s
surgery and this discouraged him from fulfilling his promise to his wife to invite her
mother to stay in America for six months. While this preparation for medical insurance
does work during the mother-in-law’s visit, it still does not completely cover all types of
medical treatment.

It is also expensive to see a dentist. It cost $500 for her mother to have dental
treatment because it was not covered by the insurance. It is easy for elderly
people to get sick. Some of them like to see a doctor if they have minor aches
and pains and you cannot deny them. Each visit is expensive; it is sometimes
a couple of thousands. If you have insurance, the co-pay is still $100-200, but
of course, you have to pay all if you have no insurance. If you have no
insurance, you had better pray for good health. (Ralph, early 40s, law firm
manager)

Ralph added, “I don’t think it is possible to petition for her immigration because she
wouldn’t be able to find a good insurance package, but we still can find packages for her
visits.” Similarly, Mr. Tsao, the former accounting manager, had the same perspective,

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namely, that expensive healthcare often prevents family reunification of the elderly. The
upper-class immigrants can usually afford health insurance for their elderly parents of
$400 to $500 per month or more. They buy the best health insurance plans like those
offered by the Kaiser Foundation Group.

You will go bankrupt if you live in America without insurance. It cost over
$10,000 a day when my mother-in-law was in hospital. In addition to the ICU,
her single room cost $6,000 a day. Daily care, including blood sampling,
changing the Foley bag, and cleaning the stools, is so expensive. Overall, her
stay at the hospital for a month cost $200,000 and it was all paid by insurance.
(Mr. Tsao, late 50s, former accounting manager)

Care in the United States
In addition to his irregular contact, Mr. Tsao did not care for his active father, who was
not in need of care, in Japan. It remains the same when his parents immigrated to the
United States for reunification. They do not communicate often whether they live across
borders or in the same city in the United States. Mr. Tsao explained it from a gender
perspective, saying that, “Sometimes it is silent when we two eat together. Different from
me, my sister usually calls my father from Taiwan.” Mr. Tsao further described his
elderly mother’s untimely sudden death.
The mother died by choking on some food at home and his father could not help her
in time; meanwhile, Mr. Tsao was having fun with his wife and daughter in Little Tokyo
in downtown Los Angeles which they frequent reminisce over their time in Japan. By the

199
time he received the call, his elderly mother was judged to be brain-dead when she
arrived in the emergency department of the hospital. Before the family decided to remove
ENDO without further rescue to prevent the mother from suffering pain, his sister flew to
Los Angeles to provide intimate care at the hospital, “My sister owns a consignment store
in Qingguang Market, Taipei and imports women’s clothing from Italy to high-ranking
clients. Since her job is flexible, she came to Los Angeles to care for our mother for a
month.” Immigrants’ family reunification in the United States is also another direction of
transnational caregiving if all members do not move to the United States. Overall, the
man, except Ralph, is a reluctant caregiver after immigration.
Seniors’ homes are popular among the upper-class Taiwanese in this study for
providing care for their elderly parents when they become less active or even earlier. For
instance, Stachelle brought her mother to San Diego from Taiwan when her father passed
away. She hoped that a new environment would help her mother get used to being a
widow as soon as possible, and also, there were no children left in Taiwan to keep her
company and care for her.
4

Despite her American husband’s support for family reunification, Stachelle arranged
for her mother to live in a nearby seniors’ home because it was “the best care plan for the
whole family.” According to her, her elderly mother lives in a seniors’ home in Irvine but
they still often eat out together. Stachelle was eager to demonstrate the benefit of such
homes for elderly people. She described how “She walks along the lake and plays table
tennis and Mahjong in the afternoon.” Stachelle valued the services provided by the

4
Her mother obtained a green card within three months, while it took her brother more than ten years. Her
brother was studying in Canada and was over the age of 20 when he applied. His application, supported by
Stachelle and his uncle in Texas took years because of the lower preference ranking for family reunification.
He finally acquired permanent residency supported by Stachelle’s mother.

200
seniors’ home more as her mother became less active. She said, “my mother used to drive
and explore new activities, but she has needed to use the transport provided by the seniors’
home in recent years.” Interestingly, the fees of seniors’ homes are mostly paid by the
elderly and the government. For instance, Stachelle said, “My mother pays for the seniors’
home, but the government subsidizes it a lot.” Despite the upper-class family being able
to afford the fee of the seniors’ home, some of the immigrants are able to manipulate the
system to obtain some social welfare benefits.
At the time of the interview in 2013, Stachelle’s 80-year-old mother was preparing
to return to Taiwan after living in Irvine for more than two decades and Stachelle was
considering returning to Taiwan herself to take care of her mother, as the middle-class
immigrants do. She explained her plan for return migration by generalizing the first
generation immigrants who come in a specific age cohort;

Like other first-generation immigrants in their 50s, I am trying to figure out
whether I should return to Taiwan to take care of her. Caring for the elderly is
complicated. Even if I hire a Filipino migrant, there must be a family member
to look after her. (Stachelle, early 50s, real estate consultant)

Under this plan, she aims to hire a migrant caregiver for the majority of intimate care,
which is further evidence of outsourced care.
Due to her cross-cultural relationship or inter-racial marriage, Stachelle is strongly
aware of cultural differences and feel comfortable as a daughter-in-law in a white family
compared to her care for her Taiwanese-born mother. She recounted her interaction with

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her American mother-in-law, “She never asks us to take care of her and doesn’t think a
Taiwanese daughter-in-law should be asked for help. I do not have a lot to do. I am lucky.”
Her American mother-in-law has since moved to Taiwan in later life, and they sometimes
keep in touch over the phone.
Some immigrants in the group take turns to provide care with other siblings in the
United States when the elderly parents’ health deteriorates. They may care for them for a
while and send them parents to medical care centers in the United States for “professional
services” until the care burden meets their bottom line, namely, a stable lifestyle. They
perceive senior homes as the authentic form of U.S. eldercare.

The Assimilation of Eldercare Provision
Mr. Tang overwhelmingly cited the role played by the host society in transforming
individuals’ values after they have migrated. He argued that individualism replaced
Taiwanese immigrants’ culture of caregiving responsibility, as reflected in their practice
of caring for their elderly parents and their anticipation of being cared for in their own old
age by their native-born children.

The arrangement of care for elderly parents is a problem associated with
where you live. You change your expectation of providing care and arranging
caregiving when you live in a different cultural context. America has a more
individualist culture than Taiwan. On the one hand, American parents do not
interfere with their children’s choices, whereas Chinese parents are always
involved with their children’s study, work, and marriage. The traditional

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authoritarian Chinese culture directly conflicts with the democratic society of
the U.S. Children can contradict their parents here. On the other hand,
children here are more independent in terms of thought and way of living.
American-born children are sure to have a different ideology than those born
in a Chinese society. American children focus on their own small [nuclear]
family as they grow and are unlikely to prioritize their parents’ care. (Mr.
Tang, early 50s, retired businessman)

Mr. Tang believes that culture is geographically bounded and individuals’ values are
based on where they live. Immigrants will change their values to correspond with those
of the host society when they immigrate. This philosophy of immigrant incorporation is
not limited to Mr. Tang, but it can be found among some of the other Taiwanese upper
class immigrants in this study. As described by Mr. Tang, maintaining the independence
of the generations of adult children and elderly parents in many respects is “authentic”
American. In other words, the immigrants demonstrate their desire to become authentic
Americans by maintaining a calm attitude toward care for their elderly parents, and as
authentic Americans, upper-class Taiwanese immigrants, such as Mr. Tang, also do not
anticipate being cared for by their American-born children in their later life.
5

The elderly people in Taiwan and the United States have different attitudes
toward ageing. I do not exclude the option of a seniors’ home for myself in
the future. Chinese parents would feel sad if their adult children did not care

5
Mr. Tang and other upper-class Taiwanese immigrants in this study regard this change as a cultural
influence, while some middle-class immigrants perceive it as a cohort effect.

203
for them, while authentic American parents would wonder why they needed
care from their adult children. Why should I be a burden on others? It is a
cultural difference. Moving to a seniors’ home is not as pitiful as Chinese
elders think. Authentic American elders do not regard themselves as pitiful.
(Mr. Tang, early 50s, retired businessman)

Despite a greater chance of family reunification and cohabitation, the upper-class families
were those more likely to adopt an American eldercare arrangement. They have no guilt over
placing fragile older parents in senior homes and medical care centers for retirement and later
life. For example, Lily demonstrates her cultural assimilation related to eldercare
arrangement, “In the U.S., the elderly eventually go to senior homes.”

Zero Generation Immigrant Incorporation
A quarter of the elderly parents in this class group come to the United States for family
reunification in their 60s, despite some who came earlier, in their 40s or 50s, for
investment immigration but lived in Taiwan. Thus, the parents immigrate at relatively old
ages. They do not receive education in the United States; they do not work here; they are
growing old in a different country. These upper-class adult children shared their
perspective of how their elderly parents’ adapted to living in the United States.
Winnie immigrated with her parents to the United States and landed in Florida after
she graduated from Taipei American School. The father currently arranges his retirement
by playing tennis, golf, and Tai-chi as well as drawing Chinese painting. As explored and
promoted by gerontologists, the popular American concept of successful ageing is

204
characterized as avoiding disease and disability, maintaining cognitive functions, and
regularly engaging in social activities (Rowe and Kahn 1996). These immigrants try to
frame this type of aging in America on behalf of their elderly parents by ensuring that
they are active and independent.
Yet, each adult child has his/her own opinions about eldercare provision, which
results in the conflict and complications of the Chinese family. While the middle-class
immigrants tend to reach an agreement with siblings, the upper-class immigrants are less
likely. Stachelle and her stay-behind brother have different concepts of the mother’s life
in America. Her brother did not want the mother to drive in the United States because she
had no experience of driving in Taiwan, but Shelly kept encouraging her mother to
explore her circle of friends in the United States if she wanted to live well. Based on the
interviews, the upper-class Taiwanese immigrants arranged activities to help the elderly
parents to make friends, establish their own life, and have a sense of belonging. From the
perspective of the immigrants in this study, their elderly parents found it easier to adapt to
the United States when living in a Chinese community. For instance, Stachelle explained,
“Irvine is a comfortable place for them because there are many Chinese immigrants, who
will help newly-arrived immigrants to survive.”
Mrs. Tseng, a friend of Stachelle, also brought her parents to live in Irvine for family
reunification, but unlike Stachelle’s mother, Mrs. Tsang’s parents cannot drive. Mrs.
Tsang’s effort to help them to adapt was to buy them a house in a Chinese-dominated
area rather than a white-dominated neighborhood.

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My mother insisted on staying in the United States, but my father said no.
The final premise of settlement in the United States was to live in Little
Taipei (San Gabriel). Thank God their neighbors [in San Gabriel] are Chinese
because they could not survive in a small town in the South or Midwest. (Mrs.
Tseng, late 40s, wife of businessman)

As time passed, Mrs. Tseng’s parents increasingly led an independent life in America. In
addition to their weekly hangouts and daily exercise with friends, the father still attends
adult school to learn English. According to Mrs. Tsang, her parents spoke English when
they were in Taiwan. Mrs. Tseng added, “My parents passed the citizenship exam in
English.”

My 80 year-old father is so cute because he keeps walking to the language
school with a backpack every morning. He does his homework every day. He
uses a dictionary. He memorizes the words but immediately forgets them. His
life is boring. (Laugh) His American language teacher showed his homework
to other students who were young enough to be his grandchildren Midwest.
(Mrs. Tseng, late 40s, wife of businessman)

Stachelle somewhat envied the independent lifestyle of Mrs. Tseng’s parents because
arranging a residential place for her mother, who cannot drive, was burdensome, “To be
honest, elderly parents need to learn some English. They need to attend a language school.
If they stick to Chinese areas, they have limited options.” Arguably, elderly immigrants’

206
ability to adapt to a culturally-different society may not totally be based on personality, as
these immigrants supposed, or the caregiving infrastructure in terms of transportation and
a familiar place. As Mrs. Tseng expressed, “Living in Taiwan is too convenient. You can
call a taxi simply by raising your hand on the street. The metro is convenient, too.
However, the elderly need to learn how to drive here.”
Their framework of successful aging, i.e. independent and active, does not only
reflect their current value of caregiving, but it also produces some dissatisfaction
throughout their caregiving process. Stachelle, who immigrated to the United States as a
bank investor and currently works as a real estate consultant, shared her perspective.

Some elderly parents come to the United States and rely on their adult
children. They assume that this is no problem. They just rely on their adult
children. They stay at home, learn nothing new, and wait for their adult
children to prepare their meals. As a result, they cannot live independently
and just rely on their adult children. To be honest, the adult children are to be
pitied. (Stachelle, early 50s, real estate consultant)

Although Stachelle appreciates her mother’s care of her as a baby, she and other upper-
class Taiwanese do not define family care as reciprocity, as their middle-class
counterparts do. They even regard middle-class counterparts who live with elderly
parents as “pitied.” The mindsets of filial obligations are different by classes of
immigrants. All of the upper-class immigrants whose parents settle in the United States
agree that elderly people who immigrate at an older age find it difficult. Stachelle said;

207

Any elderly individual lacks a capacity to learn when moving to a totally new
environment. It is cruel… An old tree cannot adapt to a new environment if
its roots have been removed, but a sapling become strong when it is
transplanted. It is more comfortable for the elderly to live in their homeland
among familiar friends. They can chat with neighbors living opposite or on
lower floors of the building. At least, they can talk when they are grocery
shopping. Everything is familiar to them. (Stachelle, early 50s, real estate
consultant)

The upper-class Taiwanese do make some effort to engage with their parents’ transition
in the United States, but they are less pushy than the middle-class Taiwanese when they
evaluate their parents’ adaptation. According to Nancy, “My father-in-law was less likely
to attend activities at senior centers or learn English at adult schools during their two-
month stay. It was OK with me because I only cooked during their stay.” Her father-in-
law simply watched TV and slept at home during the visits, while her mother-in-law was
also less active in participating in activities or making friends, as Nancy described.
6

Compared to other class groups, the upper-class immigrants are most capable of
petitioning for family reunification for their parents with respect to residential
arrangements, living costs for additional non-working dependents, as well as health
insurance and anticipated medical care. However, age and personality also play a role

6
Yet, she tried to provide a gender perspective of immigration adaptation by arguing that women are more
adaptive in the process of immigration. She observed that, “From my perspective, women are more open
and can adjust better to a new environment. Women naturally want to learn and try something new. They
are like cockroaches that people always fail to kill. Men, like my husband and father-in-law, are always shy
to ask. They also stick with their positions and traditions.”

208
when estimating the ability of elderly parents to adapt to immigration from the adult
children’s perspectives. Elderly parents are more likely to choose reunification in the
States when they are in their 60s or younger, and Stachelle provided her perspective of
this.
7

It is really easier for elderly parents to immigrate to the United States in their
50s or 60s and they always come for their native-born grandchildren. They
will not come in their 70s or 80s because they cannot live independently then
[in their 70s or 80s] and they will also find it hard to get used to the new way
of living. For instance, my mother came in her 50s when she was able to
drive to the grocery store alone, attend language school, and make friends.
People still have the capacity to learn in their 50s or 60s. (Stachelle, early 50s,
real estate consultant)

In terms of age, it is much less likely for parents of middle- and working-class
immigrants to settle in the United States in their 50s and 60s because most of them
remain working, while the upper-class elderly retired early and lead an affluent lifestyle.
Those middle-class elderly parents who immigrate in their 60s are either widows or
separated. Yet, some of the parents were found to have moved to seniors’ homes sooner
or later, while some returned to the homeland.

7
Stachelle observed that it is less likely for elderly parents, who originated from China, to immigrate:
“Most elderly Chinese parents I know only stay for a visit and decide not to age in America.” Similarly,
Mrs. Tseng made the same observation, “I observe that elderly parents from Mainland China come to the
United States as babysitters for their native-born grandchildren. They do not want to stay forever. Six
adults take care of the newborn baby.”

209
From Ralph’s perspective, since his parents came at an older age as zero generation
immigrants, they are hindered by language issues; therefore, they live within a circle of
Chinese immigrants. He expressed, “I think the key to this melting pot is language. They
are OK to say ‘good morning’ and ‘how are you’ but that’s about all.” Yet, his parents
have a good life in America with friends of a similar age and class status, especially in
Arcadia. As Ralph evaluated, “There is no need for them to speak English at all if they
live in cities full of Chinese speakers, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston.”
Thus, the parents made friends with peers after they settled. According to Ralph, they are
all of a similar age, and since they are able to drive, they not only eat out and meet for
coffee regularly, but also often travel together.

They just came back from Panama and they are planning their next trip. They
travel 3-4 times a year on average. They visited Brazil last winter, followed
by Indonesia, Russia, and Italy. They need to fly to Miami or New York to
cruise the Caribbean islands or the Mediterranean. They visited Alaska, too.
They are able to enjoy these activities with their own wealth or the support of
their children. (Ralph, early 40s, law firm manager)

Some of the immigrants argued that their elderly parents’ ability to adapt to U.S. society
depended on their personality. But, the ethnic enclave in San Gabriel Valley helps this
cultural transition or serves as a comfort zone for these zero generation elderly
immigrants.

210
New Morals
Stachelle shares her perspectives on elderly caregiving, “Taking care of elderly parents
either in Taipei or the United States is a matter of money. It includes medical care and
caregiver fare. There is no any problem of living form them if a caregiver is available.”
The upper-class immigrants often put caregiving in a monetary perspective, which is
reflected in their utilization of outsourced care, such as entertaining support and senior
home arrangement.
The upper-class Taiwanese immigrants tend to provide entertaining support and
employ care service (e.g. paid caregivers and senior homes) as well as give financial
compensation to the family members who bear the care work. This greater agency is
made possible by adequate financial resources. Their wealth activates flexible residential
arrangements and well-equipped caregiving provision in residential arrangement, medical
expense, and the arrangement of paid caregivers. Yet materialized caregiving is not
completely culturally positive in the traditional definition of filial piety and has
challenged the cultural belief of xiao, which encompasses a broad range of behaviors,
including the adult children’s respect, obedience, loyalty, physical care, and material
provision to elderly parents. Outsourced care could be regarded as morally deficient on
the basis that these upper-class Taiwanese immigrants outsource their cultural obligation.
It is argued that the cultural norms are not successfully translated throughout immigration
among the upper-class immigrants.
For instance, some upper-class Taiwanese immigrants who do not have family
relatives in the United States feel free if they seek professional service, such as sending
their sick elderly parents to senior homes and medical care centers. Their immigrant

211
friends in the United States may only and calmly respond to their decision of a
materialized form of elderly care with understanding instead of blame, saying, “It is
time.” Therefore, the cultural norms in Taiwan that relatives and neighbors blame adult
children who do not personally take care of their elderly parents fail to exercise in the
United States because the immigration context does not generate moral stress on adult
children and stigmatize paid service for elderly care. I call it “moral vacuum,” where
moral judgments from relatives and neighbors are much less powerful in the United
States than in Taiwan. As I illustrate in the case of Mr. Dai, the three sons in Los Angles
feel free to send the fragile mother to medical care after they tried to rotate the responsibility
of aged care.
As a result, these upper class immigrants—unlike middle-class counterparts who
transmit reciprocal support by behaving themselves first—also do not expect their native-
born children to take care of them when they get older. This indicates that the culture of
elderly care has changed after immigration among the upper-class immigrants.
Since the upper-class Taiwanese immigrants tend to prioritize a stable living quality,
their transnational connections in terms of care for the elderly are less vibrant than those
of their middle-class counterparts in the previous chapter. For instance, Nancy tends to
keep her own family in America and her family in Taiwan separate when she reasons that
an immigrant family should not have a negative effect on the left-behind family, and vice
versa. She reasoned that, “As an immigrant, your parents and siblings hope you are
leading a good life. If you worry about the left-behind family, it is no good for anyone. It
is the same if the parents worry about their immigrant child.” Her calm attitude toward
caring for the elderly was generally found in this group of Taiwanese.

212

Conclusion
Compared to the middle-class immigrants who struggle over transnational caregiving due
to their moderate income, the upper-class Taiwanese immigrants tend to outsource care
by subcontracting filial duties.
The outsourced forms of transnational eldercare exist in many dimensions. Besides
the provision of allowance and housing, the upper-class immigrants, such as Sam,
recruits domestic helper/paid caregivers to stay-behind parents who remain active. The
rich, such as Nancy’s husband, also pay stay-behind sibling(s) to accompany their
parents, “like a job.” Next, the outsourced form emerges significantly as the elderly
become fragile, and the upper-class immigrants send the parents to medical care center by
delivering narratives of “professional care” for parents and narratives of “quality of life”
for themselves. It is why upper-class immigrants provide more financial support to
parents than middle-class counterparts. Lastly, as some upper-class immigrants’ family
members take care of elderly parents and paid caregivers always assist them, the
immigrants tend to compensate their absence of filial care by sending gift to siblings,
sponsoring the siblings’ travel cost, and relinquishing their right to any inheritance.
Both interviews and surveys suggest that the elderly parents are most likely to
immigrate to the United States due to their wealth making family reunification more
possible. However, these elderly parents sooner or later move to senior home or return to
Taiwan. Compared to middle-class counterparts who sponsor parents’ reunification and
usually act as the primary caregiver, upper-class immigrants are more likely to embrace
institutional care for the elderly, especially when they afford good quality of institutional

213
care. Due to moral vacuum and their assimilation of American eldercare culture, they do
not see putting elders in senior homes and medical centers as stigmatized.
While current scholarship suggests two models of transnational care flowing along a
global chain of women or continuing to circulate within transnational families over the
migration and lifecycle, they do not adequately breakdown care types. First, it has been
documented that men always take the economic rather than the nurturant dimension of
being parents (Cohen 1993), both middle- and upper-class men provide financial support
more than emotional support. My survey data shows that men exceptionally provide more
transportation assistance than women. Second, in the study of Pei-Chia Lan (2006),
newly rich Taiwanese women insist on serving the table with food prepared by a migrant
domestic helper from kitchen to symbolize themselves as the female head of a family. By
the same token, the rich immigrants order paid caregiver to massage the elderly parents
while asking them if it is too hard or not hard enough. Those advantaged who outsource
take affectional intimacy but leave hard work to paid caregivers. As a result, my
gerontological examination of transnational eldercare that considers instrumental,
emotional, and financial support actually enables clear understandings of gender division
of care labor as well as class difference.
The next chapter will explore the working-class Taiwanese’s caregiver practices.
Compared to well-establish Taiwanese peers, this working-class group is also under-
discussed in academia and the official reports in the Taiwanese government. In the next
chapter, I will provide a complete class typology of transnational caregiving.

214
Chapter 5: Working-Class Immigrants In Despair: Unfulfilled Care

The working-class Taiwanese immigrants in Southern California who participated in this study
included an auto mechanic, a truck driver, a retired factory laborer (currently working as a part-
time sports coach), security officers, shop assistants, as well as office workers specialized in
administration, including reception, front-desk, and airline work. Besides blue-collar workers,
the working-class Taiwanese immigrants included self-employed individuals included a hair
stylist, a feng shui specialist, a home organization specialist, and an elderly caregiver, as well
as two laid-off laborers. At the time of data collection, between fall 2013 and summer 2015,
most of their personal annual income ranged from less than $20,000 to just under $30,000. The
working-class group also included one junior professional working in an ethnic business and
one registered nurse.
Single working-class in this study were usually renting one-bedroom apartments or
sharing apartments for a rent of $700 or less in suburbs of San Gabriel Valley, while few rented
a condo or a shared townhouse in Hollywood and Cerritos, so as to be close to their work. After
years of saving in the United States and Taiwan, the majority of married informants had
purchased a single-family house in a less affluent area, such as in San Gabriel, Monterey Park,
Alhambra, Rosemead, Baldwin Park, Riverside, Ontario, and Apple Valley. Their humble
houses had usually cost less than $300,000. Two participants in this study had preferred a better
school district for their children’s education, and purchased a tiny condo in Arcadia for less
than cost $300,000.
This chapter focuses on a group of Taiwanese who do not fit the image of professional

215
migrants or entrepreneurs, which has been the common stereotype of Taiwanese immigrants in
the States since 1965. The incorporation of working-class Taiwanese has been bumpy
compared to their middle- and upper-class counterparts. Working-class Taiwanese immigrants
as a group face pressure during the process and achievement of incorporation because middle-
and upper-class immigrants have achieved the American dream, which is generally defined by
the achievement of middle-class status. Yet it will be argued that with effort and citizenship,
some working-class Taiwanese are expected to achieve the American dream for themselves or
their children, as the current body of immigrant incorporation studies has long explored.
Nonetheless, some are still struggling, and some have failed. This chapter then argues that the
group’s poor immigrant incorporation has affected their transnational connections with family
members in their homeland.
Working-class Taiwanese immigrants tend to diminish their provision of elderly care
across borders. The provision intensity of their transnational eldercare is summarized in the
following Table 5-1. Based on Table 5-1, women, again, provide more care than men across
selected dimensions of transnational eldercare. The transnational provision of emotional support
remains significant of working-class immigrants, because geographic distance behind their
immigration discourages the immigrants from providing direct personal care that requires
proximity. Yet, previous chapters have showed that middle-class women and upper-class
immigrants are less likely to be affected by national borders. Working-class immigrants’ efforts of
return visits and caregiver arrangement are much intense than their middle- and upper-class
counterparts.

216

Table 5-1 Means of Transnational Eldercare Provision Intensity by Gender and Class
Emotional
Support
Return
Visits
Caregiver
Arrangement
Instrumental
Support
Financial
Support
Working-class
Men (N=10)
0.20 0.20 0.10 0.00 0.10
Working-class
Women(N=11)
0.46 0.28 0.14 0.00 0.18
Middle-class
Men (N=33)
0.24 0.36 0.33 0.00 0.27
Middle-class
Women(N=50)
0.77 0.73 0.41 0.33 0.26
Upper-class
Men (N=13)
0.11 0.07 0.29 0.07 0.72
Upper-class
Women(N=15)
0.25 0.17 0.42 0.04 0.67
* 0=None, 1=Frequent

Unlike either their middle-class counterparts, who provide intense emotional support, or their
upper-class counterparts, who outsource eldercare, working-class women do not provide any kind
of substantial transnational eldercare, because of their precarious work situations and difficult
settlement processes. I conceptualize this as “unfulfilled care.” Arguably, eldercare provided to
parents by working-class immigrants is more likely to risk a care deficit, because middle- and
upper-class immigrants and stay-behind siblings can mobilize more care resources from both the
family and the market, while their working-class counterparts cannot.

Emotional Support
Working-class Taiwanese immigrants maintain transnational connections, just as middle-class
counterparts do. But the pattern is less regular and less frequent, and it gradually fades down
the years. Doris, the hairstylist, illegally over stayed in the United States since 2002. She has

217
made irregular calls to family members who stay behind during her settlement years. Yet, her
diminished connections were rescued and somewhat restored by advances in
telecommunications technology since the mid-2000s (Skype since around 2005, as well as
Line, WhatsApp, and other messaging applications that have provided free messaging, calls,
and video calls via smartphone since 2009). Skype calls helped her parents to see Doris, who
was illegal and unable to return. Doris said,

There is a desktop computer at home. They could not get used to seeing their
daughter through a camera at the beginning. I can talk to my sister and cousins, too.
It is easy to have video calls now. Line [a popular chat app in Taiwan] has this
function. (Doris, early 40s, hair stylist)

Now Doris is able to chat with her brother and sister in Taiwan to check on her parents. She
also had been contacting two teenage children from her previous marriage.
1
The experiences of
Grace, a part-time office receptionist, clearly illustrate the diminishing communication initiated
by immigrants for the working class. During the first years, Grace contacted her family in
Taiwan very frequently, and telephone sessions were longer during the first two years than in
later suffering years, when Grace and her husband faced irregular income in his start-up
business. All of these women maintained transnational connections only irregularly, because
they wanted to hide the fact that they were suffering during their settlement in the United States.
For instance, Grace had only recently confessed to her parents that her husband’s struggle to

1
After three years of application and resubmission for sponsoring her daughter for reunification, the daughter
finally arrived to Los Angeles in 2017 spring. The daughter helped Doris’s salon service with cleaning before
studying English and getting a locally accredited degree at a community college.

218
establish a small business had left them short of money; Melody was refraining from contacting
her father because of her divorce.
Working-class immigrant women’s precarious working conditions, such as long working
hours, also constrained them from committing to a regular time slot to check on their parents
and engage in kin-keeping with relatives in Taiwan. Irene confessed to having limited contact: “I
can’t find a suitable slot for international calls. If I miss the slot, they’re asleep. I planned to contact
them the other day, but I couldn’t. As a result, I seldom contact them.” Most of these women at
least called their parents(-in-law) on Chinese New Year. Grace, the only exception to this group,
actively maintained her duty as a daughter-in-law:

I must call my parents-in-law, especially on Chinese New Year and holidays, and I
need to talk about many positive things. My husband seldom does it unless I force him
to. I make him sit next to me when I call his parents to let them know that we, as “adult
children,” care for them “together.” (Grace, late 30s, part-time office receptionist)

Grace provides somewhat regular emotional support because it took years for her parents-in-
law to recognize the couple’s marriage and immigration. Her parents-in-law finally approved of
the relationship when they first met their grandson, who was then five years old. As a result,
Grace makes contact once every two weeks or less frequently to let the children talk to their
maternal or paternal grandparents. Unlike some parents of immigrants from upper- or middle-
families, who are more likely to access telecommunications technology, Grace’s parents and
parents-in-law remained traditional in their transnational connections. She said, “They talk over

219
the phone rather than make video calls because the elderly do not know how to use them.” She
uses prepaid phone cards given to her by friends to make her international calls because “it is
cheaper.” As I visit Grace’s house, there is no home Internet facility. Grace claimed that her
limited connections with the family left behind result from her restricted budget in the United
States and the digital gap of the elderly parents in Taiwan.
Yet other working-class married women use statements such as “I feel tired after long
hours of work” to justify their unfulfilled care for their parents-in-law, and to confront their
underpaid husbands if the latter question their role or filial duty as daughters-in-law. Overall,
the working-class women provide emotional support and kin-keeping labor from afar more than
their upper-class counterparts, but less than the middle-class women. Their higher frequency of
emotional support compared with upper-class women can be explained by the lower necessity
among upper-class immigrants to administer polymediated communication across borders,
because upper-class parents also visit or immigrate to the United States.

Return Visits
The working-class women tend to delay their plans for return visits due to their legal status or
insufficient household finances. Because of her illegal status, Doris was not able to return to
Taiwan for ten years, until she married an American and could legitimately cross borders.
Despite the eligibility of free travel, their working-class occupation and lower income often
forces Doris and her husband to consider the price difference in airfares when they return to
Taiwan every October to celebrate Doris’s father’s birthday. The non-stop flight that departs in
the afternoon is usually $150 cheaper than the flight with the same Taiwanese airline that

220
departs at midnight. Before making a reservation, Doris has to weigh her expected income from
daytime clients on the date of departure and decide whether to purchase an afternoon or
midnight flight. Since Doris expects to earn more than $150 a day according to the recent trend,
she will purchase the expensive flight that departs at midnight and try to earn more during the
daytime on the departure date. But she will book the flight that departs in the afternoon if she is
not confident of earning $150 during the day. In so doing, Doris is able to earn or save as much
as possible because she will not get paid during her visit. She said, “I do not earn any money
during the two weeks of leave. I do not have an income if I do not work. I even spend money
on the return trip. I must consider it.” Other self-employed working-class immigrants have the
same concerns. They secured cheaper air tickets from the reservation via ethnic travel agents.
As the price of air tickets increases, the cost of return trips places a burden on lower-class
families. For instance, the cost doubled in the 2010s.

I was free to leave and re-enter the States during the H4 years. But I couldn’t fly
back to Taiwan because I had no money. I missed home and was so eager to fly
back to Taiwan to comfort my injured mind. I saved money in order to buy a ticket.
Several years ago, my children were young and I finally was able to bring them
back to Taiwan before the peak season came. The tickets were cheap in 2005 and I
even bought the cheapest round-trip ticket for $610 or $620 with Malaysia Airlines.
This time we did not return at low season because the children still attended school.
(Grace, late 30s, part-time receptionist)

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Working-class Taiwanese, like their middle- and upper-class counterparts, decrease the
frequency of their return visits to Taiwan as their American-born children reach school age.

I am less likely to return because of increasing childcare. Also, it wastes time
because the children did not learn in Taiwan during summer. If we stay, they
at least learn something. If I do consider a return trip, price is my first concern.
(Grace, late 30s, part-time receptionist)

Yet, the rationale of household finances among the working-class immigrants prevails more
commonly as a reason for infrequent visits than the children’s education, which their middle-
and upper-class counterparts are more likely to use. Regarding children’s education, Grace
argues that the summer vacation is too long and the interruption makes it difficult to manage
the children’s academic performance. But summer is the only time for Grace’s family to return
to Taiwan because the children are out of school. However, middle-class immigrants have the
same concern.
Here, a class difference emerges. Middle-class Taiwanese immigrants are more flexible in
their household budget than working-class Taiwanese with regard to the need to travel on
expensive peak-season tickets during the school summer vacation. Grace said, “It cost $5,000
to buy air tickets for three kids and me. You had better prepare $10,000 for a return trip.” This
range of budget places fewer burdens on the middle-class Taiwanese, but it has become an
issue among the working-class immigrants. The latter would limit their expenditure in the
United States in order for a return trip. Despite lower expectations for the children’s academic

222
performance, Grace still said, “I try to schedule return trips once every two years if possible
because they learn nothing in Taiwan.” Yet, not all working-class immigrants return regularly,
as Grace does.
While middle- and upper-class counterparts visit the island with the family during the
return trips, the working-class Taiwanese go shopping for necessary and cheap items whenever
they return. Because of this, the trip’s cost increases. Grace said,

It is cheap to buy office stationery in Taiwan for kids, compared to the items in the
United States. [She points out the dining table where we had the interview] Most of
the items you see on the table are from Taiwan. (Grace, late 30s, part-time
receptionist)

Her statement reveals that on the way home to the United States lower-class Taiwanese may
purchase a lot of items that cost less in Taiwan because of differences in price levels. Other
immigrants in the group also buy cheap children’s clothes in Taiwan so that it is less of a
problem if the children get them dirty while painting or grow out of them quickly. Rebecca,
Doris, Melody, and Gloria seldom go shopping in the United States but do it during returns trip
to Taiwan because “everything is so cheap.” Despite the fact that Taiwanese-flavored instant
noodles are available at 99 Ranch, they will purchase a box to recall the authentic taste they
miss at home in Los Angeles.
In general, during return visits, the immigrants stay with their parents in Taiwan. Grace,
for example, mostly stays at the home of her parents-in-law. This means that return visits are

223
able to provide more time for elderly parents to enjoy with their American-born children. This
applies to Taiwanese immigrants across social classes. During this temporary cohabitation in
Taiwan, Grace would bring the youngest child, who needs care, along with her to hang out with
friends while leaving the older children with her parents-in-law or mother. Such an
arrangement allowed her elderly parents to get together with the children —which was the goal
of the return visit —while enabling her to enjoy her free time in Taiwan. She could do so only
after her business had improved. Accordingly, the pattern of unfulfilled caregiving resulting
from bumpy incorporation can be reversed as the immigrants’ financial situation improves.
In addition, visits are scheduled more infrequently among working-class Taiwanese
immigrant families than among their counterparts in the upper and middle classes. Due to their
hardships in the United States, working-class Taiwanese immigrants are more likely to
disengage from meaningful activities with their extended families in Taiwan for years,
including their elderly parents’ birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Chinese New
Year’s Eve. One immigrant woman who had not visited her parents for 13 years only took her
children, then aged eight and five, to Taiwan in 2014. She felt very upset after the trip when she
updated me on her life a year later. Yet, this diminished pattern of return visits is not always
successfully rescued by the advancement of telecommunication contact because they do not
want to face parents’ questions of negative things or because their commitment has been
overwhelmed by long working hours.
One-way border crossings characterize another class difference between working-class
Taiwanese and their counterparts. When the immigrants are unable to visit Taiwan because of
work commitments or the children’s summer camp, stay-behind elderly parents of middle- and

224
upper-class immigrants will try their best to visit their immigrant adult children and
grandchildren in the United States. In particular, middle-class immigrants and their elderly
parents make an effort to ensure a family gathering at least once a year by taking turns to fly
over the Pacific Ocean. Thus generations of the transnational middle-class family are able to
meet at least once every year. Those in working-class families, on the other hand, seldom or
never fly to Los Angeles for visits.
Almost all of the interviews with the working-class Taiwanese immigrants reveal that their
parents seldom or never visit for fun. For instance, Doris said, “Let alone immigration, my
parents do not even want to fly over to visit me.”

They do not even come for fun. My father is too old to be willing to take a plane.
My mother is young but she would feel bored here [in Baldwin Park]. There is no
one to keep her company at home. I have to work. I do not earn money if I do not
work. If she wanted to cook at home, only she and I would eat. [Doris’s husband
added: Her meals taste bad. It is not what I say but what my wife said.] I remember
that she would get angry because all of the siblings did not go home to get together
for the meals she cooked. [He was laughing] (Doris, 40s, hair stylist)

Transnational visits do not occur in a reciprocal way in working-class Taiwanese families.
Most of the elderly parents do not participate in transpacific visits. Yet, the middle-class
immigrants’ elderly parents were more likely to visit regularly when the immigrants were not
available for travel, and also when the immigrants needed to prove their intent to immigration

225
officials by staying in the United States for a specific duration in their period of application for
permanent residency. The efforts of the elderly parents left behind generated regular
connections, allowing the three generations to meet in person and maintain their relationships.
These efforts also provided the middle-class immigrants with an opportunity to care for their
elderly parents in person.
For another example, the parents, particularly mothers, of the middle-class Taiwanese will
fly to Los Angeles to visit and celebrate a newborn grandchild in the United States as well as to
provide postnatal care for their daughter or daughter-in-law. They will stay in Los Angeles for
a month or longer. The elderly parents of middle-class families will even visit on the
grandchild’s birthday in the following years. The working-class mothers take care of
themselves alone, and do not receive traditional postnatal care from their family.
Britney, the single mother working at a Taiwanese airline, had not returned Taiwan for
several years during her period of hardship until she began work at the Taiwanese airline,
which provided employees with tickets to fly back to Taiwan. Yet Britney’s mother had not
visited her or her American-born grandchild in the United States, not even for postnatal care.
Britney’s mother was only able to ask Britney’s friend, who would fly to Los Angeles, to take
gifts such as clothes and toys to the grandchild, whom she had not met. By contrast, postnatal
care provided by the elderly mother to immigrant women plays an important role in middle-
class Taiwanese immigrant families, as was discussed in a previous chapter.
By comparison, the elderly parents of the working-class group are much less likely to visit
and support their immigrant adult children in the United States. In contrast to what Baldassar
and her colleagues (2007) suggest, the transnational care is less circulated in the working-class

226
family. As a result, the members of working-class transnational families are much less likely to
provide instrumental support, physical interaction, and grand-parenting opportunities to the
elderly during the transpacific trips of the family. This is significantly different from the
transnational family connections of middle- and upper-class Taiwanese immigrants.
Men have similar experiences. Mr. Liu, a sports coach is his 60s who used to work in a
garment factory was suddenly in tears during the interview when he recalled how he had been
unable to contribute to his mother’s care overseas for years and had failed to attend her funeral
in Taiwan. He said he had not contacted his parents or siblings in Taiwan for years.
To summarize it, these immigrants seldom return to Taiwan for routine family gatherings,
because they hesitate to take time off from a job that guarantees them a secure salary. Two-
thirds of the women have not returned to Taiwan to see their parents(-in-law) for more than
three years. If necessary, they will assign a teenage child to return for family visits on their
behalf in order to stay within budget and maintain their cash flow. Working-class participants’
transnational connections with family members left behind, particularly elderly parents, started
to weaken because of their one-way and infrequent transpacific visits.

The Arrangement of Caregiver: In Hope of Traditional Eldercare
Most of the working-class women relied on stay-behind siblings as the primary caregivers for
elderly parents. They were more likely to subscribe to the Chinese ideology that sons are
responsible for caring for their parents: most of the elderly parents of this group resided with
and were cared for by an adult child in Taiwan. Yet they also confirmed that their sisters-in-law
or mothers in Taiwan undertook most of the care work, and they valued reliable family

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caregivers.
Doris, a hairstylist in her 40s, valued her sister-in-law’s commitment to care for her elderly
parents: “My sister-in-law also works as a hairstylist. Her salon is on the ground floor of the house
and my parents live on the third floor. Her workplace is joined to her residence so that she can
check on my father. She has done this for 25 years so far.” As Merla (2012) suggests, extended
transnational kinship networks help immigrants to overcome the obstacles to their participation in
the care of their elderly.
The parents mostly remained cohabiting with family members during their retirement and
old age. The reason why the parents of the working-class group would stay with an adult child
in Taiwan can be explained by the combination of residential region and social class. The
working-class immigrants were mainly originally from central or southern Taiwan, where
traditional arrangements of elderly care and multigenerational households are better preserved.
It has been observed and documented that the elderly in the less-developed regions live and
grow old alone because their adult children move to urban areas or northern Taiwan for work.
The parents prefer living in the rural areas where they grew up, farmed, and established their
family, and where everything they have been familiar with is located. The elders I visited in a
semi-mountainous village in southern Taiwan lived alone, and their adult children were
regarded as filial because they regularly visited at weekends from nearby cities or northern
Taiwan. Yet gossip in the community also pointed to some elders in the neighborhood as less
fortunate because they were growing old alone and had no regular visits from children.
Moreover, it is less likely for lower-class Taiwanese immigrants to hire a migrant caregiver to
take care of the elderly, compared to their upper- and middle-class counterparts.

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Thus elderly care is mostly provided by family members when applicable. The process of
assigning a primary caregiver is traditional, in comparison with upper- and some middle-class
participants in the study. It was mostly the brothers left behind who fulfilled this role in
Taiwan, such as Doris’s brother:

My father has no specific disease but he became less active because of old age. He
lives with my older brother because my father only has one son. The Taiwanese like
to rely on their son. He [my brother] is the only son. Who can he shift his
responsibility to? All the daughters are married except one, who is a single lesbian.
To be honest, we hoped the parents would live with that sister, but my parents
refused because they feel it is a must to live with the son, even if the daughter is still
single and able to help. Their norms are really ingrained. (Doris, 40s, hair stylist)

Some working-class Taiwanese immigrants do provide financial support to the family left
behind. Yet elderly care is less materialized and tends to fall on family members left behind.
Cohabitation with adult children is still observed more often among the elderly parents in this
group. In fact, the elder care remains gendered in the traditional Taiwanese family: the
daughter-in-law traditionally acts as the primary caregiver for the elderly on behalf the son.

My sister-in-law works as a hairstylist too. The ground floor is her salon and the
parents live on the third floor of the same house. The workplace is joined with the
residential house. They do not need care at all. She [the sister-in-law] can check on

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my father. She told my father that she would feel sadder if my father passed away
than when her own father passed away. She came from a single-mother family and
has been close to my father since she married. It has been 25 years so far. (Doris,
40s, hair stylist)

Doris’s father migrated from China to Taiwan during the military retreat after World War II.
Her uneducated father worked as a schoolteacher and married her mother, who was 25 years
younger. As a result, Doris’s mother helps her sister-in-law when her father needs care.

My father does not need care because he can walk. My mother is still working
because she is in her early 60s. I think I pay most for elder care compared to
my siblings because I live far away and I definitely cannot leave immediately
in an emergency. For me, I cannot care for them in person but I can support
them with money. (Doris, 40s, hair stylist)

Doris appreciates how her father remained active because she lives far from her parents
overseas, and she also appreciates her sister-in-law for her carework. Yet Doris increasingly
worries about her aging father, “My father is turning 90 next year. I worry about something
happening to him.” To help the sister-in-law, Doris’s family finally decided to pay for bathing
service from the public sector twice days a week.
Half of the working-class expressed that their biological parents live with stay-behind siblings.
Yet most of the working-class women found it difficult to demand that their stay-behind siblings

230
provide better care because of their own physical and financial absence. Their voices were less
influential at home, compared with the voices of their upper- and middle-class counterparts.
The working-class women were more likely to feel a loss of control over the caregiving process
(Amin and Ingman 2014).

The Unstable Alliance of Family Care
Doris hinted that her sister is not filial in terms of personal visits, which play a central role in
her mindset about filial piety. Doris said,

My sister seems to visit our parents once a year. It is only for five days of Chinese
New Year holidays. Yet I also visit our parents once a year, but I will stay [with the
elderly parents] for three weeks. You know what that means. (Doris, 40s, hair
stylist)

Compared to her sister, Doris evaluated her own greater elder care in terms of her financial
contribution and physical stay with her parents. Doris said, “My caregiving to them [elderly
parents]? All I do is to give them money.” She assumes her single lesbian sister should help the
brother and sister-in-law for eldercare, and thus she has been dissatisfied with her sister.
Also, not all daughters-in-law embrace the gendered cultural expectations of eldercare.
For instance, Mr. and Mrs. Xia, Irene’s parents, learned this the hard way. After suffering from
a stroke, Mr. Xia was expected to live with his son and the son’s wife. However, the son
recruited an Indonesia migrant woman to care for him and help his wife with household chores.

231
As I observed during his three days of stay with this family, it is the migrant caregiver who
gave the father claps on the back for postoperative rehabilitation and dealt with his medication
and showers. The daughter-in-law never went upstairs to care for the father. The son explained:

I needed to pay attention to my children’s education and I wanted a better school
district. I know what you aimed to ask, but I had lived with and cared for the
parents on my own for years. All siblings are not nearby. Despite the fact that I
succeeded the family factory, I also sacrificed a lot. What will you think if you only
have a high school diploma but your siblings have a bachelor one? My younger
brother used family savings to study at medical schools while I worked alone and
with frustrations in Africa to expand business because my father requested. It’s
unfair, right? I am done with my part [of eldercare provision]. (Irene’s stay-behind
brother, late 50s, small business owner)

As traditions dictated, the stay-behind son was “forced” to take this filial duty on the siblings’
behalf. The eldercare provision in Mr. and Mrs. Xia’s family suggests the multiple transfers of
care labor from men to women and from women to other women. As sons are culturally
assumed to be the primary caregiver, their wives are expected to offer the actual intimate labor.
Although the gender transfer has its cultural legitimacy, not all local women follow this
tradition.

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Instrumental Support
None of the working-class women participated in intimate care. As I visited Irene’s parents
during her return visits, Irene bought massage equipment, which aims to stimulate the father’s
muscles. She demonstrated and taught the migrant worker how to do it. In fact, the migrant
caregiver mostly does care work.
Yet they would return for family emergencies. Irene wanted to return for her mother’s
sudden medical emergency in 2017, although she considered staying to secure patients for her
start-up acupuncture clinic. Ultimately she did not return, because her sister confirmed that her
mother’s condition had improved. Rebecca, an office clerk, returned to Taiwan when the
hospital notified her of her mother’s critical condition, but only stayed until her mother’s death;
she had to return to the United States for work, without attending the funeral. Doris closed her
salon suddenly and returned to Taiwan for 10 days in the summer of 2017 because her 93-year-
old father had suffered heart failure again. She was determined to return this time because she
had been unable to do so when he suffered his first heart attack and had prepared for the death
of her father.
2
She told me, “He is really old. I should prepare for it [his death] in mind.” Her
father passed away two months later.

Financial Support
Only two of the working-class Taiwanese women in my study regularly give their stay-behind
parents an allowance. Irene sends $300 a month to her four siblings in Taiwan, who each
contribute $300–$500 a month to pay a migrant caregiver to take care of their sick father, because

2
Doris’s sister picked her up at Taipei airport and drove directly to the hospital near her home for 6 hours.

233
her brother and his spouse have moved out of the family home to escape this “forced” duty and
have asked the siblings to share the cost of hiring a migrant worker.
Doris acts as supplementary caregiver by giving money rather than as the primary one by
giving personal care because her parents rely on her brother for elderly care, according to
tradition. In her transnational caregiving practices, “I try my best” is a central idea in arranging
elderly care provision across borders.

I do not remit regularly with a monthly allowance. I will give them money for
Chinese New Year, Father’s Day, and birthdays. But I pay my sister instead. For
instance, I will match the amount that they give our parents for the mid-autumn
festival. My sister pays it first on my behalf. She has a notebook listing the amounts
of red envelopes and household purchases. I do not ask for details and do not want
to know if she lies to me. I ran out of $10,000, which I prepared for the visit last
year. It was not enough for reimbursement and I still owe her $2,000. (Doris, 40s,
hair stylist)

In fact, it is hard for the hairstylist to make money because she only receives $12 for a men’s
haircut, $4 for washing, and possibly $1–2 for tips. The price is higher for female customers.
Prior to her second marriage, Doris rented a single room and commuted by bus. She rents
space in someone else’s salon for her own business; she has to purchase salon products in
advance to operate her small business. Despite such budget concerns, she works hard and has
built a pool of customers over ten years. At the same time, Doris has had to worry about the

234
legal status of her barbershop. Doris had been forced to leave two barbershops between 2013
and 2016 because the host increased the rent unreasonably in the name of increasingly high
water cost.
3
Despite a decade of settlement in the United States, Doris was still not free to open
her own shop until 2017.
4
She still has to save money by limiting her own consumption, in part
because she shoulders the burden of some financial elderly care provision across national
borders.
Until her remarriage, Doris’s transnational caregiving has diminished since she had
immigrated illegally. Remarriage helped Doris to obtain legal status in the United States and
thus travel freely across national borders. Her husband, Jason, is supportive of her transnational
caregiving, taking regular annual leave with her in October for her father’s birthday and
visiting her two children from a previous marriage. As mentioned earlier, the trip is costly.

It usually costs $5,000 for us to fly back to Taiwan, including two tickets and gifts.
You also need to consider the loss of the earnings you would have made during
those two weeks. Like me and him, we do not have a basic salary. We earn when
we work; we do not earn if we do not work. Accordingly, we lose a lot because of
return visits. It is scary. You can choose other places in the States or other countries
for vacations. But you have no choice but to fly back to Taiwan because your
parents are still alive. Otherwise, we would not need to fly back to Taiwan every
year. (Doris, 40s, hair stylist)

3
The rental of two seats charged $700-$1,000.
4
Doris spent $30,000 to buy facility of a closed salon and hereafter pays $1,100 for monthly rental.

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Doris’s strong sense of obligation for elderly care provision means regular but financially
painful return visits. In addition to the cost of return visits and the reimbursement of red
envelopes of money, gifts are another expenditure. When Doris travels back to Taiwan with her
husband, five of the six pieces of luggage are for the family, and only one is packed with what
they themselves need during the visit. Also, they pay for meals when eating out with family
members;

My two children live with my ex-husband and I just gave a $330 allowance to
each of the children. It is not a lot as a mother, but it is the thought that counts.
[Her husband added: She also bought a motorcycle for her son.] We ate out,
bought a new motorcycle, went shopping, and travelled.
5
(Doris, 40s, hair stylist)

Since Doris does not phone her elderly parents regularly, her annual visit and financial
contributions are her compensation for her avoidance of elder care. She is one of the few
exceptions in the working-class group because she visits her parents in Taiwan once a year.
Again, it should be noted that the cost of the return visit is relatively high for Doris. She makes
such financial efforts to achieve the goal of elderly care provision because she assumes that
“immigrants will compensate for the absence of caregiving with money.” Moreover, her
increasingly regular visits only occurred after she had obtained legal status and her household
finances had improved a little. Currently she still has limited savings.

5
The motorcycle cost $2,300. In 2013 Doris was planning to sponsor her 19- and 17-year-old children for
immigration to the United States. She finally submitted the application in 2015. The daughter arrived in 2017.

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It could be argued that critical transitions, mainly divorce, either keep immigrant women
in working-class poverty or move them downward from the middle to the working class, as in
the cases of Rebecca, Irene, Britney, and Melody. Britney, a single mother, worked as office
staff in a Taiwanese airline’s largest overseas office in Los Angeles. I was surprised to learn
that the airline only paid Britney $20,000 a year. Her annual pay placed her life with a young
child in the Hollywood area on a tight budget. She had remained in the location where she had
been renting a one-bedroom apartment since graduate studies in film school. Her award-
winning work did not lead to a better career in the gateway city of world entertainment because
she had been impeded by a lawsuit with the father of her child for years. Due to this, Britney
has been forced to work as office staff, and as a part-time freelancer for other Taiwanese
institutions and companies, in order to earn a tiny but stable living allowance and pay her
lawyer’s fees. In this way she was able to take care of the newborn child and simultaneously
deal with the custody battle.
It can also be noted that young immigrants without family support in the host society are
forced to deal with critical issues such as finance on their own. The working-class Taiwanese
discussed above did not seek financial support from their families in Taiwan. When immigrants
of this group face critical financial issues, they seek assistance from friends in the United States
rather than family in Taiwan, even though they hesitate to request, or fail to get, assistance. Yet,
they still feel ashamed to do it. For example, Grace said, “I feel shy to borrow money from
friends,” and the airline ground staff’s request to her friends was refused. Particularly among
the working-class Taiwanese immigrants who experience downward mobility in terms of
income, lifestyle, and jobs, working-class status is dealt with more positively as time goes by.

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Yet they do not share their suffering with their families in Taiwan.

I did not tell my family the details of this suffering until recently. They asked me in
the first couple of years about my immigrant life, and I could not say anything
negative. Yet I really didn’t dare to buy a small pack of snacks for the children. My
children just wanted to buy snacks, but I really didn’t dare to do it. Now I tell you
[Yu-Kang], like sharing a joke. After years, I was able to confess to my parents that
I was suffering. I disliked dining out and chose to cook in order to save money. Yet
when they asked me if I ate regularly and well at that time, I always lied to them by
responding positively. It was sad. It is not the case now. (Grace, late 30s, office
receptionist)

The working-class Taiwanese experience financial difficulties and thus they and their children
lead invisible lives in the ethnic Taiwanese and Chinese community in San Gabriel Valley.
This is similar to some junior professionals who work in ethnic businesses, either permanently
or while waiting for their immigration status, who experience similar lifestyle and financial
problems. Moreover, the junior professionals face a gamble on opportunity or luck in obtaining
legal immigration status.
Working-class Taiwanese immigrants may receive more support from their elderly parents
than vice versa. Whether elderly parents realize migrating adult children’s financial hardships
or not, they provide some assistance to support their immigrant children’s American dream.
Mostly, they give money to their grandchildren in the name of their education or for other

238
reasons. Without any remittance back to stay-behind elderly parents, Rebecca relies on her
husband’s provision of financial support—$2,000 per month, with irregular variations. The
amount was almost the whole of his monthly income in Taiwan, and it thus placed a critical
burden on the family left behind because he still needed to take care of living costs for himself,
his daughter in Taiwan, and his elderly parents. Moreover, living costs are much higher in Los
Angles than in Taipei. As a result, the separated couple increasingly had disputes about
household finances during their international calls. These cases mostly show how their own
financial struggles prevent them from providing financial support to elderly parents who remain
in the homeland.
Unlike the working-class Polish migrants in Iceland who use remittances as a medium of
transnational care for elderly parents in the homeland (Krzyzowski and Mucha 2014),
remittances do not play the role of supplementing family incomes in the Taiwanese context,
because remittances are not a cause as well as an effect of migration among Taiwanese
working-class women and Taiwan’s national health insurance has eased their financial burden
of health care expenses.

Surveyed Experiences
Survey data shows similar findings of interviews (See Table 5-2): (1) Almost half of them
never provide emotional support and advice to elderly parents. They help the parents make
decisions several times a year, such as the necessity of home repair based on interviews; (2)
The immigrants also help with household chores and transportation several times a year; these
intergenerational support occurs when they return to homeland and stay with the elderly, as the

239
interviews suggest; (3) They are least likely to provide care when parents get sick and provide
direct care at a daily base; (4) Seventy percent of the study parents do not receive money from
the surveyed immigrants. The immigrants would irregularly provide financial assistance to
parents.

Table 5-2 Intergenerational Support to Parents; Lower Class (N=27)

NEVER
ONCE/TWICE
A YEAR
SEVERAL
TIMES A YEAR
MONTHLY WEEKLY DAILY
EMOTIONAL
SUPPORT
44.4 14.8 18.5 0.0 14.8 7.4
PROVIDE INFO
& ADVICE
48.1 14.8 18.5 0.0 11.1 7.4
HELP MAKE
DECISIONS
33.3 22.2 25.9 0.0 14.8 3.7
HOUSEHOLD
CHORES HELP
63.0 14.8 11.1 7.4 0.0 3.7
ESCORT
ASSISTANCE
51.9 7.4 25.9 3.7 7.4 3.7
CARE AS THEY
ARE SICK
77.8 0.0 11.1 3.7 3.7 3.7
PROVIDE
DIRECT CARE
92.6 0.0 3.7 0.0 0.0 3.7
FINANCIAL
SUPPORT
70.4 7.4 14.8 3.7 0.0 3.7
In proportion (%)

The Table 5-2 still shows that some (4 older parents of 3 immigrants) provides intense care to
elderly, which is not completely identical to qualitative data, but it can be explained. Regarding
weekly emotional support from immigrant child, a 44-year-old, separated, and unemployed
woman who has a 8-year-old child (Survey ID: 147) provide emotional support to her stay-
behind father who is 65 years old and lives alone. It can be explained that she contacts her
father regularly because the father lives alone and the immigrant woman only returned to
Taiwan once in the past two years. Yet more information about her three siblings is unavailable
to contextualize this case from survey data.

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More variations come from immigrants who actually live with the parents in the United
States. They are not a case of transnational caregiving. Without family separation across
national borders, the immigrants are much likely to live with the parents and provide them care
across all dimensions. A 25-year-old, single, and unemployed immigrant man (Survey ID: 104)
is the primary caregiver of his 49-year-old mother who lives together in the United States.
Moreover, this man does not have any siblings to share filial obligations of aged care. A 42-
year-old, married, and part-time employed immigrant man (Survey ID: 179) is also the primary
caregiver for his 70- and 68-year-old father and mother in the United States. However, this man
does not provide any forms of eldercare to his father-in-law who is 65-year-old and stays in
Taiwan, because he does not have good relations with his father-in-law, suggested by his report
on a low level of value cohesion and communication as well as a high level of dispute. While
the two men respectively report unemployed and part-time employed (salaried between
$20,000 and $40,000), my classification of social class in survey data, depending on household
income and dependents, may not well capture a complicated journey of immigration and class
formation.
Lastly, I find women provide more assistance in emotional care, advising, and decision-
making than men, while men only provide more assistance in transportation, such as escort to
hospital, than women. However, married women’s emotional care is exclusive to their own
parents rather than parents-in-law. The following sections returns to qualitative data to explore
women’s gendering process of filial care within the family.

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Breadwinner Women’s Negotiation
Married women do not shoulder the responsibility of eldercare as daughters-in-law. The
women’s parents and parents-in-law remain old-fashioned in terms of their transnational
connection in contrast to the elderly in upper- and middle-class families, who are more likely to
have access to telecommunications technology. For instance, according to Mrs. Chiang, “We
talk on the phone rather than making video calls because the older parents do not know how to
use a computer.” Apart from a digital divide that stay-behind parents face, the working-class
immigrants also face a settlement constraint due to intersections in money and time that prevent
them from securing a time slot to maintain an emotional connection and engage in kin-keeping.
They also tended not to regularly maintain transnational connections in order to hide their
hardships in the United States
Ana, a registered nurse, acts as the family breadwinner because she has two dependent
children, a husband with a limited salary from a security job, and a property loan. Although a
job as an registered nurse is very secure, the women in this type of working-class household are
not able to provide transnational eldercare because of their irregular schedule and preference of
working night shifts for higher pay. Ana said, “I really have no time to pay attention to the
families who stayed behind. My husband understands that.” While Gloria, together with Ana,
did not provide transnational eldercare due to a busy job; yet, their husbands, who spend more
time at home, do not take responsibility for transnational eldercare. Thus, the lower class
Taiwanese immigrants rely on stay-behind family members for eldercare. The responsibility of
care is thus abandoned.
Working-class women are unable to ensure the maintenance of emotional connection and kin-

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keeping. However, this might arguably favor women’s negotiation of gendered roles. The couples,
busy with their own jobs, usually have long working hours. Accordingly, both women and men are
less likely to maintain regular ties with stay-behind older parents and other family members.
Lastly, Rebecca’s husband works in a lower-level managerial position at a
telecommunications company in Taiwan, where he is able to finance the process of
immigration from the other side of the Pacific for his migrating family members. They chose
this arrangement because the couple understood that they would not make money or have
decent jobs in the United States commensurate with their salaries and positions in Taiwan. This
family migration decision was not supported by all family members, which can be explained
according to life course stages. The oldest daughter decided not to leave because she was
entering her first year as an undergraduate and preferred her circle of friends in Taiwan. As a
result, Rebecca only brought her younger son to the United States and started his 1.5-generation
incorporation in high school, while her husband remains in Taiwan to work, live with an
undergraduate daughter, and care for his elderly mother.

Morals behind Extended Separation
In light of language and acculturation problems, inconvenient public transportation, and
expensive medical services, elderly parents worry that they are a burden on their lower-class
immigrant children in the United States. They usually stay behind and possibly visit the United
States only once because they know their immigrant adult children are still struggling.
Significantly, medical fees in the United States prevent both the working-class immigrants and
their parents left behind from taking steps toward family reunification in the United States.

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As noted, only Grace’s parents-in-law did visit the United States. However, neither the
parents nor elderly parents of the rest of the working-class immigrants planed to live
permanently with the immigrants in the United States at the time of research, which spanned
2013 and 2016. Grace was relatively fortunate because her elderly parents and parents-in-law
came to the United States for visits. According to Grace, the elderly do not have any desire for
immigration after their stay.

They do not get used to it. I could not say they dislike it here, but I could not say
they like here either. They want to watch TV, but we do not have Chinese TV
programs. They feel bored and have no neighbors for chun-men-zi [which refers to
“chatting with neighbors” in Mandarin]. Yet they at least get satisfaction from
interactions with their grandchildren. (Grace, late 30s, receptionist)

Although Grace resides in Arcadia, where there are many ethnic Chinese, she either anticipated
or was aware of elders’ difficulties with incorporation and adaptation. In addition to limited
space of the condo, she provided a reason, which related to aging and place, while explaining
her perception of the possibilities of immigration during her parents’ later life.

It is difficult for the elders to accept anything new to them. Also, you have to take
responsibility for their adaptation by taking them out. You have to take them out of
the door. I think personality matters. They are not social. But they are still able to
talk freely to strangers in Taiwan because they speak the same language. It is

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different here. (Grace, late 30s, receptionist)

Such narratives are also found among junior professionals in ethnic businesses. A current
engineer, such as Frank, tends to employ adaptation narratives with respect to their elderly
parents, indicating fewer possibilities for family reunification.

I think they could not get used to living here. [Yu-Kang: There are many Taiwanese
and Chinese in Los Angeles.] You still need to deal with some matters, such as
DMV. I do not know. I just think most of my parents’ friends are in Taiwan. They
will be more comfortable living in Taiwan. (Frank, 33, engineer)

Such narratives are based on the migrants’ perceptions and understandings of their parents.
Indeed, the elderly parents of lower-class Taiwanese immigrants seldom visit the United States
for short periods of time Since most working-class immigrant families have only one car and
dual earners, immigrant women experience inconvenience, and thus visiting parents usually
stay at home. They walk to the store for their grocery shopping; they take a bus to commute
between locations in San Gabriel Valley, where the public transportation does not operate
frequently (Murti 2006). As noted in a previous chapter, the United States does not feel as
familiar to working-class Taiwanese as it does to middle- and upper-class immigrants, because
the latter came as either student migrants or transnational entrepreneurs, and often had family
members or friends who had already immigrated to the United States.
Middle- and upper-class Taiwanese immigrants’ networks, especially family members, in

245
the United States smoothen their immigration experience by providing housing, informational
assistance, and jobs. Close family members in the United States also help them to obtain
permanent residency sooner on the grounds of family reunification. Due to the limited family
networks and resources available to them in the United States, working-class immigrants
usually had little or no advice or assistance during their initial settlement in the United States.
This unfamiliarity with the United States also applies to the parents of working-class
immigrants, compared to the middle-class parents who are mainly newly rich, sponsor the
children’s overseas study, and understand the settlement possibility of the migrating adult
children. Family reunification is less of a prospect among working-class Taiwanese in the
United States.

Risky Visits
If elderly parents do not plan to visit, they still receive information about the United States and
immigrants in general from friends and extended family in Taiwan. These stories are not
always positive from the elderly parents’ point of view, such as tales of expensive healthcare,
higher living costs and meal prices, as well as inconvenient transportation and the different
lifestyle.

An auntie on my mother’s side visited her son in Seattle for three months. She told
me yesterday that she could not stand living in the United States. [Her husband
added: It is all in English in Seattle and the elderly are not comfortable. Instead,
there are Chinese TV programs and newspapers in Los Angeles.] I really do not

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know what my mother can do during her visit. Not to mention our neighbors, even
we do not understand her Mandarin accent. [Her husband: I am OK if your mother
comes.] I cannot stand her nagging. (Doris, early 40s, hair stylist)

Such stories spread to the immigrants’ elderly parents through the parents’ circles of family,
neighbors, and friends. They exaggerate both the good and the bad, describing beautiful
neighborhoods and pricy living standards. This actually prevents parents from visiting, and thus
international trips are not on the parents’ agendas. The most dangerous stories are about
medical emergencies and expensive healthcare services in the United States.
Grace’s parents-in-law in Taiwan, the only elderly parents visited to the United States in
this group and whose finances Grace describes as good, flew over to Los Angeles twice. Three
generations of Grace’s family have got together over the years. She said, “We were able to see
each other once a year.” However, the efforts of the whole family were alike those in the
middle-class family as I illustrated but has discontinued. Grace’s parents-in-law do not dare to
visit since an accident in 2012, and physical visits across the Pacific Ocean have reverted to
being one way only because of the cost of healthcare in the United States.

My parents-in-law visited us last year. The mother-in-law fell down when she used
the bathroom at midnight. We thought it was critical because it was possible for her
to have a stroke. We sent her to emergency and we were so scared. Her travel
insurance would cover medical services, but did not apply to ambulance services.
We drove to the hospital! She stayed in the hospital for over a week. We intended to

247
send her back to Taiwan for medical care but her condition did not allow it. Then
she stayed at home for another two weeks until she could be moved in a wheelchair
and was able to take a plane. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

Grace’s mother-in-law moved out of an intensive care unit of the hospital and stayed at home
because the family “does not have money.” The family could not afford the original bill, which
they had to eventually negotiate. At the beginning, they did not know how to negotiate the
medical bill, because it is not required in Taiwan.

The original bill was above $80,000. The ICU bed charge is $5,000 a night. The
cashier asked me to finalize the payment and they asked for a Chinese translator to
assist. When they read each item, I sighed. They tried to ease my stress but I knew
our insurance coverage was for $10,000. In the end, they agreed the amount of
$15,000, and it could not go lower. To be honest, if we had not paid then, we would
not have paid after leaving the hospital. The hospital knew it, too, because they
knew she was a tourist. I kept begging for a lower price. We finally made a deal for
the amount of $12,000 or 13,000. (Grace, late 30s, receptionist)

Grace detailed the coverage: “Besides the insurance coverage of $10,000, we were able to
afford $3,000 to 5,000. We tried hard in negotiations. If the amount had been beyond our limit,
I really would have had no solutions.” In the end, the couple only paid $2,000 in cash, and the
rest was supposed to come from reimbursements from travel insurance and national health

248
insurance in Taiwan. After the accident, Grace and her husband started to discourage their
elderly relatives from visiting. They themselves did not go through it again, and she stated,
“My parents-in-law do not want to fly anymore. We are scared too.”
Such medical emergencies involving elderly visitors are shared among immigrants. Grace
learned how to negotiate the hospital bill from her friend’s friend. She said, “The friend’s father
had a car accident and was sent to emergency. I knew he had become handicapped. The bill
was something more than $200,000. The friend could not afford it and ran away.” Yet Grace
did not want to run away for medical fees because she wanted to be a good American citizen,
and she appreciated that the medical services had saved her beloved family member. She said,
“The hospital saved my mother-in-law’s life and we should not run away without payment. We
could try our best.”
In the face of expensive U.S. medical services, working-class Taiwanese immigrants
worry about their parents’ visits. Their efforts to arrange medical insurance for visiting parents
include the use of national medical care in Taiwan, travel insurance purchased in Taiwan, and
their savings. Like Grace, immigrants purchase medical insurance for a short period in the
United States—which costs between $1,000 and $2,000—as well as travel insurance with
medical coverage in the departure hall of Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan.
6
Grace said,
“Thank God that we purchased the insurance. We did not feel indebted to the States.” Thus
working-class Taiwanese immigrants seek medical services and insurance packages for their
parents’ visits in order to avoid family emergencies and the associated large medical
expenditures in the United States.

6
Grace’s mother-in-law was sent to a hospital for follow-up treatment once their plane had landed at Taoyuan
airport. The cost of medical services and a migrant caregiver in Taiwan was shared among her husband’s family
members, including Grace’s husband, his parents, and his younger brother.

249
Generally, elderly parents and adult children alike in working-class Taiwanese families
worry that elderly parents might get sick or have an accident while visiting the United States.
As the immigrants plan, they may not send elderly parents to see a doctor when they get sick
because of the expense. Medical clinics usually charge $100 in the United States; the same
service costs only $5 in Taiwan with the national health insurance program. Although visiting
elderly parents may keep receipts for reimbursement from national health insurance in Taiwan
and/or may have purchased additional travel insurance, working-class Taiwanese families
remain hesitant about parents’ visits.

The Transnational Reproduction of Care Deficit
As the case of Grace shows, it is possible that the family left behind would try their best to
visit, but these visits are more for fun on the part of the visiting family members, rather than
being collaborative efforts at family reunification, which I discussed in the chapter on middle-
class participants. When the working-class immigrants concretize the reunification plan, such
experiences and stories related to health care prevent immigrants from petitioning for family
reunification, and prevent their elderly parents from visiting. Due to this, family visits occur in
a one-way direction across borders—from Los Angles to Taiwan and family separation
continues while the elderly parents are becoming fragile.
Immigrants without family members such as siblings and elderly parents in the United
States likely have few nodes of social networks for help and finance. It is worse if they fail to
network through civic groups, churches, or their circle of friends and neighbors in the States.
This situation is more commonly observed among working-class Taiwanese immigrants. It in

250
turns brings another inequality of care among the immigrant family as we consider the elderly
parents are helpful to assist in childcare. While elderly parents of middle- and upper-class
Taiwanese visit the United States to help the immigrant family, such as postnatal care and
childcare, the working-class immigrants have to deal with it on their own and with the support
of their network.
There are some occasions, such as appointments with school teachers, when immigrant
mothers are not allowed to bring their babies with them. Immigrant mothers with no family
members or close friends nearby in the United States feel frustrated, unsupported, and lonely.
For instance, Grace said, “It is not as good in the United States as I expected. We were thinking
about giving up and returning to Taiwan. We have a house and family in Taiwan, while we are
lonely here and no one helps with childcare. It is really not that good here.” This indicates the
differences in family care resources available to mothers in the United States and Taiwan.
Grace recalled her life in Taiwan: both she and her sister-in-law received childcare support
from their mother and mother-in-law. “I worked, so I did not cook or do laundry. My mother-
in-law, who lived downstairs, helped me a lot. Yet I am so tired after migrating to the States.”
She further explained:

No help from family members is a big problem. You sometimes cannot bring the
children with you when you do some stuff. You have no choice but to bring them.
You need to bring them when you want to buy a bunch of green onions at the
grocery market. The children are too young to stay at my friend’s place. There are
many inconvenient moments if you bring the children. (Grace, late 30s, office

251
receptionist)

Therefore most of the working-class immigrant mothers tried to build a support network among
other immigrant mothers, neighbors, and the parents of their child’s classmates, just as the
middle-class mothers in this study did.

You have to organize a group with your neighbors or have some good friends. If I
have to go out, my husband will take turns if he is not busy. If he is not available,
you have to ask for help from neighbors or friends. Now the oldest child is 12 and
able to take care of the younger two during the hours between when I go out and my
husband comes back. To be honest, it is not easy to get help from American
neighbors. (Grace, late 30s, office receptionist)

These immigrants experience much inconvenience as a result of their limited networks and
family support in the States. Despite the fact that the California State Child Home Alone Law
does not specify an age requirement, the 12-year-old child in Grace’s family has started to act
as family caregiver. The building of support networks seems a challenge for other working-
class immigrant mothers such as Mrs. Chiang, Rebecca, Britney, and Irene. It should be noted
from the participant observation data that immigrant mothers more easily build and maintain
stronger supporting groups among their church friends.

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Social Mobility and Embedded Transitions in Transnational Caregiving
Despite the fact that the junior professionals in ethnic businesses struggle between citizenship
and the bitterness of life in the United States, they continue to hope to settle down in the United
States after comparing living and labor conditions in the United States and Taiwan. These
junior professionals with lowered prospects understand that it is not easy for them to petition
for family reunification because of their current levels of incorporation and achievement in the
United States. Yet, their transnational care provision changes accordingly when they achieve
social mobility to middle-class status.
Their judgment that aging alone in Taiwan is better for their parents than reunification in
the United States somewhat reflects their own current level of immigrant incorporation, which
does not allow them to lead a regular transnational life with respect to return visits, or to family
reunification in the United States. The junior immigrants are aware of their own disadvantages
compared to middle- and upper-class counterparts in Los Angeles. For instance, Frank, an
engineer currently working in an ethnic business, understands his own inflexibility as to
citizenship, work, and family at his current junior stage. He said, “The transpacific plan is more
possible when you start an undertaking. Otherwise, you are not free to travel over while you are
employed.” This junior engineer, who is the oldest son and grandson in his family, understands
his role in the family left behind while also providing a contrasting argument justifying his
unwillingness to return to Taiwan or seek family reunification.
Despite the fact that junior professionals do not provide solid evidence of transnational
caregiving in respect of finances, physical visits, or phone calls, their unfulfilled caregiving can
be temporary, because the parents of immigrants in their 30s are relatively young (around their

253
50s and 60s) and still participate in the labor force. As a result, the parents are less likely to
need personal care and financial support, unless they are sick. The unfulfilled caregiving is
temporary because the junior professionals are likely to change their ways of transnational
caregiving to correspond with those of the middle class—polymediated care—after the
achievement of upward mobility. It is argued in this study that professional Taiwanese expect
to make efforts to prepare for family reunification while leading a transnational life more
regularly.
In addition to educated junior professionals, self-employed entrepreneurs and specialists
are also able to achieve social mobility after some years in business. Irene, the acupuncture
specialist whom I interviewed in 2013 earned fluctuating sums month by month. She even
thought about closing the clinic because she only made an average of $ 2,000 a month, and she
needed to pay $1,700 to rent the clinic premises. When I followed up in 2015 and 2016, she
was able to earn $4,000 and even up to $6,000 before deducting operating costs such as rent for
the premises, pay for a part-time receptionist, medicine, and facilities. The improvement in
profits occurred after she started the business in 2012 and immigrated in 2009. Despite the fact
that this acupuncture specialist, similar to other self-employed immigrants in the study, did not
earn on her days off, the occasional improvement in her business started to allow her to return
to Taiwan for her elderly parents.

Conclusion
To sum up, some working-poor immigrants retain working-class status because of their income
and family dependents. Except for Frank and Ana, they are not optimistic about achieving

254
American middle-class status. They manage their families in either the United States or Taiwan
less smoothly. In this study on transnational caregiving, working-class immigrants generally
withdraw from the caregiving responsibilities inculcated by their homeland’s culture. They
make contact and return less frequently. Their annual salaries from entry-level positions, blue-
collar jobs, and professional jobs in ethnic companies are much lower than those of middle-
class professionals. Moreover, their vacation periods are less flexible and shorter, preventing
them from visiting their elderly parents in Taiwan. The crossing of national borders is
conducted solely by working-class Taiwanese immigrants in the United States, whereas it is
reciprocal between middle-class immigrants in the United States and their elderly parents in
Taiwan. The family formation is less collaborative across generations and borders in the
working-class group.
The analysis of transnational caregiving patterns according to social class in chapters on
polymediated, outsourced, and unfulfilled caregiving actually reflects different ideologies and
embedded practices in relation to elderly caregiving. Some retain the same cultural values,
while some transform them. Yet the discussion of transnational caregiving based on social class
provides a window to understand the inequalities of care in the transnational setting.
Also, this study suggests the possibility of care strategy mobility. Based on professionals
who used to and currently work in ethnic businesses, they have lower prospects of petitioning
for family reunification but will have higher prospects when they achieve social mobility to
middle-class status, such as Ken who used to work at Panda Express and then moved to
American IT business. It is similar to self-employed entrepreneurs. As I demonstrate, both
Irene and Doris were more able to return for visiting and family emergency as their business

255
profits improve.
The next chapter will close the discussion of transnational caregiving by analyzing how
care strategies are situated in the process of immigration and by social class.

256
Conclusion

Social class plays a role in the establishment of strategies for immigrants to access care
resources and reconstruct a web of care in a transnational setting. The study finds
different patterns of transnational caregiving across social classes. Most significantly, a
typology of transnational caregiving, including polymediated, outsourced, and unfulfilled
care, contributes to our understanding of the immigrant family by articulating social class
and eldercare practices in the social processes of immigration.
Middle-class immigrants, the majority of Taiwanese immigrants in Southern
California, makes efforts to struggle with the care needs of two generations. As
communication technology plays an important role among immigrants, compressing time
and space in the transnational organization of elderly care, middle-class immigrants
continue to provide as much emotional support as possible to ensure their eldercare and
moral responsibilities. They frequent international contacts to check on stay-behind
parents and collaborate eldercare arrangement with stay-behind siblings. As a result, most
middle-class immigrants, especially women, make a concerted effort to connect the lives
of their family in the United States with their extended family in the homeland by means
of a routine of polymediated communication and routine return visits.
Upper-class immigrants tend to outsource care by recruiting paid caregivers and
sending their parents into institutional care facilities. Upper-class Taiwanese immigrants
are not only able to outsource their obligation to care for the elderly to a paid
professional, but they also claim that this is the best option for their sick parents. Even
though the parents live with stay-behind siblings, most of them financially support the

257
stay-behind siblings to recruit a paid caregiver. Additionally, most of them assist their
stay-behind family with money, gifts, and activities to compensate for their absence from
family care, but do not intensely engage in much emotional care or kin-keeping labor
across national borders. As a result, upper-class participants are most capable of
providing financial support in varying forms to their parents and family caregivers.
Overall, they craft filial piety in a new fashion by rationalizing professional services and
ropewalking skillfully between morals and markets.
Compared to middle- and upper-class counterparts, working-class immigrants are
least involved in administering transnational eldercare. Long working hours and
struggling settlement discourage them to provide polymediated communication and
routine return visits that middle-class immigrants administer as well as outsourced care
and financial support that upper-class immigrants prefer. As a result, most of working-
class immigrants fail to meet their goals of fulfilling their responsibilities for eldercare
from afar. Their transnational eldercare is unfulfilled across the selected dimensions of
intergenerational support.
The study adds a transnational layer to current discourse on class and family care in
the literature on American families and beyond (Lareau 2003; Rubin 1994) by examining
how immigrants reconstruct their ethnic culture of eldercare after immigration, and how
both care resources across borders and immigrant incorporation into the host society
structure immigrant women’s agency to provide care across national borders. While
Lareau (2003) and Rubin (1994) suggest differentiated cultures of family life in middle-
and working-class American families, my findings of interviews and surveys show that
three class groups of Taiwanese immigrants administer eldercare obligations differently.

258
As I suggest, family stratification surrounding eldercare provision is (re)produced in the
transnational process.
I agree what social gerontologists have identified: two distinctive family caregiving
systems—individualist and collectivist—in American families (Pyke and Bengtson
1996). In my study of Taiwanese immigrant families, each social class has some who
reluctantly approach eldercare provision in person and some who see parental caregiving
as labor of love. However, my examination of social class provides a window to nuance
our understandings of care stratification. Upper-class immigrants minimize their
contributions of intimate labor and rely on paid service; middle-class immigrants are
more likely to maintain/reproduce collectivist families, and tend to frequent emotional
support transnationally and collaborate with other family members. Working-class want
to be collectivist, but they fail to meet this care goal. This study of class stratification
contributes to existing scholarship with a reproducing process of care repertoires across
social classes.
It is widely accepted that the global aging population is growing. Arguably, the
increasing need and high cost of long-term care place a greater burden on disadvantaged
elderly people and families, because they face intensified struggles and may not have
flexible care alternatives in the family-market-state triangle. In my study, the stratified
model of transnational eldercare provision implies the different forms of eldercare
received by stay-behind parents. As a result, ways of caring for basic needs in old age
reflect a continuity of social inequality embodied in individuals and the family.

259
Intersections of Class and Gender
My results agree with previous research on both transnational parenting and transnational
eldercare, which emphasizes gendered practices of transnational care across generations
(Abrego 2009, 2014; Amin and Ingman 2014; King and Vullnetari 2009; Merla 2014;
Parreñas 2005; Spitzer et al. 2003; Sun 2012; Wilding 2006). Building on existing
scholarship on gendered transnational care, this study adds to previous research by
demonstrating that class does indeed shape the agency of immigrant women to
reconstruct eldercare across national borders. This study provides a comparison of the ways
transnational eldercare labor is stratified for immigrant women in different social classes.
Women make unequal negotiations of transnational eldercare. Middle-class women still
embody the role of daughters(-in-law): While they do not use marriage as a legitimate to
escape care obligations to biological parents, they also provide emotional support to stay-
behind parents-in-law on behalf of their spouse. Upper-class women are capable of
minimizing their eldercare labor by purchasing paid service. Working-class women have no
choice but to leave the role of daughters-in-law unfulfilled and their spouse seldom complain
about it because the men understand common struggles of socioeconomic incorporation in
the host society. As Brenner (2000) argues, women are not uniformly exploited by men
across social classes; as a result, economic resources greatly determine care work options.
Combining gender and class in my analysis has shed new light on the driving forces
behind the unequal provision of and resistance to transnational eldercare. This stratified
model contributes to our understanding of transnational care by revealing class-based
negotiations among women in a transnational setting.

260
As I argue that class plays a role in women’s provision of transnational eldercare, the
gendering process of the women in each class also has been considered. In middle-class
immigrant families, women provide more emotional support (polymediated care and return
visit) and instrumental support than men. There is no gender difference in the provision of
financial support and the efforts of arranging a primary caregiver. In upper-class immigrant
families, there is no gender difference in the provision of emotional, instrumental, and
financial support, despite that upper-class women provide more emotional support to their
own parents. In working-class immigrant families, there is also no gender difference in the
provision of emotional, instrumental, and financial support, despite one exceptional case that
the woman provides more emotional support to parents-in-law to mend fences with them.
Working-class women have some power or structural constraints to leverage the role of
daughters-in-law with their spouse. As Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994) argued, gender relations
become favorable for women in disadvantaged immigrant families because women gain
power in the public sphere and within household during settlement process while men
lose in the public and private spheres.
Bridging scattered fragments of studies on women’s experiences of eldercare, this
study agrees that middle-class caregivers are more likely than working-class caregivers to
quit their jobs or reduce their working hours. Working-class women struggle to fulfill
their conflicting roles as good daughters and productive workers (Abel 1990; Backett-
Milburn et al. 2008; Merrill 1997). Skilled immigrant women are able to mobilize care
resources outside national borders, such as remittances and return visits (Aranda 2003;
Zhou 2012). Accordingly, immigrant women in different classes have differential
leverage to negotiate with themselves and their husbands in transnational eldercare

261
provision. This intersectional study of the process of gendering and class-making better
situates how women are socialized to differently reconstruct the gendered role of
daughter(-in-law) in a transnational context. Yet, I also admit that the factors of personal
commitments, conjugal relationships, and individual contributions to household finances
affect this gendering process.

Transnational Care
The structural hierarchy of reproductive labor interlocks different groups of women based
on race, class, and nation in globalization as Parrenas (2000) synthesizes the discussions
of the racial division of reproductive labor and the international division of labor. In her
concept of the international division of reproductive labor, class-privileged women
purchase low-wage domestic service of Filipina migrants who simultaneously hire the
even lower-wage service of poorer women in the homeland (Parrenas 2000). Various
studies on the global care chain establish such a perspective that migrant women families
outsource domestic duties through the transnational commodification of reproductive
labor (Hochschild 2000; Lan 2006; Murphy 2014).
Recently, the global care perspective draws scholars’ attention to develop
discussions of care circulation and transnational parenting where this article is situated.
To address the global care chain perspective’s overemphasis on the commodification of
care labor, the care circulation perspective argues that family care circulates among
family members over distance because of reciprocity and obligation (Baldassar, Baldock,
and Wilding 2007; Baldassar and Merla 2014). As they suggest, the elderly generation is
not always the care recipient; instead, the older parents may travel to the immigrant adult

262
children’s place to assist childcare to the youngest generation or personal care to other
relatives.
While the global care chain perspective focuses on paid care, the care circulation
perspective pays attention to unpaid care. I agree that the latter is complementary, not
competent, to the former (Baldassar, Baldock, and Wilding 2007). However, the two
perspectives have not been better bridged. Both perspectives overlook the possibility of
conceptualization that explains how the family integrates unpaid and paid resource at the
same time into care arrangement or the arrangement transits from unpaid resource to paid
one. For privileged women who outsource care labor to poorer migrant women, research
also shows that the privileged women make a boundary work, wherein the privileged
women perform front-stage intimacy by delivering meals to the children in the dining
room while maids stay in the back room cooking at kitchen (Lan 2003). The care work
becomes blurred.
Due to it, I incorporate gerontology in this study of transnational eldercare and
divide intergenerational support into emotional, instrumental, and financial dimensions.
This examination helps us identify the organization of eldercare: What dimensions of
filial care do men and women respectively provide? What dimensions of filial care do
immigrants, stay-behind siblings, and paid caregivers respectively provide? Although
scholars using care circulation perspective conceptually admit contested commitment,
they have not empirically shown that the reciprocal, multidirectional, and asymmetrical
exchange of care fluctuates over the life course within transnational family networks.
Instead, the experience of Taiwanese immigrants shows a negotiation process of
arranging care for older parents between kin and immigrants, wherein immigrants are

263
required to make effort to sustain solid ties or overcome fragmented network with their
stay-behind kin.
The process is not always smooth; there are politics within the family because of the
contested sustainability of commitment and relationship. Some stay-behind siblings in
my study have become reluctant caregivers and declined to continue their filial care and
financial support. As many immigrants said, “Each family has its own bible that cannot
be understood by others.”
Lastly, this study understands what dimensions of filial care men/women,
immigrants/stay-behind siblings/paid caregivers, and upper-/middle-/working-class
immigrants respectively provide. It actually reflects on how immigrants redefine the
notions of filial piety. They differently view routine return visits, intense emotional
support, direct personal care, professional service, or immigrant success as the idea of a
good provider.

The Transnationalism Paradigm for Studying Immigrant Incorporation
Theories of immigration/assimilation have focused on the economic, cultural, and political
incorporation of immigrants, implying that the incorporation processes only occur within
the society of settlement. In this scenario, immigrants have to or are encouraged to uproot
their ties to the society of origin. However, most of Taiwanese immigrants do not unload
their filial obligations. Due to this, the concept of transnationalism allows immigration
research to consider the fact that “immigrants live their lives across national borders and
respond to the constraints and demand of two or more states (Glick-Schiller et al.1995).”

264
This transnationalism form has been ignored by conventional migration/assimilation
theories (Portes et al. 2002).
Portes and his colleagues (2002) traced the conceptual development of
transnationalism, and they stated that transnational studies do not directly challenge the
concepts of assimilation and acculturation. From their perspective, the relationship between
transnationalism and assimilation does not necessarily constitute a zero-sum game. The
framework of transnationalism sheds light on an alternative form of adaptation of
immigrants in the receiving societies. As a result, existing scholarship tends to suggest that
some immigrants actively maintain ties to their homelands for better outcomes of
incorporation. For example, transnational entrepreneurship works as an alternative form
of immigrant economic adaptation; immigrant parents send native-born children back to
the homelands to arrange better child rearing in response to their limited resources and
disadvantaged neighborhood in the host society (Dreby 2010; Levitt 2001; Levitt and
Jaworsky 2007; Portes et al. 2002; Smith 2006). Such structural constraints as social
prejudice, discrimination, and other modes of incorporation have not been solved in the
U.S. society. Due to this, immigrants’ transnational involvement serves as an additional
form of economic adaptation for foreign minorities throughout the mobilization of social
networks across national borders.
While these scholars see transnationalism a part of immigrant adaptation, my study of
transnational caregiving would rather see immigrant adaptation as part of transnationalism.
These Taiwanese who enter the United States as student migrants and transnational
entrepreneurs, in fact, deploy or are supported by family resources from the homeland to
help their immigrant adaptation, such as parents’ assistance in down payment when

265
immigrant adult children purchase a house, stay-behind family’s financial support when
immigrants require funds to expand a business, and parents’ sponsorship of legal status
when investor parents help the whole family obtain permanent residency. It presents the
effect of transnationalism on immigrant adaptation in the settlement process.
Due to it, the Taiwanese immigrants, mostly in the middle class, have strengthened
commitment on providing reciprocal support to stay-behind parents. The early experience
of providing family care to older parents can be explained from two theoretical
perspectives, both of which situate the formation of filial duty in a two-way direction
between the generations. It can be explained by the reciprocity perspective: immigrant
adult children reciprocate childcare and support from their parents in early life by
providing their aged parents with personal care and other forms of support across national
borders. It also can be explained by the attachment perspective: close emotional bonds
forge immigrant adult children’s altruistic caregiving to parents who stay in the homeland
(Chow 1993; Kohli 2005; Lee, Parish, and Willis 1994; Silverstein et al. 2002; Xie and
Zhu 2006). The stratified practices of transnational caregiving are outcomes of
juxtaposing immigration/transnationalism and family support.
Most scholars of migration agree that transnational practices continue among the
first generation immigrants while second and later generation immigrants do not
participate in transnational activities with the same intensity as their parents do (Levitt
and Jaworsky 2007). Due to this, more research on generational shifts in transnational
activities is needed in order to consider factors limiting or extending the longevity of
transnational life. It is also crucial to examine characteristics of immigrants and the

266
contexts that detail why some immigrants do not or do not want to involve in
transnational activities (Portes et al. 2002).

A Last Look at Care
This study centers on the inequalities of intimacy and care that stay-behind elderly
parents experience from immigrant adult children to demonstrate how transnationalism
can provide insights to our knowledge of immigrant incorporation. This work
conceptually adds to our theoretical knowledge of migration, and blurs the assimilation
and transnationalism divide by arguing that first-generation immigrants resume elder care
responsibilities transnationally in the social process of immigrant incorporation. It also
aids our understanding of the challenges of immigrant incorporation in the United States
by calling attention to the stratification of transnational caregiving.
However, the discussion of welfare infrastructure is required to better situate how
Taiwanese navigate options of eldercare provision in different welfare states. That is, the
values of filial obligations are not fixed. Outsourcing eldercare can be a part of
modernization of the Asian family in response to increasing aging population and
shrinking family size. Possibly, the culture of family care is more prevailing in a state
where institutional care has not been accepted and popular, while the culture of family
care is less welcome when institutional care is widely provided. This dynamics between
welfare infrastructure and culture values will inaugurates a contextualized articulation
among family, welfare states, and markets. In this study, I see this shift that eldercare
arrangement moves from family care to institutional care exclusively among upper-class
immigrants whose parents live in the United States.

267
Until now, policy efforts of social care expansion in East Asian countries have not
achieved this goal of institutional care (Peng 2016), probably because the society has not
morally welcomed this institutional form. We may believe changes in political economic
structures and relationships helps the transformation of caring (Glenn 2010). If
modernization continues to give rise to the gender equality and the weakened function of
family support for the elderly, the Taiwanese someday would no longer see the Chinese
culture of family care as affectionate extortion where the society and the elderly parents
pressure adult children for providing round the clock care instead of doing it the flexible
way. Intimacy of caring should allow many forms.

268
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279
Appendix 1: List of Study Participants and Their Characteristics

MIDDLE CLASS
The Number of Participants: 83
The Number of Households: 80
The Composition of Gender: Male 33, Female 50
Marital Status: Married 72, Single-Divorced 11

NAME AGE OCCUPATION EDUCATION PARENTS IN-LAW
AARON 33 ENGINEER, ETHNIC INC. MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
ALEX 41-45 DIRECTOR, ETHNIC MEDIA MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
ANDREW 52 SMALL BUSINESS TRADER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
ANGUS 58 AFTER SCHOOL PRESIDENT MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
BRYAN 33 ENGINEER, AMERICAN INC. MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
DOUGLAS 51-55 SEMINARY STUDENT BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
GABRIEL 46-50 DIRECTOR, ETHNIC MEDIA BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
ISSAC 46-50 FINANCE SPECIALIST MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
JEREMY 34 CIVIL SERVANT BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
JILL 36-40 ENGINEER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
JING-HAN 51-55 DIRECTOR, CIVIL SERVANT BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
JOHN 51-55 DIRECTOR, ETHNIC INC. BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
KEN 41-45 DIRECTOR, IT BUSINESS MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
LOUIS 40 ENGINEER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
LUCAS 41-45 ENGINEER MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A.
MAC 36-40 CHINESE PHYSICIAN MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
MARC 37 BANKER, ETHNIC BANK MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
MICHAEL 41-45 MANAGER, ETHNIC BUSINESS BACHELOR U.S.A. TAIWAN
MR. CHAN 56-60 RESTAURANT OWNER BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. CHANG 56-60 SMALL BUSINESS TRADER BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. HANG 61-65 RESTAURANT OWNER HIGH SCHOOL U.S.A. TAIWAN
MR. HONG 61-65 SMALL BUSINESS TRADER BACHELOR U.S.A. TAIWAN
MR. LAI 51-55 LEGAL DOCUMENT
PREPARER, ETHNIC INC.
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. LIN 31-35 PROPERTY MANAGEMENT MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. LU 59 CERTIFICATED PUBLIC
ACCOUNT
MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. XIE 58 BUSINESS OWNER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. YAO 74 FORMER RESTAURANT
OWNER
HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN* TAIWAN
OWEN 51-55 DIRECTOR, ETHNIC NGO BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
PAUL 56-60 RESTAURANT OWNER BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
PETER 41-45 VICE PRESIDENT, ETHNIC
AUTO PARTS INC.
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
SAMUEL 51-55 PRIEST BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
STEVEN 36-40 OFFICE STAFF, ETHNIC INC. MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
TOM 46-50 CIVIL SERVANT BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
ABBY 41-45 COLLEGE STAFF MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
ALBEE 41-45 CIVIL SERVANT BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
AMANDA 41-45 HOUSEWIFE MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
AMBER 41-45 BUSINESS SPECIALIST MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A.
ARIES 40 PROFESSOR PHD TAIWAN TAIWAN
CATHERINE 46-50 HOUSEWIFE BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN

280
NAME AGE OCCUPATION EDUCATION PARENTS IN-LAW
CATHY 46-50 HOUSEWIFE MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A.
CHING-YI 35 OFFICE STAFF BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
DANA 31-35 REGISTERED NURSE MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
DENISE 41-45 HOUSEWIFE MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
DORA 61-65 DANCE INSTRUCTOR MASTER U.S.A. TAIWAN
EMMA 51-55 CHINESE SCHOOL TEACHER PHD U.S.A. TAIWAN
EVA 41-45 HOUSEWIFE MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
KAREN 46-50 REGISTERED NURSE, WIFE OF
TOM
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
KATIE 41-45 DIRECTOR, CIVIL SERVICE BACHELOR TAIWAN CANADA
IRIS 41-45 PROFESSOR PHD TAIWAN U.S.A.**
JANET 36-40 OFFICE STAFF MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
JESSICA 31-35 OFFICE STAFF MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
LAURA 36-40 OFFICE STAFF BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
LESLIE 36-40 COLLEGE STAFF BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
LINDA 40 HOUSEWIFE BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.**
LUCY 41-45 HOUSEWIFE BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MICHELLE 31-35 AIRLINE CABIN CREW BACHELOR TAIWAN N.A.
MOLLY 41-45 IT BUSINESS SPECIALIST MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A.
MRS. HU 51-55 HOST, ETHNIC MEDIA BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MRS.
HUANG
41-45 WIFE OF BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MRS. LAN 46-50 OFFICE STAFF BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MRS. YAO 66 HOUSEWIFE, WIFE OF MR.
YAO
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN*
NICOLE 46-50 DIRECTOR, ETHNIC INC. MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
NINA 36-40 OFFICE STAFF MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
OLIVIA 38 HOUSEWIFE; CAREGIVER MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A.
PATTY 36-40 JOURNALIST, ETHNIC MEDIA BACHELOR U.S.A. TAIWAN
PEARL 51-55 DIRECTOR, CIVIL SERVANT MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
PEI-LING 41-45 HOUSEWIFE MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
RUBY 51-55 OFFICE STAFF BACHELOR U.S.A. TAIWAN
SHIRLEY 36-40 HOST, ETHNIC MEDIA BACHELOR TAIWAN N.A.
SANDRA 41-45 ETHNIC ENTERTAINMENT
BUSINESS OWNER
BACHELOR TAIWAN HONG
KONG
SOPHIA 51-55 PROJECT MANAGER BACHELOR TAIWAN INDIA**
STACY 55-60 ENGINEER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
TIFFANY 31-35 ENGINEER BACHELOR TAIWAN N.A.
TINA 44 OWNER OF OPTICIAN
SERVICES
BACHELOR TAIWAN
& U.S.A.
TAIWAN
VANESSA 36-40 ETHNIC NGO ASSISTANT MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN**
VICKY 36-40 CHINESE SCHOOL TEACHER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
VIVIAN 36-40 OFFICE STAFF MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
WEI-EN 41-45 BUSINESS OWNER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
WEI-NING 40 CIVIL SERVANT BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
YI-HSUAN 53 HOUSEWIFE & CAREGIVER BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
YI-SHAN 36-40 HERBALIST PHD TAIWAN N.A.
YU-TING 46-50 DIRECTOR, ETHNIC INC. MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
ZOE 36-40 COLLEGE STAFF, WIFE OF
STEVEN
MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A.

281
Appendix 1: List of Study Participants and Their Characteristics (Continued)

UPPER CLASS
The Number of Participants: 28
The Number of Households: 23
The Composition of Gender: Male 13, Female 15
Marital Status: Married 27, Single-Divorced 1

NAME AGE OCCUPATION EDUCATION PARENTS IN-LAW
DAVID 56-60 BUSINESSMAN MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A
JAMES 56-60 TRANSATIONAL TRADER &
COMMERCIAL PROPERTY
OWNER
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. CHEN 51-55 HOTEL OWNER MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. CHI 51-55 TRANSNATIONAL TRADER HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. CHU 66-70 REAL ESTATE INC. & EX.
CHAIN RESTAURANT OWNER
BACHELOR TAIWAN* TAIWAN
MR. DAI 51-55 BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR U.S.A.* TAIWAN
MR. LO 41-45 CHINESE PHYSICIAN &
OWNER
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. TANG 51-55 RETIRED BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. TSAO 56-60 EX. ACCOUNTING MANAGER MASTER U.S.A. U.S.A.
MR. WANG 56-60 PDA & EX. BUSINESSMAN MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
MR. YANG 61-65 HOTEL OWNER HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN TAIWAN
RALPH 41-45 MANAGER, AMERICAN LAW
FIRM
MASTER TAIWAN MALAYSIA
SAM 51-55 CHAIN DENTIST CLINIC
OWNER
MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
CHRISTINA 51-55 WIFE OF CHAIN DENTIST
CLINIC OWNER, SAM
MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
LILY 56 WIFE OF PDA & BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MANDY 41-45 WIFE OF BUSINESSMAN MASTER TAIWAN U.S.A.
MRS. CHI 51-55 WIFE OF TRANSNATIONAL
TRADER, MR. CHI
HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN TAIWAN
MRS. CHU 66-70 WIFE OF EX. RESTAURANT
OWNER, MR. CHU
HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN TAIWAN*
MRS. DAI 51-55 WIFE OF BUSINESSMAN, MR.
DAI
BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.*
MRS. KAO 51-55 WIFE OF BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.
MRS. LO 40 WIFE OF CHINESE PHYSICIAN,
MR. LO
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MRS. TSENG 46-50 MANAGER, ETHNIC MEDIA;
WIFE OF PDA & BUSINESSMAN
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
NANCY 52 WIFE OF BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
SHELLY 46-50 WIFE OF BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A
STACHELLE 51-55 REAL ESTATE CONSULTANT MASTER U.S.A. TAIWAN
TRACY 51-55 WIFE OF BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
WINNIE 46-50 LECTURER, WIFE OF
BUSINESSMAN
BACHELOR U.S.A. TAIWAN
YVONNE 56-60 CHAIN BUSINESS OWNER BACHELOR TAIWAN U.S.A.

282
Appendix 1: List of Study Participants and Their Characteristics (Continued)

WORKING CLASS
The Number of Participants: 21
The Number of Households: 19
The Composition of Gender: Male 10, Female 11
Marital Status: Married 13, Single-Divorced 8

NAME AGE OCCUPATION EDUCATION PARENTS IN-LAW
ADAM 41-45 WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
ALLEN 36-40 ETHNIC WIRELESS ASSISTANT BACHELOR TAIWAN N.A.
FRANK 33 ENGINEER, ETHNIC INC. MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
HARRY 51-55 SECURITY BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
HENRY 48 AUTO REPAIR LABOR HIGH SCHOOL U.S.A. TAIWAN
MIKE 41-45 SECURITY BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. LIU 61-65 FORMER FACTORY WORKER,
SPORT COACH
HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN TAIWAN
MR. SUNG 61-65 FUNG-SHUI SPECIALIST HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN N.A.
MR. WONG 65 RETIRED MAIL DELIVERYMAN MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
ROBERT 51-55 FORMER TRUNK DRIVER HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN U.S.A.
ANA 41-45 REGISTERED NURSE, WIFE OF
MIKE
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
BRITNEY 35-40 OFFICE STAFF MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
DORIS 41-45 HAIR STYLIST HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN U.S.A.
GLORIA 38 SELF-EMPLOYED, HOME
ORGANIZATION SERVICE
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
GRACE 36-40 P.T. OFFICE RECEPTIONIST,
ETHNIC INC.
BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
IRENE 51-55 ACUPUNCTURIST BACHELOR TAIWAN N.A.
MARY 61-65 ASSISTANT OF FUNG-SHUI
SERVICE
MASTER TAIWAN N.A.
MELODY 36-40 ELDER CAREGIVER HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN N.A.
MRS.
CHIANG
53 STORE ASSISTANT BACHELOR TAIWAN TAIWAN
MRS. WONG 64 EX. POST OFFICER, WIFE OF
MR. WONG
MASTER TAIWAN TAIWAN
REBECCA 51-55 OFFICE RECEPTIONIST,
ETHNIC INC.
HIGH SCHOOL TAIWAN N.A.

* informs that the study participant’s parents(-in-law) passed away prior to the time
of first interview.
** informs that the study participant married a spouse with a different ethnicity.
*** informs that the study participant’s all parents(-in-law) passed away prior to the
time of first interview.
N.A. informs that the study participant is single or divorced and thus not required to
care for parents-in-law.

283
Appendix 2: Descriptive Statistics of Immigrants Interviewed in Southern
California

Upper-class Middle-class Working-class All
(n = 28) (n = 83) (n = 21) (N = 132)
Frequency (Proportion)
Age (range in years)
Age 30–39 0 (0.00) 25 (0.31) 6 (0.29) 31 (0.23)
Age 40–49 7 (0.25) 33 (0.40) 5 (0.24) 45 (0.34)
Age 50–59 18 (0.64) 20 (0.24) 5 (0.24) 43 (0.33)
Age 60–69 3 (0.11) 4 (0.05) 5 (0.24) 12 (0.09)
Age above 70 0 (0.00) 1 (0.01) 0 (0.00) 1 (0.01)
Education (level)
High school graduate 4 (0.14) 2 (0.02) 7 (0.33) 13 (0.10)
Bachelor’s degree 16 (0.57) 38 (0.46) 9 (0.43) 63 (0.48)
Master’s degree 8 (0.29) 39 (0.47) 5 (0.24) 52 (0.39)
Doctorate degree 0 (0.00) 4 (0.05) 0 (0.00) 4 (0.03)

284
Appendix 3: Descriptive Statistics of Surveyed Immigrants

MIDDLE-CLASS
(N=83)
UPPER-CLASS
(N=67)
WORKING-CLASS
(N=15)
Mean (S.D.) Mean (S.D.) Mean (S.D.)
Age 45.72(9.30) 47.95(10.07) 43.40(10.51)
Education (in years) 17.16(2.24) 17.03(2.95) 16.00(2.95)
Household size 3.33(1.31) 3.49(0.93) 2.60(1.24)
Age of children 11.14(9.61) 17.14(11.98) 12.33(12.28)
Year to obtain U.S. citizenship 7.85(3.99) 6.30(4.36) 8.13(4.00)*
Return trips in the past 2 years 1.39(1.18) 1.79(1.43) 1.93(1.58)
Persons of trip group 2.02(1.18) 1.90(1.43) 1.33(0.62)
Travel cost 4649(3747) 6445(7319) 4173(2697)
Family emergency for parents 0.20(0.40) 0.21(0.45) 0.10(0.32)
Family emergency for in-law 0.10(0.30) 0.24(0.47) 0.00(0.00)
Sibling size 2.34(1.36) 2.60(1.17) 2.60(1.18)
Beliefs of filial piety**
Should accompany with parents 4.61(0.77) 4.22(1.35) 3.47(1.51)
Should assist in household chores 4.47(0.92) 4.07(1.37) 3.47(1.30)
Should provide advice 4.69(0.62) 4.51(1.01) 4.33(0.82)
Should provide direct care 4.41(0.94) 4.09(1.32) 3.47(1.55)
Should provide money 4.44(0.96) 4.42(1.04) 3.67(1.50)
Should provide housing 4.22(1.11) 3.67(1.50) 3.47(1.60)
* It does not include 7 respondents who have not obtained U.S. citizenship.
** The variables are surveyed on a five-point Likert scale to measure how strong the immigrants believe
selected statement of filial obligations (1=lowest, 5=highest).

285

Appendix 4: Descriptive Statistics of Surveyed Immigrant-Parent Dyad

MIDDLE-CLASS
(N=239)
UPPER-CLASS
(N=170)
WORKING-CLASS
(N=27)
Mean (S.D.) Mean (S.D.) Mean (S.D.)
Age of Parents 72.44(9.36) 77.08(10.90) 69.48(9.95)
Health condition 3.58(0.93) 3.56(1.13) 3.44(0.93)
Relationship changes after
immigration
-.04(1.17) -.02(1.08) -.19(0.88)
Transnational visits* 1.72(1.42) 2.09(1.51) 1.96(1.60)
Transnational calls* 3.28(1.34) 3.29(1.40) 3.24(1.46)
Money (dummy;%) 48.95 62.35 48.15
Money amount in cash 301(585) 1706(5775) 194(354)
Eldercare arrangement (%)
Family caregiver 48.54 33.53 55.56
Market caregiver 15.06 14.12 18.52
Self care 36.40 52.35 25.92
* The variables are surveyed on a six-point Likert scale to measure how often the immigrants provide
transnational care (0=never, 1=once/twice a year, 2=several times a year, 3=monthly, 4=weekly, 5=daily).

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Asset Metadata

Creator Fan, Yu-Kang (author)

Core Title Inequalities of care: the practices and morals of transnational caregiving

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Sociology

Publication Date 04/26/2018

Defense Date 01/19/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag caregiving,elder care,gender,OAI-PMH Harvest,Social class,transnational families

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Parreñas, Rhacel (committee chair), Abrego, Leisy (committee member), Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette (committee member)

Creator Email kenjunction@gmail.com,yukangfa@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-495188

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Legacy Identifier etd-FanYuKang-6276.pdf

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