How many people in Taiwan has at least 1 parent who left China
after the commies took over? (or are themselves one of those
people who escaped China)
[quote=“FurTrader”]How many people in Taiwan has at least 1 parent who left China
after the commies took over? (or are themselves one of those
people who escaped China)[/quote]
~9% of the population.
[quote=“FurTrader”]How many people in Taiwan has at least 1 parent who left China
after the commies took over? (or are themselves one of those
people who escaped China)[/quote]
Using my own cousins on both sides, as an example, it’s 3 out of 22. The oldest cousin is 40 and the youngest is 20.
That’s about 15%.
Why you ask?
Has there been any sort of scientific survey done on this?
Wife.
Feel free to count the rest by yerself… 
[quote=“FurTrader”]How many people in Taiwan has at least 1 parent who left China
after the commies took over? (or are themselves one of those
people who escaped China)[/quote]
Do you literally mean “after the [Communists] took over?” Or are you speaking more broadly to include anyone who came to Taiwan from China after the end of WWII, including the 4 year period from 1945-1949 when the ROC ruled both Taiwan and the mainland?
Also, do you mean to include only those people who came from China? Or would you also include members of the diaspora communities from Burma, Korea, Vietnam, Japan and such who also came to Taiwan in smaller numbers during the years after WW2 and the Civil War? How about Chinese who were escaping the chaos of the warlord era in China and made it to Taiwan in the 1920s and 1930s?
In my family, we generally consider ourselves Taiwanese/BSR/Hoklo, but the truth is more complicated . . . Neither of my grandmothers (nor my father) were born in Taiwan; I have several aunts and uncles (both from natural family, as well as in-laws) who were born in China and came in 1949 (some who consider themselves 100% Taiwanese, and others less so). Another uncle came to Taiwan from Korea in the 1960s . . . Out of the 26 first cousins in my generation, about 1/3rd have at least one non-Taiwan born parent.
Interestingly enough, in my wife’s family, several of her paternal aunts married WSR, and it is those WSR uncles and their children who get stuck doing most of the tomb sweeping and other related ancestral worship activities with my (Deep Green very Hoklo) father-in-law . . . Because those WSR uncles have no family tombs and such in Taiwan, they are seen as having more time to devote to my wife’s family!
I never fully understand how people classify themselves as WSR/BSR or X% Taiwanese. My dad came over from China and is WSR but my mom’s family is BSR old Taipei folk. But somehow I am automatically classified by my parents and other older Taiwanese as being WSR.
Census data pre 1992 only counted paternal lineage, so for Lian Chan and Sean Lian, even though their maternal side belongs to the late immigrant community, they are officially listed as Taiwanese. Census data since them completely did away with the Han ethnicity item, so there are no newer data.
For your question the best way to get the answer is find out the base number of late immigrant arrivals around the 1950s, and then run a population growth model with it.
It’s a patriarchal thing. You follow your dad. It’s why Lien Chan is considered Taiwanese, his grandfather was born in Taiwan (and likely many of his ancestors) and went from Taiwan to mainland China where Lien Chan and his dad were born.
It’s a patriarchal thing. You follow your dad. It’s why Lien Chan is considered Taiwanese, his grandfather was born in Taiwan (and likely many of his ancestors) and went from Taiwan to mainland China where Lien Chan and his dad were born.[/quote]
That is how my parents also taught me to think of it, and thus since my paternal grandfather is Taiwan born, I grew up thinking of myself as being of BSR descent. As I grew older I came to think of it as more complex. First as an ABC who never lived in Taiwan, I really shouldn’t be either BSR or WSR. Moreover, the patriarchal bean counting also ignores the real maternal links we all have (and let’s face it, our mothers tend to influence many people more than fathers as children).
I acknowledge the historical existence of such divisions but wish it wasn’t so. While I appreciate Hansioux’s terminology of “early” and “late” immigrants, I hesitate to use it since most Taiwanese people I know don’t think of themselves as such. Many WSR I know in particular seem to dislike the connotation of “immigrant” as it implies a separateness between China and Taiwan. I generally believe in the concept that people are free to identify as however they like.
Waishengren were about 13% of the population in the early 1990s based on patrilineal descent. It seems like there are more because 2nd generation WSR are over represented in the non-business elite and also because foreigners are more likely to meet English speaking WSR in Taipei. The identities of third and fourth generation WSR are very complex and shifting these days. My own sense is that they are rapidly becoming Taiwanese and that the category makes less and less sense. I hesitate the jettison the category entirely because I was told the same thing back in the 1980s and as people got older, the political distinctions became very clear.