| dc.description.abstract | In recent years, the number of trans-national marriages has been growing. “The New Immigrant Women” obviously become the new ethnic group. One of the key reasons why these foreign spouses choose to immigrant to Taiwan by trans-national marriage is cultural intimacy. According to the research, most of the foreign spouses from Indonesia in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, and Miaoli area are overseas Hakka people. They are well adaptable to Taiwan’s environment due to the cultural intimacy. However, using the similar Hakka dialect, and practicing the nearly same customs as in their hometown, they are still prone to question themselves about “Who I Am”.
To comprehend the life experiences of four Hakka spouses from Indonesia, the research use the interview method and participatory observation and aim to know how their identity change after they immigrant to Taiwan and what phenomenon of cultural hybridity has occurred in their daily life. With the help of the two methods, the researcher stepped into the four research participants’ daily lives. The research takes the three dimensions— identity consciousness, diaspora identity, and cultural practice—as the context of this article.
The research results show that the identity of Hakka spouses from Indonesia would change with the social context and social relations. It’s also influenced by the factors of generation, region, family of origin, and attitude of the husband’s family. The cultural hybridity and the links of different cultural experiences are derived from these Hakka spouses’ daily life in Taiwan. These cultural links not only reveal the variety and hybridity to which the participants are identified with, but relate to the cultural diaspora modes. Besides, trans-national and inter-ethnic marriage is significant to these participants’ experiences. To adapted to Taiwan’s environment, they deliberately reinforce the identity that wasn’t important in their hometown. As this article found, “marriage” is influential to females’ ethnic identity.
Keywords: Hakka spouses from Indonesia, Immigrant, Identity | en_US |