8 She cares because she

is a mother
The intersection of citizenship and
motherhood of Southeast Asian
immigrant women in Taiwan
Isabelle Cheng

Mother citizens from Southeast Asia

Since the late 1980s, Taiwan, together with South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and
Hong Kong, has become one of the major destinations for female marriage migra-
tion in East Asia (Jones, 2012; Kawaguchi and Lee, 2012, pp. 7–9; Lee, 2011).
Marrying a woman from Southeast Asia is an option for Taiwanese men who are
deemed to be disadvantaged in the local marriage market and thus experience dif-
ficulty in finding a Taiwanese wife. Such a ‘marriage squeeze’ (Akers, 1967) is
believed to be the result of the socio-economic transformation that has taken place
in Taiwan in the wake of industrialization and urbanization. Consequently, over
the past several decades Taiwanese women have achieved higher educational stan-
dards and greater participation in the labour market, and have elevated themselves
out of the range of social contact by these disadvantaged men (Tsay, 2004). The
rapid increase in the number of marriages with Southeast Asian partners is also
attributed to the once thriving but now banned commercial matchmaking, which
was blamed for contributing to domestic abuse and human trafficking of women
for sex work.
The community of marriage immigrants from Southeast Asia is growing
quickly. Marriage migration has become the main channel for bringing foreign-
born citizens to Taiwan (Cheng and Fell, 2014, p. 2). Up to December 2014, a total
of 145,441 female migrant spouses, mostly from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand,
the Philippines, and Cambodia, adopted Taiwan as their home after their marriage
to Taiwanese men. Subsequently, 75 per cent of them became citizens of Taiwan
(NIA, 2015). In addition, two governmental surveys found that between 50 and
70 per cent of immigrant wives gave birth after migrating to Taiwan (MoI, 2004;
2008), and it is suggested that the majority of children were born within the first
few years of a woman’s residency (Hsia, 2000). These demographic trends sug-
gest that for the majority of immigrant wives, the rite of passage of becoming a
citizen went alongside the transition to becoming a mother in Taiwan. Dispelling
the image of marriage immigrant women as brides forever, Piper and Roces (2003)
assert that they play multiple roles, including wife, worker, mother, and citizen.
In this regard, there are studies that look at the link between motherhood and
 She cares because she is a mother 159
citizenship in the field of migration. The experiences of Filipino wives in South
Korea constitute a case of maternal citizenship that is biased by the host state’s
nationalistic interests (Kim, 2013). The intertwined relationship between mother-
hood and identity viewed through the lens of citizenship is evident in the migra-
tion of Eastern European women to Greece and Italian women to New Zealand.
The former contribute to their children’s ‘intercultural citizenship’ that infuses the
cultures of the mother and Greece (Christou and Michail, 2015), whereas the latter
either maintain or resist the models of Italian morality in New Zealand (Giorgio,
2015). A study of the mothering of Kurdish women in London questions the nar-
ratives of good citizenship as ethno-national (Erel, 2013). When examining the
relationship between citizenship and motherhood from the view of the state, it is
found that the US government implements specific healthcare policies to control
or affect the reproduction of Native American, Mexican, or low-income Asian and
Latino women (Garey and Nelson, 2011).
Informative as these studies are, they nevertheless do not focus on the simulta-
neity of the changes of life course and in legal status of immigrant women related
to their marriage with nationals, which is part of ‘marital citizenship’ as explained
in the Introduction of this volume. In this light, marriage migration to Taiwan is
a fertile ground for exploring the entangled impact of the dual rites of passage on
the life of immigrant women, given the high rates of naturalization and childbirth.
Nevertheless, it remains largely unknown how the dual transitions – becoming
a citizen and a mother – interact before and after the acquisition of citizenship,
particularly how marriage migrant women subjectively conceptualize the signifi-
cance of acquiring citizenship and how their lives may have been affected by this
legal transition. The lack of understanding is partly due to popular discourses in
which immigrant women tend to be seen as victims of human trafficking, forced
sex work, or domestic abuse rather than citizens of agency (Cheng, 2013; Hsia,
2007). An immigrant woman may be surrounded by such discourses even before
she departs from home (interviews with Nguyễn Minh Nguyet on 29 March 2009;
Le Ngọc Suong on 7 April 2009 in Taipei; Nguyễn Khanh Van on 15 May 2009
in Taipei; Peony on 27 Jan 2010 in Pingtung; Thanh Nien Daily 11 June 2006,
23 April 2007). Popular discourses like these are deemed to generate a compel-
ling framing effect that prevents marriage immigrant women from being seen
as capable of exercising their citizenship (Ito, 2005). These discourses may be
manipulated by the government, for example, the Vietnamese government, which
blames immigrant women for deserting their duty to be a good daughter, wife,
mother, and citizen (Bélanger et al., 2007). Similarly, the host state, for example,
Taiwan, also expects them to demonstrate their sense of belonging in the role of
mother upon their conferment of citizenship (Cheng, 2013). As an illustration of
the case of banal nationalism (Billig, 2009), the marital citizenship of immigrant
women tends to be framed in terms of responsibility and obligation from a top-
down perspective taken by both the sending and receiving states (see Introduction
of the present volume).
As a result, how immigrant women themselves subjectively understand their
citizenship, and how they act upon this role in relation to their family and the
160 Isabelle Cheng
nation-state, is often overlooked. Considering the high rate of citizenship acquisi-
tion and the common experience of dual rites of passage (becoming a mother and
a citizen) amongst marriage immigrant women in Taiwan, the current chapter aims
at presenting how these dual rites of passage interact with each other in their daily
lives. Specifically, this chapter asks the following questions: Why would citizen-
ship be desirable to immigrant women? How does the change in their life course
interact with the change in their legal status? Would the identities of mother and
daughter interact with the identity of citizen before and after the acquisition of
citizenship? The findings show that motherhood features centrally in their acts
of citizenship throughout their rite of passage of becoming a citizen. From their
motivations to the actual exercising of their citizenship, motherhood defines their
relationship with the sending and receiving states.

From a daughter to a mother, from an outsider to a citizen

In addition to the abovementioned epistemological constraints set by popular dis-
courses, citizenship scholarship has its fair share of discrepancies in seeking to
understand these dual transitions. Citizenship is often analysed in three broad cat-
egories. As a legal status, citizenship is studied as a nominal membership granted
by the state to legalize the belonging of the individual to the state. As a group
of privileges, citizenship is examined as the rights and entitlements reserved for
members of a nation-state with which to claim access to benefits funded by the
public purse (Marshall, 1950). As an institution, citizenship is analysed as gener-
ating an enduring impact on the immigrant-turned-citizen so that they will sub-
jectively develop emotive attachments to the adopted nation-state. All of these
categories are under a regular legislative review in accordance with the prevailing
political interests (Friedman, 2005, p. 3; Williams, 2010, p. 193).
Each of these strands of citizenship studies gives rise to a specific field for the
research about the citizenship of immigrant spouses in Taiwan. Among these stud-
ies, the deconstruction of citizenship legislation is particularly prominent. Argu-
ing that citizenship legislation is intersected by class, gender, and ethnicity, these
studies underline the fact that legislation sustains the interests of the patriarchal
and nationalist state, safeguards the gendered border for naturalization, provides
weak legal protection for abused wives, creates hurdles for migrant spouses to
acquire citizenship, and demands their exclusive allegiance (Cheng, 2013; Kuo,
2011; Wang and Bélanger, 2008). Within the field of citizenship rights, immigrant
women are analysed as the main clients of social services and beneficiaries of
social welfare (ICSW, Taiwan, 2010; NIA, 2009). Focusing on single citizenship,
it is suggested to apply multiculturalism for recognizing the transnational life of
immigrant women and granting them multiple citizenships (Hsia, 2009; 2013).
However, it is found that the government merely pays lip service to the notion
of multiculturalism (Cheng and Fell, 2014). It is argued that the government’s
methods of collecting demographic, socio-economic, and ethnic data for drawing
up multiculturalist policies are biased by a nationalist stance, which reinforces
the stereotype of marital migrants as being inferior ethnic others (Bélanger and
Wang, 2010).
 She cares because she is a mother 161
In sum, the identity of immigrant women as wife, mother, and citizen is an
essential component of these studies. They examine how these multiple roles
interact with the host nation-state for their application of citizenship and use of
citizenship rights. They tend to treat the experiences and actions of immigrant
women in these multiple roles as a dissection of their life that seems discrete and
unrelated to each other. They highlight the fact that while an immigrant woman
transited from a wife to a mother, most likely she would have also been in the
process of acquiring, or have acquired, Taiwanese citizenship. This dual transition
is actually anticipated by the citizenship legislation which privileges motherhood
when conferring rights on female migrant spouses (Cheng, 2013, pp. 164–167).
Nevertheless, it is unknown how the roles of a wife, mother, and citizen affect each
other and how this effect is subjectively understood and experienced by immigrant
women themselves. In this light, studies on the remittance of immigrant women
demonstrate their endeavours to play their role as a wife, mother, and daughter at
the same time in their daily life (Bélanger and Tran, 2011; Bélanger et al., 2011;
Hugo and Nguyen, 2007). Another case that manifests this simultaneity is the
reaction of immigrant women to the renunciation of their original citizenship in
order to apply for Taiwanese citizenship. It is argued that migrant wives perceive
themselves as being forced into a tug of war between their motherhood and wifely
duties and their filial piety for their parents in the natal country. The renunciation
is perceived as pressuring them to prioritize their motherhood and wifely duties
over their filial piety (Cheng, 2013, pp. 170–171). Although this finding places
motherhood at the centre of the cognition of citizenship, it falls short of revealing
whether motherhood will continue to occupy a central place in immigrant women’s
exercising of their citizenship.
The insufficient attention paid to the dual transition and intersection shows that
a research agenda on citizenship of immigrant women should not be restricted to
issues related to the public sphere, be it a legal status, a set of rights, a package
of legislation, or an institutional force for integration. It is being suggested that
citizenship is best analysed as an unstable and contested concept underpinned by
belonging, negotiation, and resistance (Isin, 2009, p. 370), particularly when it is
deconstructed by the concept of gender (Lister, 1997, p. 3). To grapple with the
dynamic nature of citizenship is to closely observe how citizenship is being aspired
to, conceptualized, and practiced by its beholders in varying contexts (Friedman,
2005, pp. 1–2). Contexts whereby immigrant women ‘become citizens’ are as
significant as those whereby immigrant women ‘are citizens’. Aiming to draw a
dynamic, interactive, and holistic picture of how the role of a mother intersects
with the role of a citizen, this chapter will provide a temporal view to the meaning
and impact of citizenship as subjectively and spontaneously perceived by immi-
grant women themselves.

Research methods: in-depth interviews

Aiming to contextualize the subjectivity of immigrant women rather than achieve
statistical representation, this chapter presents findings of semi-structural inter-
views of 59 Southeast Asian women. These interviews were conducted for my
162 Isabelle Cheng
doctoral research focusing on the shifting of national identity of marriage immi-
grant women in Taiwan (Cheng, 2012). The central hypothesis of this research
is that immigrant women’s perceptions of citizenship legislation, motherhood,
and their use of Chinese language are three clusters of variables that mutually
construct their transition from being an outsider to an in-between. A theme emerg-
ing from these findings, which was not independently investigated in my doc-
toral research, is how motherhood actively shapes their experiences of exercising
citizenship. To fill this gap, this chapter centralizes their commonality in the dual
transition unfolding along with the change of their life course. To examine the
complexities of the relationship between motherhood and citizenship, including
the meaning of citizenship and how it is practiced and in what contexts (Abraham
et al., 2010, p. 2), this chapter is guided by a hypothesis that the experiences of
immigrant women in living with citizenship exhibit a continuity that is punctuated
by their transition of self-identity and legal status. This chapter presents the impact
of citizenship on the interactions between immigrant women and their family, and
the host society before and after naturalization.
In total, there were 26 Vietnamese, 20 Indonesian Chinese, and 13 Filipino
immigrants who participated in my research from March to June 2009 and in
January 2010 in urban and rural areas of Taiwan and on the offshore island of
Penghu. Interviewees were recruited via several contacts, including civil servants,
caregiving placement agencies, matchmakers, church clergy, a foreign mission-
ary, a Chinese language programme administrator, and primary school teachers.
Twelve Filipino interviewees, all Vietnamese interviewees, and 15 Indonesian
Chinese interviewees became mothers in Taiwan. Nine Filipino interviewees, 16
Vietnamese interviewees, and 15 Indonesian Chinese interviewees have acquired
Taiwanese citizenship. Thus, the majority of them have gone through the dual rite
of passage of becoming a mother and a citizen. All Filipino interviewees com-
pleted high school or college education, including three university graduates. In
contrast, although four Vietnamese interviewees attended university education,
only two of them completed their degrees (and they further pursued postgraduate
degrees in Taiwan). Fourteen Vietnamese interviewees attended secondary school.
Eight interviewees attended primary school. Five Indonesian Chinese interviewees
were university or college graduates. Twelve Indonesian Chinese interviewees
received secondary education. Three interviewees finished at primary school level.
One interviewee was illiterate both in Chinese and Indonesian languages. Drop-
out from education was common amongst Vietnamese and Indonesian Chinese
interviewees. Interviewees were given pseudonyms for the purposes of delineating
research findings as well as protecting their privacy.

Motherhood-oriented motivation: citizenship as a legal

status, a group of rights, and an institution for integration
Symbolized by the possession of the National Identification Card (ID Card), citi-
zenship, as a legal status is aspired to for equality and inclusion. An ID Card is
the ultimate proof of an individual’s legal status in Taiwan and, as such, it is used
 She cares because she is a mother 163
when official proof of identification is required in everyday life. A foreign passport,
or the Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) issued by the government, is not seen as
rendering the same level of official authority. Without an ID Card, a foreigner is
often required to have a local person as an endorser for commercial transactions,
such as taking out a contract for using a mobile phone, renting a flat, or buying
a car. This additional endorsement creates a sense of difference and a connota-
tion of incompleteness, dependence, or even inability. Moreover, until 2003 when
acquiring citizenship was a prerequisite for employment, lacking citizenship con-
siderably hampered the chance of finding a job. Lacking citizenship also makes
the residency of a foreign spouse dependent on their marriage and on having their
Taiwanese partner as the sponsor of their residency (Wang and Bélanger, 2008).
Therefore, avoiding being singled out for their difference and aspiring to be
treated ‘the same’ is widely acknowledged as a motivating factor in acquiring
citizenship. Because of its exclusive legal authority, an ID Number is cautiously
guarded as being the most crucial piece of personal information. Any solicitation
of this number by a third person without convincing reasons is treated with suspi-
cion. Thus, Melissa from Manila found it difficult to get her husband’s ID Number
even after having been married and living together for seven years. It did not lessen
her husband’s reluctance even after knowing that his ID Number was needed by
the school of their daughter. The fact that neither Melissa’s passport nor her ARC
was accepted by her daughter’s school convinced Melissa that it was necessary to
acquire Taiwanese citizenship so as to dispel implications of difference indicated
by the school and secondary status imposed on her by her husband.
If this perceived secondary treatment were to be shrugged off as her ‘imagina-
tion’, then real cases of differentiation can be found in the workplace. Living in
Yilan since migrating to Taiwan, Nguyễn Thi Xuân Mai was introduced to her
husband by her own mother, who was also a marriage immigrant woman. Xuân
Mai endured a strained relationship with her in-laws, who thought that Xuân Mai
should be grateful for ‘swapping her “thatched-roof hut” in Vietnam with “a man-
sion and a car” in Taiwan’. In response, Xuân Mai insisted on working so as to
secure her independence. Nevertheless, lacking an ID Card, she was often hired
for temporary jobs that were subject to disadvantageous working conditions. Thus,
when she obtained her citizenship, the ID Card was seen as propelling her towards
equal status with her local colleagues. She joked to her colleagues, ‘I’m Taiwanese
now, don’t look down on me!’ (interviewed on 30 May 2009 in Yilan).
These two examples convincingly illustrate that the impact of citizenship ripples
through from the public sphere (workplace or school) to the marital intimacy in the
private home. On these occasions, citizenship does not just impart the implications
of equality and sameness but also constitutes a social relation whereby inclusion
and exclusion can be experienced by an immigrant. The interactions between cou-
ples and colleagues experienced by Melissa and Xuân Mai may appear trivial, yet
the significant symbolism rendered by these repetitive social interactions should
not be overlooked.
Not surprisingly, citizenship is also desired for the endowment of substantive
rights that will bring about betterment. For Virginia, a retired primary school
164 Isabelle Cheng
English language teacher from Manila, the benefits of citizenship had already been
written into the equation of migration. Acquiring citizenship was the first request
Virginia made of her husband after her arrival in 1991. It was the assurance and
security she needed most for living in Taiwan. This was particularly important to
her because upon the renunciation of her Philippine citizenship she would lose her
Philippine Government Service Insurance and the pension of her late Filipino hus-
band. With citizenship of Taiwan, she would be entitled to ‘all of the privileges’,
which would make up for her losses. The privilege she had in mind was the right
to work, as having an ID Card was indispensable for employment before 2003. In
spite of being a respected teacher and an activist campaigning for pay raises in the
Philippines, Virginia was content to do cleaning and other manual jobs in Taiwan
for two decades. For Jo, a college graduate from Manila who was a caregiver and
an owner of a grocery shop in Pingtung, the entitlement to citizenship rights leads
to a sense of equality:

I wanted to be entitled to the benefits. I wanted to get a pension, included in

the health insurance and other benefits. I wanted to get equal pay. It’s not that
I wanted to be like locals, it is just I wanted to get what a citizen would be
entitled to.
(interviewed on 29 January 2010 in Pingtung)

Jo’s conceptualization of citizenship was one step further than those of Xuân Mai
and Virginia with regard to employment and tangible rights. Equality for the latter
two meant obtaining access to the labour market. Equality for Jo, however, was
the entirety of rights available to a citizen.
A distinctive right conferred by citizenship is the right to indefinitely reside
without any other preconditions. In this light, citizenship is conceptualized as a
legal threshold between a residency dependent on the continuation of marriage
and an unconditional residency subject to no withdrawal from the state or disrup-
tion from the husband. This unconditional right is grasped by immigrant mothers
as their fundamental interests of a stable and secure residency in Taiwan. Daisy’s
testimony explained the impact of this dual transition (becoming a citizen and a
mother) on her understanding of citizenship:

I wanted to apply for citizenship only for security, because I have children. My
husband and some Taiwanese [people] said if you don’t have ID [Card], they
(Taiwanese people) look down on you . . . they don’t see you as the same. When
you have quarrels, they (Taiwanese husbands) will say, ‘Go back to the Philip-
pines!’ You’re not secure if you don’t have an ID [Card]. That’s why Filipinos
here want to have ID . . . It doesn’t matter to give up my Philippine nationality
because they (husband and children) are my own family, they need me here.
(interviewed on 27 January 2010 in Pingtung)

Internalizing her wifely and motherly duties, Daisy longed for the assurance from
the state to enable undisrupted motherhood. Citizenship set her free from her
 She cares because she is a mother 165
husband’s verbal threat of denying her residency and motherhood. Echoing the
experiences of Melissa, the assurance of the state also imparted a sense of equal-
ity to Daisy’s relationship with her husband. Mundane these daily encounters may
seem, yet the experiences of Melissa and Daisy show that the impact of citizenship
on inclusion and exclusion can be realistically felt in the private home. Citizenship
has a real impact on the marital intimacy and parental care of its beholders in the
private home.
The unconditional residency guaranteed by citizenship is even more critical for
immigrant mothers whose motherhood is disrupted by the change of their marital
status. Hoàng Minh Suong is an ethnic Chinese woman brought up in Ho Chi
Minh City. She ran a Vietnamese grocery shop in Chinshan. Minh Suong stressed
in tears that citizenship meant securing the right to reside in Taiwan: as long as
migrant mothers could legally reside in Taiwan, even if they were divorced and
lost the custody of their children, they still had the prospect of seeing their chil-
dren in the future. ‘Maybe not now [because of the obstructions imposed by their
husbands or in-laws], but they could see them when they grow up’ (interviewed
on 2 June 2009 in Chinshan). Citizenship was aspired to in the hope of sustain-
ing the mother–child relationship, no matter how tenuous it might become in the
uncertain years to come.
In addition to granting the unconditional right to reside, citizenship may assist
motherhood in tangible terms. As mentioned above, citizenship legislation antici-
pates the transition of an immigrant wife to become a mother. Thus, benefits gen-
erated from citizenship are not only perceived as protecting personal interests but
also are expected as advancing the combined interests of a mother and her children.
The conception of linking citizenship with combined mother–child interests fea-
tures significantly in Jennifer’s expectation of citizenship benefits after living in
Taiwan for 15 years and bringing up three sons. She carefully studied the social
benefit brochure (printed in English) and became aware that the government pro-
vided a monthly allowance for and paid the tuition fees of children of low-income
families, and that this provision could continue up to their university education
as long the children performed well in their academic studies. Jennifer’s two sons
received this allowance, which was critical to their family finances. Thus, the state
appeared like a generous philanthropist who assisted her motherly duty:

I want to have [an] ID Card because I have three sons . . . The government is
eager to help smart children of poor families. If you need help, you just talk
to the government . . . I’m practical; I don’t want to go back to the Philippines
as long as my children are fine [here in Taiwan].
(interviewed on 29 January 2010 in Pingtung)

The above encounters demonstrate why immigrant women were motivated or

aspired to acquire citizenship and how they comprehended citizenship in their
daily lives. Their conceptualizations of citizenship were expressed in the relation-
ships with their husbands, children, colleagues, and the state. In the private home
as well as in the public sphere, with or without the actual acquisition of citizenship,
166 Isabelle Cheng
these relationships extended from their roles as a wife, mother, and would-be
citizen, and these relationships intersected with each other. At these intersections,
they experienced the impact of citizenship, be it a legal status, a membership of the
nation-state, or a set of rights. They associated citizenship with equality with the host
society as a whole and their husband in particular. They anticipated participating in
the job market and becoming eligible for the entitlement to welfare for themselves
and their children. They longed for settlement that was granted in their own right
and free of any external disruption. Such aspects are essential components of a
stable and secure life, including that of a mother who has internalized her care
duties as part of her self-identity. These intersections are the manifestations of the
duality of their rite of passage to become a mother as well as a citizen. Can the
experiences of dual rite of passage be manifested elsewhere in their daily encoun-
ters with their family and the general members of the society?
As mentioned above, the renunciation of the previous citizenship is perceived
by immigrant women as a tug of war whereby they are torn between their wifely
care and motherhood and their filial piety (Cheng, 2013). The process of deciding
to renounce one’s native citizenship creates an opportunity for them to contemplate
their identification with the natal country. Susani Halim, a university graduate from
Jakarta and a mother of one school-age boy, explained that:

Lots of people asked why I gave up my Indonesian citizenship. Why did I

need dual citizenship? I live here [Taiwan] now, of course I’ll see here as
my priority. I’m still Indonesian. Without Indonesian nationality [it] doesn’t
mean I’m not Indonesian, but now I see my family in Taiwan [husband and
son] as the priority.
(interviewed on 22 March 2009 in Keelung)

In this reflection, as a naturalized citizen of Taiwan, Susani ascertained the durabil-

ity of her Indonesian identity in spite of having given up her Indonesian citizenship
in exchange for Taiwanese citizenship. The durability may not be surprising, given
the known sustainability of primordial identity. What is insightful is that her Indo-
nesian nationality was juxtaposed with her motherhood in Taiwan. Motherhood
anchors the evolution of her self-identity not only towards Taiwan, the adopted
home, but also towards Indonesia, the natal home.
Tan Mee Leh’s conceptualization of the mutual constitution of citizenship and
motherhood inserts another dimension as she made a link between her motherhood
and national development. Mee Leh is an ethnic Chinese woman brought up in
Jakarta. At the time of the interview, Mee Leh was in the process of applying for
citizenship so that she could have unchallenged access to employment. However,
lacking citizenship did not prevent her from acting upon this legal status because
a crucial link with the host nation-state was found through her role as a mother:

Without citizenship it’s difficult to find a job. Then our life becomes unstable.
The instability is not just bad for our family and children but also bad for the
country! If our children are hungry and not well cared for, it’ll negatively
 She cares because she is a mother 167
affect national development. Securing a good family life is most important,
looking after [our] children is most important. [Should it fail in this duty] the
country won’t make progress.
(interviewed on 4 May 2009 in Taipei)

Yuval-Davis and Anthias point out that women are appropriated by the state as bio-
logical reproducers and cultural transmitters of the nation for the nation-building
project (1989, p. 7). Although Mee Leh’s comments were in relation to her seek-
ing the right to work, she nevertheless regarded her motherhood as serving for the
benefit of the nation. Thus, through marriage first and motherhood later, Mee Leh,
as a foreign woman, created a link between herself and Taiwan, and through this
link, she made herself a member of her host nation-state.

Motherhood-oriented practice: the use of language,

the right to vote
The link between the immigrant mother and the host nation-state is also evident in
the use of language in the private home. The decision over whether to nurture the
children as bilingual is a struggle between citizenship as an institution for integra-
tion and citizenship as a right claimed by the individual for sustaining self-identity.
The institution for integration is partly realized by requiring an immigrant mother
to obtain proficiency in Chinese language in order to gain naturalization so that
she may be capable of transmitting the national culture of Taiwan to her children
(Cheng, 2013). However, as an individual, citizenship entitles her to assert the
right, especially from the perspective of multiculturalism, to preserve her cultural
heritage. Nevertheless, in her everyday life, this cultural right is negotiated with
other expectations evolving from her multiple roles as a mother, daughter, and
daughter-in-law.
Specifically, this negotiation is a decision made in conflicting interests in the
private home. As a citizen, her right to bilingualism is practically impaired by
the socio-economic values of the Chinese language, the national language. Chil-
dren were discouraged from speaking the immigrant mother’s natal language, or
the ‘mother’s tongue’. Exceptions were ‘tolerated’ when speaking the ‘mother’s
tongue’ was useful for running the family business, or when it was perceived as
an advantage for their future employment if they envisaged a future ‘returning’
to their mother’s natal country. As a mother, bilingualism is a manifestation of
her identification with her natal country and the expectations of the child’s dual
inheritance. The more she sees the child as being of mixed inheritance rather than
exclusively Taiwanese, the more likely she will intend to pass on her natal lan-
guage. As a daughter, bilingualism builds a bridge between the child and the grand-
parents that extends the primordial tie across generations. A minimal expectation
is that both sides can converse on the phone without the mother’s translation. As a
daughter-in-law, bilingualism is disapproved of by parents-in-law, who prefer the
Chinese language in order to maintain the latter’s cultural dominance and higher
position in the family hierarchy.
168 Isabelle Cheng
These conflicted interests are narrated by Annabelle, a 40-year-old college
graduate from Orani, Bataan, who had lived in Taiwan for 15 years and acquired
citizenship in 2006. Her wish of introducing Philippine culture and expressing
her Philippine identity was hampered by her lower proficiency of the Chinese
language, in spite of the children’s potential enthusiasm. As she explained:

My children don’t understand English, they don’t understand Tagalog. They’d

ask: what’s this, what’s that, and I’d explain. But my in-laws would say,
‘Don’t speak English! Don’t speak Tagalog!’ They think we’re talking nega-
tive things about them to the children . . . I had tried to explain [cultural] things
to [my daughter] before, but I couldn’t speak Chinese fluently to explain so
she wouldn’t listen.
(interviewed on 27 January 2010 in Pingtung)

Another case of holding back a foreign-born mother from exercising her cul-
tural right is the secondary status of Southeast Asian languages at school. Aim-
ing to promote non-Mandarin languages, which are spoken by ethnic groups of
Hoklo, Hakka, and aboriginals in Taiwan, and which are officially designated as
the ‘Mother Tongues’, the learning of these languages is compulsory for primary
school pupils. Most interviewees shrugged off the oddity that these were not the
languages spoken by them (the mother); they did not question the rationale and
legitimacy that their children were required to choose these local languages for
their ‘Mother Tongues’ subject. At the same time, they welcomed the offering
of teaching Southeast Asian languages, the ‘mother’s tongue’, as an after-school
activity. However, learning the ‘mother’s tongues’ at school was conceptualized
as taking up another subject to study. As such, pragmatism prevailed and it was
thought that a child was better off to invest in English, the globally dominant
language, rather than a Southeast Asian language. Hoh Foong Lian and Wong Poh
Ming, both from Pontianak, West Kalimantan, respectively verbalized this prag-
matism: ‘[the children] don’t even have enough time for English, how on earth
could they learn one more [language] (Indonesian)! Poor kids that they have to
learn Hoklo, Hakka, and English, they aren’t doing well!’ (interviewed on 10 Jan-
uary 2010 in Pingtung), and ‘I think English is more important than Indonesian,
it’s good for their future’ (interviewed on 6 June 2009 in Penghu). The hierar-
chy between the compulsory ‘Mother Tongues’ and the secondary status of the
‘mother’s tongue’ highlights the power relations between the host nation-state
and the immigrant mother. Southeast Asian languages are further marginalized
by the superiority of English. However, when English is spoken in the home by a
Filipino daughter-in-law, the superiority of English gave way to the authority of
the parents-in-law.
The intersection of citizenship and motherhood can also be found in what immi-
grant women actually do with their citizenship when it is referred to as a legal
status, a group of rights, and an integration institution. The right to vote is the one
where the varying connotations of citizenship converge. On the whole, Filipino
interviewees were more willing to vote than Vietnamese and Indonesian Chinese
 She cares because she is a mother 169
interviewees. For Filipino interviewees, voting is perceived as citizens perform-
ing their duty, which equally obliged all citizens regardless of their origins. Jo
explained that ‘[t]his is what a citizen should do. [. . .] It’s part of the citizenship
and I’m entitled to’ (interviewed on 28 January 2010 in Pingtung). For Clare,
a 42-year-old mother of two who received secondary education, and Peggy, a
52-year-old widow of a teenage daughter who received college education, per-
forming this obligatory duty is imbued with their sense of belonging to ‘our land’,
as they both agreed that ‘we’re locals, this is our land [. . .] . Because we stay
here longer, we care. We look for candidates who are nice for us, good for people’
(interviewed on 27 January 2010 in Pingtung). Jennifer appreciated the right to
choose and desired to know ‘if the man who rules the country is good or not’ to
the degree that she urged her Taiwanese husband to go to vote (interviewed on 28
January 2010 in Pingtung).
Although Vietnamese and Indonesian Chinese interviewees were less motivated
to vote, those who did vote did not separate the performing of these public duties
from carrying out their private mothering responsibilities. The conceptions that
show the intersection of the roles of a citizen and a mother are exemplified as
follows:

President is an important [position] that affects the economic development of

the nation and that has influence on children. We shall not only think about
ourselves. We can [live] anywhere but what matters is where our children
are. Our children are to live in Taiwan. If the economy doesn’t do well, it’ll
affect our children.
(interview with Hoàng Minh Suong on 27 May 2009 in Chinshan)

Echoing these comments, Ang Lip Fong stressed that the desire of having a good
government is a hope ‘shared by mothers around the world’ (interviewed on 29 Jan-
uary 2010 in Pingtung). Choi Kim Chai, meanwhile, emphasized citizens’ duty:
‘Voting is what a Taiwanese person should do. We live in Taiwan so we should go
to vote. I vote in Indonesia, too (interview on 5 June 2009 in Penghu).
In sum, these conceptions show that, for all three groups of interviewees, exer-
cising voting rights facilitates a channel to participate in the public forum and
becomes a part of the collective decision-making process for public affairs. By
casting their vote, they expressed their sense of belonging, entitlement to equal-
ity, and responsibility for the well-being of the national community. However, a
noteworthy difference that sets Filipino interviewees apart from their Vietnamese
and Indonesian counterparts is the centrality of motherhood in the narrations of
the latter two groups. The understandings of the public duties of the latter two
were intrinsically and intuitively derived from their self-identity as a mother. As
gendered citizens, they either saw their motherhood as contributing to national
development (with granted right to work) or were driven by their motherhood to
check on the performance of the government.
Whilst the intersection of motherhood and citizenship in voting was a shared
experience between the Vietnamese and Indonesian interviewees, it is only found
170 Isabelle Cheng
amongst Vietnamese interviewees that the right to vote marked their transition
from a daughter in Vietnam to a citizen in Taiwan. This unique transition is derived
from the voting practice in Vietnam. In socialist Vietnam, the nominal right to vote
may be delegated to the head of the household, most often the father. The house-
hold head may cast the ballots for the members of the household without obtain-
ing their explicit preference. Nguyễn Khanh Van, a university drop-out from Bac
Ninh and a former worker at a textile factory in Taiwan, succinctly explained that:

I didn’t vote in Vietnam, my father voted on our behalf. The elderly person
decided without asking the opinions of us younger people . . . Besides, the
Communist Party had predetermined which three candidates we should vote
for. We’re just a voting machine. Unlike in Taiwan where we vote for the
candidate we like.
(interviewed on 15 May 2009 in Taipei)

Nguyễn Minh Ngyuet further explained that ‘the father has the authority. Here, if
you don’t go to vote, nobody can vote on your behalf’ (interviewed on 29 March
2009 in Taipei). It is obvious that they understood that in Taiwan the right to vote
is inalienable. The exercising of this right punctuated their transition from being a
daughter, a dependent member of the household in Vietnam, to a citizen of inde-
pendence and endowment with full and complete rights in Taiwan.
Apart from voting, the motherhood-oriented exercising of citizenship is also
visible by participation in community affairs, as in the case of Ho Minh Mai’s
commitment to contribute to multicultural events at her children’s school. Being
one of the two interviewees who obtained a master’s degree in Taiwan, Minh Mai
is an outspoken advocate for the well-being of immigrants. Her higher level of
education made her a strong defendant for bilingualism, whereas interviewees
who received a lower level education and those who depended on their husbands’
provision were more prone to the pressure of their in-laws for exclusively speaking
Chinese with their children. Although without citizenship, she was looked up to
for her potential to become a city councillor. Thanks to her self-education of the
Chinese language, she embarked on a career of public speaking at the government-
funded orientation seminars for immigrant women. Minh Mai distinguished the
use of language for public communication and private interaction. She elaborated
that it was necessary to speak Chinese to Taiwanese people, but it was her right
to speak Vietnamese to her fellow immigrants, and her children, for parental inti-
macy. When asked how she would take part in events aimed at raising awareness
of multiculturalism that were organized at her children’s school, she articulated:

At community colleges and immigrant centres, I talked about Vietnamese

culture and history. For example, [there is no custom in Vietnam that] chicken
stewed in sesame oil and rice wine is offered to women after childbirth [as an
extra source of nutrition]. If mothers-in-law in my audiences know about this
they wouldn’t need to trouble themselves preparing [the stew] for their Viet-
namese daughters-in-law. By telling Taiwanese people who we are in terms
 She cares because she is a mother 171
of our culture, history, and practices, conflicts can be prevented. If I could
teach [at community colleges and immigrant centres], why can’t I teach at my
children’s school? I’ll definitely talk about the characteristics of Vietnamese
culture and the differences between [the cultures of] Vietnam and Taiwan.
(interviewed on 25 May 2009 in Tainan)

While motherhood directed some Vietnamese and Indonesian Chinese interview-

ees to conceptualize their voting rights, motherhood facilitated a platform for
Minh Mai to expand her public engagement. Motherhood made her a believer in
multiculturalism in her practice of bilingualism. Being a mother also potentially
broadened her social contacts from adult audiences to schoolchildren where she
could sow the seeds of recognition and respect for cultural differences. Also build-
ing a platform in motherhood for public engagement is Susani. Her confinement
at home was gradually lifted after she started mingling with Indonesian mothers
in her neighbourhood and, more importantly, upon the suggestion of a Baptist
church, opening her home for Chinese language lessons for immigrant mothers.
Characterizing her initial outreach of joining the local church as ‘coming out’,
Susani had gone a long way from exchanging notes of childcare with immigrant
mothers and studying Chinese language to becoming a government-contracted
interpreter and a director of a community service centre providing assistance to
immigrants of all nationalities.
In sum, the experiences of the interviewees point to understanding citizenship
in a republican sense that is gendered and enacted as a motherhood-oriented par-
ticipation in the public forum. In this light, the narratives of Vietnamese and Indo-
nesian Chinese of becoming a mother and fulfilling motherhood is not a practice
confined to the private sphere but a bridge between the private home and the
public forum. Motherly care is not merely a matter of intimacy between mothers
and children but is a driving force for participating in the delineation of public
affairs and the decision over cultural transmission in the form of bilingualism. The
unique experiences of Vietnamese women in finding their independence by own-
ing the full voting rights enhance their sense of undivided personhood that arises
from their legal status as a citizen. The change of the legal status of Vietnamese
interviewees marks the transition from their self-identity as a dependent daughter
to an independent citizen.
Feminist critiques point out that citizenship is constructed by human qualities
that are defined as masculine. These masculine qualities are conceptualized around
income-earners and are praised as the values embedded in the public domain
(Werbner, 1999, pp. 222–228). However, women’s provision of care and nurtur-
ing constitutes a duty-based reconceptualization of citizenship, which enables the
crossing of the boundary between the public and private (Lister, 2002, p. 197). In
this light, ‘political motherhood’ showcases the overt resistance of women in the
public sphere and challenges their confinement to private domesticity. It defends
the integrity of values surrounding family and motherhood. Motherhood is seen as
having the potential of reshaping the concept of public sphere with a transcendent
worldview (Werbner, 1999, p. 231). There are cases of political motherhood that
172 Isabelle Cheng
demonstrate how motherhood empowers women to participate in organizational
activities around socio-political campaigns or the improvement of community
well-being. Their collective actions make a significant difference to themselves
and the society, whether campaigning to reform the nationality legislation for
children of transnational marriages in Indonesia (Winarnita, 2008) or exposing
the inhuman treatment of ‘illegal’ immigrant mothers in the UK (Taylor, 2013).
Although Minh Suong, Kim Chai, and Lip Fong did not join any public campaign
or collective actions, they nevertheless embodied the concept of political mother-
hood. This concept was realized by Minh Mai and Susani in their commitment to
community service. In their motherhood-oriented understanding of citizenship,
they interpreted their civic public duties from the lens of motherhood. This inter-
pretation shows their potential for enabling their agency to make difference to
themselves and the society. The simultaneity of fulfilling their roles as a citizen
and as a mother indicates the mutual constitution of these two roles and decon-
structs the arbitrary boundary separating the public political community from the
private family home. The simultaneity of fulfilling their roles as a daughter and a
citizen, or rather the conflict of playing these two roles, is found elsewhere in their
perceptions of the renunciation of their original nationality. This requirement is
experienced as a tug of war whereby they are torn between their wifely care and
motherhood and their filial piety (Cheng, 2013). Derived from the unique mode of
political participation, Vietnamese interviewees also experienced their transition
from a daughter whose voting rights could be deprived to a citizen who exercises
the inalienable right.

Discussion and conclusion

It has been suggested that understanding women’s exercising of citizenship in
the vein of their motherly nurturing role requires an examination of the criti-
cal relationship between their provision of care and the state (Friedman, 2005,
p. 4). This chapter presented such an examination from the lived experiences of
female migrant spouses in their daily encounters with their families, the state
and society. By centralizing the duality of the rite of passage of becoming a
mother and a citizen, this chapter echoed Tronto’s proposal of defining citizens
as ‘people engaged in relationships of care with one another’ (2005, p. 131).
Motherhood was the anchor for the motivations and practices of citizenship of
Filipino, Vietnamese, and Indonesian Chinese women, an important finding that
answers the questions put forward at the beginning of this chapter. The narra-
tives of the women interviewed showed that the change of their legal status was
closely related to the change of their life course. Citizenship, as a membership,
a legal status, an integration institution, and a cultural right, was intrinsically
and institutively understood through the lens of motherhood by all three groups.
For all three groups, the identity of mother interacted with the identity of citizen
when citizenship was aspired to for the sense of inclusion, equality, betterment,
and stability. It was not only for their own personal well-being, but also for their
children. However, the interaction between the roles of a mother and citizen was
 She cares because she is a mother 173
more evident in the decision of Vietnamese and Indonesian Chinese interviewees
when they renounced the nationality of their birth, when they voted, and when
they engaged in community service. They subjectively made a link between
their motherhood and the host nation-state. It is only found amongst Vietnamese
interviewees that the full right to vote also marked the transition from being
a dependent daughter to an independent citizen. It is commonly experienced
amongst the three groups when citizenship was claimed for reasons of cultural
identity in the form of bilingualism the role of daughter intersected with their
roles as citizens and mothers.
At these intersections of their gendered roles as a citizen and a mother, the
boundary between the public and private was blurred by their self-identity. Also
at these intersections, marriage straddled across the private domain as well as the
public forum, and immigrant women were either suppressed by the host nation-
state because of the embedded patriarchy, or found resources for agency and bet-
terment because of its power in admitting foreign nationals to become members
of the nation-state. The simultaneity of the mutual constitution illuminates the
fact that the relationship between an immigrant woman and the state is not linear
but discursive. Its ambiguity and confusion cannot be dispelled without a holistic
understanding grounded on the subjectivity and autonomy of immigrant women.
Citizenship offers a lens with which to understand the transition of legal status and
personal life course as a continuity.

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