New amendments to the Name Act will allow Indigenous to use their Indigenous names on their national ID, household registration, and passport without requiring a Chinese name. At present, laws require that Indigenous names, using Roman characters, also have Chinese characters for individuals registering for households, passports, or naturalizing...
The Pazeh people have applied to become the 17th officially recognized Indigenous group in Taiwan. This is one of a number of applications by Indigenous groups for recognition at present, including by the Kaxabu and Siraya...
A draft proposal by KMT caucus convener Fu Kun-chi has stoked controversy. Namely, the proposal would provide for the extension of high-speed rail around all of Taiwan, though this is attached to a proposal ostensibly focused primarily on an expressway connecting Hualien and Taitung and the extension of Freeway No. 6 to Hualien. The bill is currently backed by Legislative Yuan Vice President Johnny Chiang of the KMT...
After close to a decade, the Supreme Court moved to clear Indigenous Bunun hunter Tama Talum of a conviction on firearms possession and hunting of a protected Formosan Serow earlier this month...
Members of the Bahuan community, who are Bunun Indigenous, demonstrated outside of National Taiwan University earlier this week. The demonstration led to some clashes with police, with a large number of police deployed for a relatively small number of protestors...
A public outcry has ensued after a number of incidents at the National Taiwan University involving racism and sexism among the student body. NTU is traditionally thought of as Taiwan’s most prestigious university...
On November 19th and 20th, the Mixed Indigenous Youth Forum Working Group hosted a two-day national forum in Banqiao to discuss the future of Indigenous status and recognition in Taiwan in light of this year’s two Constitutional Court rulings...
This past Friday in Pingtung City, the Mixed Indigenous Youth Forum Working Group (MIYF) held its fifth and final regional forum on the life experiences of Indigenous youth from mixed backgrounds. Combined with the other regional forums held in Taichung, Taipei, Taitung, and Hualien, MIYF discussed and recorded over 50 participants’ life stories pertaining to their Indigenous identity journey and variable engagements with Indigenous legal status...
In 2017, Nikal Kabala’an, an Amis woman, carried her first newborn daughter to the Taipei City Da’an District Household Registration Office to register her baby’s birth. Nikal and her husband, who is Han, decided to register their child under Nikal’s husband’s Mandarin surname with the intention of simultaneously registering a traditional Amis name to continue her Indigenous heritage into the next generation. However, she was informed at the Household Registration Office that she could not register her child under her husband’s surname and a traditional Amis name, and thus had to choose only one...
