‘Astronaut families’: transnational lives of middle-class Taiwanese married women in Canada

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in the study of Taiwanese migrants, the underlying concept and methodology remain gender-blind. Invisible from the Census are the women who emigrated with their husbands, leaving behind their adopted country to make a living elsewhere. Most of the ‘astronaut wives’ studied in this research are middle-class women who had careers in Taiwan prior to emigration, but became full-time home-makers upon arrival in Canada, the host country. The major questions raised for this research are: (1) What are the circumstances of migration for Taiwanese families? (2) How do Taiwanese ‘dan qi ma ma’/‘astronaut wives’ cope with the challenges of the new environment? (3) How do they relate to their husbands, children, and the Taiwanese community during the process of adaptation? Thirty women from ‘astronaut’ families were interviewed in Toronto and Vancouver in 2005 and 2006, using a semi-structured questionnaire, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation methods. It was found that migration has not liberated them from the traditional familial roles in Taiwan, but has however enabled them to build new social networks that play an important role in their new lives.