Echopedia

TAH Foundation (台美史料中心)

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TAH Foundation (台美史料中心)

TAH Foundation / History of Taiwanese American (T.A. Archives) — 台美史料中心 runs taiwaneseamericanhistory.org. It is a sibling archive to the 台美人歷史協會) — same Taiwanese American history mission, different organization. TAH is not TAHS, and this site is not the 2017/2023 TAHS yearbook PDFs.

Official About: About Us (archived 2026-08-21).

Identity Snapshot

  • English: TAH Foundation / History of Taiwanese American (T.A. Archives)
  • Chinese: 台美史料中心
  • Type: Historical archive; Who’s Who + organization directory
  • Founded: 2013 (six first-generation Taiwanese Americans; website May 2013)
  • Geography: Irvine, California (Archives Center) + nationwide collecting
  • Official site: https://taiwaneseamericanhistory.org/
  • Not: |TAHS; not |taiwaneseamerican.org (story-corpus)

History

In early 2013, six first-generation Taiwanese Americans in different parts of the United States agreed by phone to collect, record, and preserve Taiwanese American historical documents and artifacts from the 1950s (English About also dates the arrival horizon to 1949) to the present. First tasks: a history website, office space near Irvine, staff and volunteers.

The first website launched May 2013, later moved platforms; a dedicated staffer was hired after about a year; the current site design dates from 2015. Address: www.TaiwaneseAmericanHistory.org.

The first Archives Center opened February 2014 in an Irvine industrial park (~3,800–4,000 sq ft). In July 2016 it moved to a two-story Irvine office-park building (~19,000 sq ft).

Two review committees (each with an operation manual) gate what is published: Article Committee (「我的故事」 / My Stories; 「我們的旅程」 / Our Journeys) and Art Committee (Taiwanese American artists and works). Majority committee acceptance, not a single editor.

By the 2017/2020 About, the center had uploaded about ten thousand items, plus on-site libraries and artifacts. Monthly newsletter began May 2015. Since 2015 the site also posts current community events and invites a year-end vote for the year’s top ten Taiwanese American events.

Do not invent: the six 2013 conveners are not named on the official About. The 50th/Who’s Who card English name is not a merge key (TAH slug ≠ Echopedia identity).

Mission

TAH’s mission is to celebrate the lives and achievements of Taiwanese people who are contributing to American society. Together, we aim to preserve and promote our shared heritage. — site home, 2026-08-21

Chinese About (same page): the site’s materials come from the Taiwanese American community and belong to that community; the aim is a usable public archive for scholars and the public.

Stated future goals (About, prepared 2017-09, updated 2020-06): an Encyclopedia of Taiwanese American; a permanent museum/history center; durable staff and funding; more young-generation collecting; English website and English history books; film; expanded Who’s Who.

Membership / what this site is

Not a church council. Public archive + Who’s Who (tah_person) + organization directory (tah_organization).

Echopedia v1 of this domain = CPT graph (people + orgs), not a recrawl of My Stories / blog posts. Harvest (2026-08-17, wp-json): 2212 people + 339 orgs under knowledge/web-archives/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ (gitignored). Skip Family --. Hub lists 漢名 when there is no English — never %e5 slugs.

Coverage (Echopedia)

ClusterWhere
About / 簡介 / History / Missionthis page (cite About 2026-08-21)
Source hub / directory indextaiwaneseamericanhistory-org
Who’s Who peoplecontent/people/ (tah-whos-who; 漢名-only = tah-p-*)
Organizationscontent/organizations/ from TAH org CPT
Education / Employment tablesharvest backfill on existing Who’s Who pages (Family skipped)

Irvine Archives Center (layout, About)

圖書室 1–5 (books; org magazines; newspapers/artifacts; 同鄉會/夏令會; festival objects), display window, photo corridor, 31 oil paintings of Taiwanese American footprints, conference rooms, office.

From the record

  • 2015-06-22 — The site’s two founding story collections went live together: 「一、咱的故事 Our Journeys」 (Our Journeys) and 「二、我的故事 My Stories」 (My Stories) — the community-narrative pillars the Article Committee later gated (About).
  • 2015-07-28 — The Foundation’s Musical Concerts project recorded the 1998-05-09 Choral Concert of Taiwanese Folk Music (台灣民謠演唱會) by Chime-In Chorus (拾音合唱團) in New Brunswick, NJ (concerts18) — back-cataloging 1990s community music into the archive.
  • 2016-07-14 — Recorded the 2016 Mendelssohn Oratorio Elijah (孟德爾頌《以利亞》神劇) by the Los Angeles Formosan Master Chorale (洛杉磯福爾摩沙聖樂團), performed Laguna Woods 2016-03-12 and Pasadena 2016-04-09 (concerts69).
  • 2017-04-20 — Recorded the Asian Choral Festival (亞洲合唱節) by the Taiwan Center of Greater Los Angeles (大洛杉磯台灣會館) in Arcadia, CA, covering the 2017-05-07 edition (concerts98) — the archive documenting partner-org festivals, not only its own work.
  • 2018-06-06 — Recorded the 2018-05-05 Asian Choral Festival by 大洛杉磯台灣會館 in Arcadia, CA (2018-6), the follow-up edition to the 2017 festival entry.
  • 2019-04-19 — The Our Footsteps artist series carried an interview with artist Nami Yang (李淑櫻) at LAWTVFineArts (footsteps-27) — the Art Committee’s artist documentation track in practice.
  • 2026-09-07 — The story-corpus harvest of the Foundation’s site was registered in Echopedia: 9,739 receive units (band A 379 · band B 9,360), tier-2 bodies in 9,740 files (story-corpus source page) — the largest single corpus capture of the Foundation’s output to date.
  • 2016-09-15 — The Our Journeys collection published 「我準備”台灣之夜”的經過」 by 廖郭珠真, a first-person account of organizing a “Taiwan Night” — sourced by the Foundation from 鄉訊 by Houston 台灣同鄉會 (08/1982), showing the archive re-publishing community newsletters as narrative record (ourjourneys247).
  • 2016-09-19 — The Our Journeys collection published 「支持甘迺迪餐會花絮」 by 台仙, a community-dinner account, again sourced by the Foundation from 鄉訊 by Houston 台灣同鄉會 (08/1982) — the same Houston-newsletter back-cataloguing stream as ourjourneys247 (ourjourneys248).
  • 2016-09-22 — The Our Journeys collection published an “Invitation letter of 1st year and 7th year of Summer Conference / South East Region”, donated by Mr. Kent Liu 劉格正 (09/2016) — the Foundation preserving primary documents (invitation letters) alongside narratives (ourjourneys251).
  • 2017-09-07 — The Foundation published its own self-introduction 「台美史料中心的介紹」 under its own editorial byline (編輯 台美史料中心), restating the founding story (2013 phone agreement of six first-generation Americans), the two review committees, and the move from the 2014 Irvine industrial-park center to the 2016 two-story office-park building — the center documenting itself in its own collection (ourjourneys312).
  • 2017-11-28 — The Foundation published 「地方官員及美國總統候選人的政見發表晚會（Candidate Night）」, its record of the 1992 Windsor-area and New Brunswick NJ candidate-night events hosted by New Jersey Taiwanese American groups — the archive capturing the community’s “citizen diplomacy” firsts (ourjourneys323).
  • 2017-11-28 — The Foundation published 「台美青年壘球賽-紐澤西壘球公開賽」, its record of the New Jersey Taiwanese American softball open tournament run from 1993 by TCA-NJ and the Windsor Taiwanese Association through 2006 — the center’s sports-history track (ourjourneys324).
  • 2017-11-29 — The Foundation published 「美國台灣傳統週簡介」, its overview of the 1999 congressional designation of Taiwanese American Heritage Week and the community’s Heritage-Week programming including New York’s “Passport to Taiwan” — the archive situating a national holiday in the community record (ourjourneys325).
  • 2019-08-02 — The Foundation’s Musical Concerts series posted record 150, “Los Angeles Formosan Master Chorale/2019”, sourced from Li-Ying Shang — the continuing chorale-documentation thread of the archive, following the earlier Elijah (2016) and festival entries recorded above (musical-concerts-150).
  • 2016-01-03 — The Foundation published 「台美人的腳跡」的計劃 (Taiwanese American Journey to the West), a Chicago-initiated autobiography/認親結緣 writing project whose prospectus explicitly situates the Center (台美史料中心) alongside TAHS as one of the two existing “台美人歷史” archive plans — the community’s own writing initiatives cross-referencing the Center from day one (pub-928).
  • 2016-10-14 — The Foundation posted 「台灣口述歷史研究室」, an oral-history research-office page sourced from Taiwan Tribune Issues 1302 (1995-11-02) — evidence the archive was already preserving the oral-history program stream from 1990s community press before the 2015 story collections launched (taiwan-oral-history-research-office).
  • 2017-05-09 — The Foundation posted video record 60, the 2017 Asian Choral Festival (亞洲合唱節) by the Taiwanese Elite Chamber Singers, part of the Taiwanese American Heritage Week (台美人傳統週) series — the festival documentation carried as video, not only concert records (video-asian-choral-festival).
  • 2017-12-04 — The Foundation published 「有賣門票的台美團體舉辦的臺灣音樂會 – 台灣曲之夜 (Formosan Melodies)」, its record of the 1995-11-25 ticketed Taiwanese-music concert by the NJ 拾音合唱團 at Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium (featuring 蕭泰然 and 江文也 works) — one of the earliest community concerts the archive back-catalogued (ourjourneys327).
  • 2018-04-09 — The Foundation published 「台美團體舉辦的選舉政見發表會 (Candidate Night)」, its account of the 1992-10-24 first US presidential-candidate night hosted by Taiwanese American groups in New Brunswick NJ — the companion piece to its 2017-11-28 candidate-night record (ourjourneys323), both held without date merging (ourjourneys333).
  • 2026-10-15 — A zh.wikipedia extract for 林夏如 (Syaru Shirley Lin) was cached via web-pass and registered in Echopedia (zh.wikipedia: 林夏如) — the identity-confirmed counterpart record to the Foundation’s own Who’s Who entry for her, [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/whoswho1344|WhosWho #1344, Syaru Shirley Lin 林夏如 (2016-10-26)]]; the extract itself carries no dates that bear on the Foundation’s record. (sourced)

In the corpus (2026-10-09)

  • Founder: Bob Cheng (鄭寶鼎博士), who died 2020-09-20. His first-board member 林宏容’s memoir (2020-09-27, taiwanjustice.net) gives the founding history the official About does not: Bob convened the first 籌備會議 in 2010 at 陳立明博士’s home with 郭清江, 謝清志, and 王漢平, proposing a Jewish-museum-style institution to collect Taiwanese American history.
    • HOLD: founding timeline — About says “six first-generation Americans agreed by phone in early 2013”; the memoir dates the first organizing meeting to 2010 and describes years of “議而不決” before the 2014 center. Both kept; not merged.
  • Funding model: per the same memoir, the 2014 Irvine office (17155 Von Karman Ave, ~4,000 sq ft) and the 2016 two-story Corporate Park building (~19,000 sq ft) were Bob’s sole funding (獨資); roles split across the first board (陳立明 furniture/equipment, 王漢平 audio/video, 林宏容 software/WiFi, 郭清江 hiring). The 2014 TACS scholarship awards ceremony was held at the Center.
  • Newsletter corpus: taiwanjustice.net carries T.A. Archives / 台美史料中心 newsletters as a standing tag (May 2020 – May 2021 issues, e.g. tag: Taiwanese American Archives) — the monthly newsletter since May 2015 is preserved there, not only on the TAH site.
  • Who’s Who cross-links: the harvest under content/works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ includes biographical entries that themselves reference the Center (e.g. 吳朗, 吳明杰, 蘇芯, 鄭明憲), confirming the Center’s role as a community hub in member accounts.
  • Exhibition: the Foundation’s own exhibition work Honoring the Taiwanese American Journey (opened January 2025, on display as of 2026-08-06) presents its special collections with artifacts, photographs, and interpretive narratives, developed with exhibition design by 70 Degrees — the physical expression of the “permanent museum/history center” goal stated in the 2017/2020 About.
  • Newsletter issues in corpus: beyond the standing tag, individual issues are archived on taiwanjustice.net, e.g. the March 2021 newsletter issue — corroborating the May-2015-onward monthly newsletter claim from About.
  • 2nd Taiwanese American Conference (2025-01-10–12): the Center hosted/convened the 2nd Taiwanese American Conference, a two-night three-day event inviting summer camps (夏令會), hometown associations, Taiwan Centers, cultural groups, and second-generation organizations from across the US. Main topic: transmission of Taiwanese American cultural heritage — collection, preservation, digitization, dissemination. [[articles/taiwanjustice-net/2025/20250318093802_第166回世界台灣文化論壇_試論台美人-e-文化遺產-kap-傳_2490b18e8f37ea79|World Taiwan Culture Forum #166]] (2025-01-22, 鄭良光) previews it; the Center’s own summary (2025-04-08) confirms. Participants cited: Prof. 廖炳輝 (Peng-hui Liao) of UCSD’s Taiwan Studies Center (prof-ping-hui-liao), the second-gen documentary team “Lessons from Ah-má and Ah-kong”, and TUF leadership (會長 鄭良光/Simon Cheng, 前會長 賴英慧) — the Center acting as the movement’s convening hub, not just a repository.
  • Documentary pipeline: the Center co-sources documentary work — 2024 CTS Documentary Workshop at UCSD with Dalton Lu’s “The Taiwanese American Grand Narrative Project – Your Story Our Memory” (call for entries) and the 2025 台美人移民史紀錄片計畫 forum ([[articles/taiwanjustice-net/2025/20250425124216_第145回世界台灣文化論壇_台美人移民史紀錄片計_ed4161929b1cc593|World Taiwan Culture Forum #145]]).
  • Newsletter reach (2026-10-13 sweep): the taiwanjustice.net newsletter tag extends past the May-2021 window previously recorded here — individual issues through late 2023 / April 2024 are in corpus, e.g. the Sep 2022 issue, the Dec 2021 issue, and the [[articles/taiwanjustice-net/2024/20240527043145_root_be93ba8c8bbbbb41|April 2024 issue (#110)]], whose masthead gives the Foundation’s contact domain info@tah.foundation and the tagline “咱台美族的夢”. The #110 issue also promotes the “Life Lessons from Ah-Ma and Ah-Gong” feature-length documentary (first-gen grandparents → 3rd/4th generation), which the Center helped circulate.

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