Echopedia

Taiwanese American Cultural Society of the Capital District (紐約州首府區台美文化促進會)

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Taiwanese American Cultural Society of the Capital District (紐約州首府區台美文化促進會)

Identity Snapshot

  • English: Taiwanese American Cultural Society of the Capital District
  • Chinese: 紐約州首府區台美文化促進會
  • Era: Contemporary
  • Geography: Taiwanese American community
  • Core roles: Community organization (TAH directory)

The Taiwanese American Cultural Society of the Capital District, Inc. (TACS) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable corporation established in 2004 (the TAH directory says May 2004; the founding memoir records the first general assembly on August 4, 2004 — see HOLD below). Its mission is to promote Taiwanese arts, history, and culture through exhibits, lectures, musical and theatrical performances, and youth scholarships. Among its signature annual events is the Taiwanese American Heritage Week Celebration, a performing arts extravaganza typically held at The Egg in the Empire State Plaza each May.

Role in the Community

Event records in the TAH story corpus corroborate the society’s performing-arts programming: 11. The Passion of Taiwan (台灣心台灣情音樂會) by TACS of the Capital District, 2014 — a bibliographic record of the 2014 concert. The corpus also holds a TACSR series (tacsr-1988, -1993, -1995, TACSR 2001, TACSR 2004, tacsr-2014, -2018) whose titles carry the TACS-R initials but whose briefs are bibliographic stubs with era 2019; they do not document this society’s own activities and are not absorbed as TACS events.

The society carries its own directory-style records in the corpus: Taiwanese American Cultural Society of the Capital District 紐約州首府區台美文化促進會 (2015-07-28) and a second entry (2017-09-15) — both bibliographic records of the organization’s own corpus page. The joint predecessor history is additionally held at 18. Brief History of Taiwanese American Association of the Capital District and TACS, 紐約首府區台灣同鄉會及台美文化促進會簡介 (2017-10-27), an earlier English-language companion to the 2024 二十週年回顧; it corroborates the TAA-CDNY→TACS lineage narrated above and adds no new dates. A related TAA-Albany record, 15. 紐約首府區萬國嘉年華會 Capital District Festival of Nations, Albany, NY (2015-10-21), documents the predecessor association’s community programming in the Capital District. The association itself carries a directory-style record, Taiwanese American Association (TAA) of Capital District, New York 紐約州首府區台灣同鄉會, and the corpus preserves an earlier chapter of that community’s history: 2021) recounts how, in August 1983, then-association president 陳仲欽 and 華社執行長李大年 organized a 200-plus welcome reception for 李登輝’s visiting delegation at RPI, with Capital District contacts routed through 孫慕婉 (sister of Premier 孫運璿, married to RPI professor 沈季能) — the association’s community network predating the 2004 TACS incorporation by two decades.

Per the community memoir by Chungchin Chen 陳仲欽, TACS grew directly out of the Taiwanese American Association of the Capital District (TAA-CDNY, founded 1970 as the New York State Capital District Formosan Fellowship). After the association’s 1974 and 1984 attempts at 501(c)(3) status were denied, its board decided in 2003 to incorporate under the new name. 36 member families each donated $200 as founding capital, and Chungchin Chen — then a director of the New York Council of Nonprofits — recommended a professional lawyer who drafted the certificate of incorporation and by-laws and handled the IRS application, which was approved quickly. The first general assembly on August 4, 2004 elected nine directors; the four officers were 會長李錫洋 (William C. Lee), 副會長陳仲欽 (Chungchin Chen), 秘書楊偉實 (Wei-shih Yang), and 財務陳麗玲 (Li-ling Chen).

HOLD: conflict — the TAH directory says the society was “established in May 2004”; the founding memoir records the first general assembly on 2004-08-04.

With tax-exempt status, TACS secured a $3,000 New York State Legislature special grant in 2005 and collected over 2.6× the dues and donations the association had. From 2004 to 2023 it held over sixty events, most prominently the annual Taiwanese American Heritage Week celebration at The Egg in the Empire State Plaza (a ~1,000-seat venue), featuring touring Taiwanese arts troupes and local officials. Lecture speakers included 徐福棟, 林文政, 陳仲欽 (二二八真相), 王婄媂 (歌仔戲), 黃娟 (楊梅三部曲), 楊遠薰, 楊兆隆, 劉永斌 (客家在台灣), and 陳玉峰. One dated instance: in September 2007 陳仲欽 invited author 黃娟 to Albany to give the keynote at TACS’s annual meeting — corroborated in his own memoir 152. 柏克萊加大的『台灣寮』(陳仲欽, 2015). It also ran disaster-relief drives for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina (2005), the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Typhoon Morakot (2009), and the 2011 Fukushima disaster. From October 1, 2006, following a member referendum, TACS and TAA-CDNY operated side by side under a joint board (“non-structural consolidation”); the merged board ceased operations after a failed full-merger vote in September 2013.

Presidents (per the 20th-anniversary retrospective): 2004-05 李錫洋, 2006 陳仲欽, 2007 楊文良, 2008 楊偉實, 2009 黃麗娜, 2010 黃世欽, 2011 楊毓琪, 2012-13 李慶榮, 2014-15 王抗曝, 2016-18 楊文良, 2019-22 林金枝, 2023-24 楊毓琪.

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