Echopedia

292. 早年匹茲堡台灣同鄉會簡介與歷屆會長考證 / Brief History of the Taiwanese Association of America, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Chapter/ Binsiong Ou

8 min read

292. 早年匹茲堡台灣同鄉會簡介與歷屆會長考證 / Brief History of the Taiwanese Association of America, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Chapter/ Binsiong Ou

Identity Snapshot

Record

Article

Cited from the original (source). Echopedia holds this as community historical record.

Brief History of the Taiwanese Association of America, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Chapter

Author: Binsiong Ou

A Brief Introduction of the Early Years of the Taiwanese Association of Pittsburgh

The Taiwanese Association of Pittsburgh was established in 1969 and has been operating for nearly half a century. Taiwan has Fucheng, Lugang, and Manka; in the United States, there is Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. In Taipei, the rivers merge into Tamsui River; Pittsburgh is called the city of three rivers. Pittsburgh is similar to Taiwan’s Manka in the 19th century, because it is an important inland shipping port. In 1758, British General Forbes drove French forces that were occupying the land of the three rivers, and transformed Fort Duquesne into Fort Pitt, which is the origin of the name Pittsburgh.

Starting in the 1770s, waves of immigrants drove Conestoga wagons from the eastern United States over the Appalachian Mountain Ranges to Pittsburgh, the center for shipbuilding. They then continued West along the Ohio River, and so, Pittsburgh became the gateway to the west. The beginning of Louis and Clark’s expedition of the mountains and rivers of the Western United States started when Louis built a ship in Pittsburgh and sailed down the Ohio River on August 31st, 1803, joining Clark in Kentucky on October 14th. With its reliance on water as natural transportation, Pittsburgh become a major industrial town in the United States, especially important in the steel industry. Because of this, Pittsburgh was, at one time, the home to many company headquarters. Later, the city transformed from being a smoke-filled black town to being a very comfortable city to live in, home to the computer, technology, and advanced medicine industries. Moreover, it has a number of universities, including Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh. Since the 1960s, there have been many Taiwanese students who were attracted to study abroad in Pittsburgh; there are quite a few who graduated and found work here.

Taiwanese Americans across the United States have all experienced what it’s like to leave their hometown. Due to a feeling of homesickness and the desire to explore the possibility of creating an independent nation in their forefather’s homeland, Taiwanese Associations were established in one city after another, allowing Taiwanese communities to gather their strength. In 1968, Fu-Chen Lo earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In November of that year, he came to Pittsburgh for work, and in 1969, he co-founded the Pittsburgh Taiwanese Association with Edward Huang, Daniel Ko, Chiung-hui Ko, and their young families. This group warmly looked over the Taiwanese students in Pittsburgh. At the time, Fu-chen Lo had bought a house on Penn Avenue, and so, until he left Pittsburgh to take a job with the United Nations in 1973, this house and its courtyard were the center of operations for the Taiwanese Association, as well as a wedding venue for Taiwanese students. Later, the Taiwanese Association began borrowing the use of venues from various universities and nearby churches and parks to hold events like their Mid-Autumn Festival party and Lunar New Year party. Other events included a dumpling party, ping pong and bridge games, symposiums on life matters, autumn maple leaf viewings, and speeches by famous Taiwanese figures, such as: Huang Hsin-chieh, Annette Lu, Li Chiao, Yang Ching-chu, Huang Chun-ming, and Kao Chun-ming. Of course, there were many more activities related to Taiwan. For example, when the Formosa Incident occurred on December 10h, 1979, a symposium was held on the 15th in Lawrence Hall of the University of Pittsburgh. The event attracted people from all walks of life, both Taiwanese people and Chinese Communist Party members. The seats were full, and even the aisles were packed with people. 18 months later, Carnegie Mellon Professor Chen Wen Chen was interviewed by the Taiwanese Chief of Police, who played a tape of the speech he’d given at that symposium. The next day, Chen Wen Chen’s corpse was found on the campus of his alma mater, National Taiwan University. This incident provoked demonstrations across the United States, including street demonstrations in the local neighborhood around the Oakland campus, which accused on-campus agents of committing evil deeds.

In the early years, the Pittsburgh Taiwanese Association interacted with Taiwanese people from around the world, inviting Taiwanese Associations from different places, even the Taiwanese Association of Toronto, Canada, to come have a picnic and barbecue. The Association also went to visit other cities, going as far as Washington D.C. to the east, Cleveland, Columbus, and Michigan to the west (in the Midwest), and cities like Buffalo and Syracuse, New York in the north. Each time they had one of these meet-ups, there always had to be a softball game. The Pittsburgh Taiwanese Association softball team was quite famous and had many well-known players. Cheng Long Tsai, who had been the captain of the team many times, was one of key players in these games. In those days, the association usually split into two teams and practiced at Schenley Park or on the Carnegie Mellon Campus.

Though it has undergone numerous hardships, the Pittsburgh Taiwanese Association has continued to operate through them all, persevering for nearly half a century.

Historical Details of the Association’s Founding Years

According to his memoir, From Taiwan to the World and Back, Fu-Chen Lo was a key figure in the United Formosans for Independence. His memoir mentions that he came to Pittsburgh to work in 1968 and left in 1973, and that he and other Taiwanese Americans jointly established the Pittsburgh Taiwanese Association around then. The exact date is unknown, however. But, according to an interview Carole Hsu conducted of Fu-Chen Lo and his wife, there is an exact date. In the summer of 1968, Fu-Chen Lo received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and successful began work at Consad in New York. A few months later, the company transferred him to Pittsburg, so he and his wife, Ching-fen Mao, moved to Pittsburg in November 1968. They bought a house on Penn Avenue and got to know a number of young families in Pittsburg, and in 1969, they co-founded the Pittsburgh Taiwanese Association. Since overseas Taiwanese students struggled with finances in those days, Fu-Chen Lo was happy to help them and opened his home. Overtime, his home naturally became the activity center for the Pittsburgh Taiwanese Association, and it continued to be until they left Pittsburgh in 1973. I have also been to Fu-Chen Lo’s house on Penn Avenue, since I attended the wedding of my university friends, Cheng Long and Cecelia Tsai, which was held in Fu-Chen Lo’s home.

Historical Details of Past Association Presidents

The following list records the past Association Presidents in accordance with the historical data:

President Vice President Starting Year Length of Service Date of Handover

1969

1970

1971

Mingchi Wu

1972

1973

Chen S. Tsai

1974 1974-1975

Chin-te Lai

1975

Edward Huang Yu-Ching Wang 1976

Rui-hui Lin Ssu-yao Wu 1977 1977-1978

I-wen Tsai

1978 1978-1979 1979-3-25

Min-hsiung Hu Hung-tu Ling 1979 1979-1980

Chin C. Lee Shih-hsing Feng 1980 1980-1981

Wen-tung Lu Tony Chen 1981 1981-1982

Mo-hsiu Yang

1982 1982-1983

Ssu-yao Wu

1983 1983-1984

Cheng-hung Su Sheng-chun Kuo 1984 1984-1985

Chu-yuan Hung

1985 1985-1986

Chu-yuan Hung

1986 1986-1987

Chia-chun Liu

1987 1987-1988

Chia-chun Liu

1988 1988-1989

Chin-te Lai

1989 1989-1990

Chin-te Lai

1990 1990-1991

Mei-yu Kuo

1991 1991-1992

Mei-yu Kuo

1992 1992-1993

Rung-chung Lin

1993 1993-1994

Shu-ying Cheng

1994 1994-1995

Shu-ying Cheng

1995 1995-1996

Cheng-liang Wang

1996 1996-1997

1997 1997-1998

1998 1998-1999

By Binsiong Ou, April 28th, 2017

Sourced from Binsiong Ou, 06/2017

Translated from 292. 早年匹茲堡台灣同鄉會簡介與歷屆會長考證 / 胡民祥 /06/2017

Timeline

  • 2017-06-12 — published

Subjects

Graph View

Backlinks