This is not just a Han Kuo-yu problem. This is a Taiwan problem.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/03/08
By: Stellina Chen
Taiwan’s ghastly treatment of South and Southeast Asian migrant workers and students has spent time in the news this week. Amid stories of alleged work scams targeting Filipino graduate students, a policy stating that migrant detainees must pay for their own food, and more horror stories from Taiwan’s deep sea fishing industry, one item has raised the most eyebrows: Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) has come under fire for using a racist term to refer to Filipinos, apparently questioning whether society will accept “Marias” becoming teachers.

The term “Maria” has been used in Taiwan as a derogatory term referring to those with darker skin, usually foreign workers who are part of Taiwan’s 700,000-strong migrant workforce. Han’s comments rightly drew a vicious backlash from social media users and prominent Taiwanese personalities.

“If ‘Maria’ refers to those who work hard to earn money, raise families and pursue their dreams, then I am a ‘Maria,’ you are a ‘Maria,’ hundreds of thousands of ‘Marias’ are working to prop up Taiwan and many other countries around the world,” wrote David Liu, a writer from Kaohsiung who now lives in Sweden.

On Wednesday, an advertisement from Tungnan University circulated online in which the school advertised its South and Southeast Asian students to employers as “highly cooperative” and willing to do “taxing, filthy and dangerous shift work.” The eight-page ad bragged that its students were cheaper than migrant workers, allowing companies to save at least NT$3,628 (US$117) per month by not paying fees for health and labor insurance.    [FULL  STORY]