Szu-Nuo Chou holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Women's Studies at the University of Ottawa in 2023. Her research focuses on the memoirs and oral histories of Chinese wartime migrants, with a special emphasis on refugee and forced migration issues and their related social boundaries. Growing up in an isolated minority enclave, Szu-Nuo’s research explores the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and social class, using minority women's first-person narratives to reexamine the long-term impacts of violent conflicts on daily life and social relationships. Her work sheds light on the complexities of diasporas and political violence, highlighting the persistent issues of sex-based violence and gender inequality across borderlines and communities.

The Segregated Others: Chinese Refugee Women's Shifting Roles across Borders and Ethnic Enclaves in Taiwan

Abstract: In response to international pressure from the United Nations, China's former political leader, President Chiang Kai-Shek, ordered the withdrawal of his Tai-Burma troops stationed along the China-Burma border in 1954. This political act directly led to the majority of Tai-Burma soldiers and their dependents becoming undocumented refugees in the Golden Triangle area. Subsequently, some Chinese Tai-Burma soldiers were evacuated to Taiwan between 1954 and 1961. These soldiers and their dependents were housed in military dependents' enclaves, which were designated as segregated neighbourhoods in Taiwan's postwar society. Building on this history, this research focuses on the long-ignored voices of these military dependents in the ethnically segregated enclaves, using their narratives to explore China's and Taiwan's shared memories of war, exile, and resettlement across the Tai-Burma border and/or the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan's authoritarian government enforced a policy of ethnic segregation under martial law, also known as the White Terror, for a lengthy period spanning 38 years from 1949 to 1987. The Chinese diasporic communities who fled the war and came to this island were expected to strengthen the nation-state's future combat power by adhering to traditional gender roles and social hierarchies. However, these newcomers faced numerous challenges in their daily lives, such as childcare difficulties, financial struggles, and political conflicts. Additionally, the rigid ethnic boundaries imposed on them also hindered their ability to build a better future.By chronologically reviewing forty-four Chinese women’ life-story narratives, this research reveals that many Chinese diasporic and refugee women who crossed borders in their youth often learned to adopt silence as a survival strategy to distance themselves from the men in power around them, including their husbands, village chiefs, and even their sons. Collective silence became a means of expressing their refusal to conform to prescribed gender roles in the oppressive masculine environment.