Today Taiwan is home to approximately 144,000 "foreign spouses" from around Southeast Asia. A group of these women has crossed the barriers of lifestyle between them to come together and form the TransAsia Sisters Association, Taiwan. On the left is Chiou Yadrung, from Thailand, and in the photo above is Cambodian Sok Kollyan and her daughter Xiuxiu. (photos above courtesy of Sok Kollyan). (Chuang Kung-ju)

On a winter morning early this year, a group of members of the Alliance of Human Rights Legislation for Immigrants and Migrants (AHRLIM)-an organization designed to represent women and immigrants-gathered in front of the offices of the National Immigration Agency. They were there to protest the actions of a Mr. Hong, a junior high school teacher in Kaohsiung who had a few days prior verbally abused a student whose mother is an Indonesian immigrant by calling her a "savage," saying "Are you some kind of barbarian? Maybe during winter vacation you should go back to Indonesia with your Mom, and the two of you can be a couple of Indonesian savages!"

This kind of cruel, racist language led the AHRLIM to express their disappointment that a teacher, someone charged with the responsibility of educating children, could provide such a terrible example to the children. More importantly, though, the AHRLIM has filed a lawsuit under the Immigration Act, in the hope that such behavior will be subjected to severe punishment.

Along similar lines, Chiou Yadrung, originally from Thailand, also raised her voice: "Indonesians aren't 'barbarians'! What's barbaric is racism!" Hong Man-chi, from Vietnam, also picked up a microphone and said angrily that if her child encountered this teacher, she'd "teach him a lesson of his own!"