Americans: There is nothing like living in a dictatorship to appreciate the significance of our precious Bill of Rights. This photo of yours truly was taken in 1973 when, along with the protection of my American passport, I resided in the Republic of China (Taiwan) while it was under Chiang Kai Shek’s dictatorship. Diane
“Oh, you can’t say that, Mrs. Gruber! You will disappear!” said Dorcas in her broken English. This writer & hubby were teaching English in Taiwan in the 1970s, at a girls’ college established by British nuns on Mainland China decades earlier. The entire population was brutally ruled by the dictator Chiang Kai Shek who arrived in 1949 and declared martial law. When putting together lesson plans for the college English classes I taught, sometimes there would be references to human rights or civil rights. My Taiwanese students and friends repeatedly told me: “oh, don’t talk about that” or “you can’t say that” or “please don’t discuss Freedom of Speech.” Long trained by the dictatorship to be VERY careful what they said and who they talked to, my students feared what the government would do to me.
Freedom of Speech? Oh, please, what a quaint American notion! By the time we arrived, generations of Taiwanese had learned that even mentioning the government or the dictator’s name could get you “disappeared.” Loved ones of those who disappeared never knew if they were dead or incarcerated in the political prison offshore.^ There was no “right to a lawyer” and no “due process.” The masses had no rights and “the law” was whatever the Ruling Elite (that is, Chiang & his lieutenants) said it was.
As Americans, we knew that we would not be “disappeared” for speaking freely. At that time, the United States had diplomatic relations with the government of Taiwan, Republic of China. The worst the dictatorship could do to us, would be to deport us back to America. Ha! I thought THAT would give me a great story to tell my grandkids. Our US Passports protected us from imprisonment & execution.
Fiercely proud to be an American, I saw no need to modify my behavior to please the dictatorial authorities in Taiwan. After all, I was AN AMERICAN.
Check me out on X @dianelgruber.
The Taiwanese People LOVE Trump!!!
My best friend is Taiwanese-American. My husband & I first met her, her parents, her three sisters and one brother when we taught college English in Taiwan. Several years later, we helped her immigrate to America. Her mother, who is 95,^ still lives in Taiwan. When she showed her mother a photo of my Fight, Fight, Fight T-shirt, her mother said she wa…
Caption: From left to right: Mao Ze Dong slaughtered or starved between 40 & 70 million Chinese. Hugo Chavez killed few Venezuelans, but the murder rate tripled during his 14 years in power to over 100,000 murders by violent gangs due to police corruption and institutional decay. Joseph Stalin killed between 9 & 15 million Russians & Ukrainians via engi…
^ In 2005, my former student, Amy, and I visited the Green Island prison after it had been made into a museum. My husband and I had helped Amy immigrate from Taiwan to the USA in 1978. She became an American citizen in 1989. The older lady in the photo above is Amy’s mother.
The author, Diane L. Gruber, is a First Amendment advocate who writes for Substack. She calls her Substack newsletter America First Re-Ignited. Follow me on X @DianeLGruber.
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