We're having Thai dinner at Ho chie's place, to get outside opinion on our take on the college program so far. We have 8 to 9 members of other TA leaders (TACL, TAYL, etc) from the Bay area to give opinions on the work we've done so far.

One reason to have outside opinions is to get people together, for one is introducing like-minded individuals together. Another reason was to share with them to get an input on the impression they got, and the feasibility of the program that we had worked on today.

We showed them the working mission statement. Then we shared the overall structure of the program.

Question being, what is the focus of the college prgm?
Using the skills gained in the experience, hopefully, they can take it out into the world and apply it. We felt like the old college program didn't address or help the issues of the college students.

Also, we wanted to know what influence we want to have in the taiwanese community? One of the projects would be to contact other taiwanese community.

Question:
Be more specific about the college program.

Paraphrased by Grace, it seems like the college program is a 'working experience', where it's an active hands on experience, supplanted with introspective discussions and personal growth.

Question:
How does this program wish to make the connection between the gap between the Taiwanese and American, ie. what are the projects that helps them make the connection on this gap?

Kathy had reservations against telling the kids exactly what will the path to take.

Christine paraphrased that how do you apply the idealistic lessons that were learned in TAF into the real world.

Jenyng agreed, and stated that it was hard to find role models and leaders in specific fields outside the 'traditional' ones. And one of the ways she's had to do was to think and work outside the box, without necessarily looking at the ethnic background.

Question:
One of the things that was heard around the TAF last year, about taiwanese identity. TAF is more pro-DPP, but should it be more inclusive of the pro-KMT people that are also consider themselves taiwanese? How inclusive is TAF to taiwanese people as a whole with respect to the college program?

Meaningful contribution means different things to different people, so you might have different views. It might be a moot point, if the youth don't necessarily make the distinction to marginalize other taiwanese people. It might be up to the 2nd generation to re-educate the parents, and to help speak for them and help them interface with mainstream america.

On another point, it is possible to have a taiwanese american program that avoids the political divide. Regardless of what we think about people with slightly different political and cultural taiwanese background, the mainstream american public will see us all as taiwanese.

As a counter point, TAF as an organization does not promote and advocate one political party or another. It does not come up as a debate issue, but we do recognize that the divide exists.

Taiwanese has a political connotation, when mentioned with the politics. To make sure that the potential participants know that TAF isn't politically sided, it should be emphasized to the marketing.