2024 TLA Golden Book Award

Migrant workers gain public attention mostly due to exploitation and job-related injuries and fatalities. But what does everyday life look like for these workers? These people have courageously left familiar lives at home for the chance of higher wages and opportunity in an unknown land. They possess adventurous personalities. While some unfortunately crumble under discriminatory management practices and rigid migratory labor laws, many succeed by leveraging their own abilities and creative spirit to engage with Taiwan. They build networks and communities as well as their own underground society .Chien examines current issues surrounding migrant workers both in Taiwan and in their Vietnamese hometowns, not only relating the vivid stories of these workers and the threats they regularly face but also delving into the system within which they must survive to get by. This comprehensive and important investigative report is essential to understanding Taiwan’s migrant workers and recent labor policy trends.