Migrant workers and new immigrants are not only adapting to but reshaping Taiwanese towns, as seen in Taoyuan’s Nankan.

BY FELIX SEBASTIAN

Ornate, dragon-clad, and with a nearly 400-year history, Wufu Temple sits amid otherwise unremarkable streets typical of suburban Taiwan. The parking lot out front moonlights as a night market three times a week, with the local public library, sports center, and senior high school all within sight. This is Nankan, Taoyuan, but it could easily be Anytown, Taiwan, save for a less storied temple.

A short stroll away from this historical town center, across Nankan Creek, you’ll find the local morning market. Sunday mornings are especially bustling, with the access roads hemmed in by motorcycles and the inner alleyways by produce displays. It is in unassuming, utilitarian spaces like Nankan Market that contemporary suburban Taiwan’s cultural mosaic is most visible.

Walking into the market, the overheard conversations, banter among vendors, and handwritten-on-cardboard signage grow unmistakably multilingual: a fluid mix of Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Indonesian, and English. The menus, produce, and spice mixes on offer mirror this Southeast Asian heritage.

This mix of different cultures and languages reflects Taiwan’s shifting demographics, especially outside of the capital Taipei. The island is home to roughly 880,000 migrant workers — essential, temporary blue-collar laborers primarily from Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines — and more than 600,000 “new immigrants,” the official designation for overseas spouses, white-collar professionals, and other foreign residents who typically have a pathway to permanent residency. Because Taiwan’s official population record of 23 million is based exclusively on household registration, migrant workers and new immigrants together account for approximately 6% of Taiwan’s true resident population.

Taoyuan is the center of this new reality, home to both the highest number of migrant workers and the highest relative proportion of new immigrants. Nankan, a dense pocket of the city’s Luzhu District, surrounded by sprawling logistics and manufacturing hubs, is a window into Taiwan’s evolving suburban identity.

“Because there’s an industrial park nearby, there are quite a few migrant workers [in Nankan],” says Jay, a local vendor advertising a selection of his fruits and snacks in Vietnamese. He uses translated signs for items that look alike, differ in seasoning, or vary between cooked and raw. “If you can understand it at a glance,” he says, “no special label needed.” This selective multilingualism is visible throughout the market, indicating both pragmatism by sellers and the importance of migrant and new immigrant customers to the hyperlocal retail economy.

Many of these market adaptations are relatively recent, accelerating over the last five or so years, says Lin Ruizhu, a local neighborhood chief (lin zhang, 鄰長) and a Nankan area resident of over 15 years. She views this Southeast Asian diaspora as a “newer wave,” in contrast to the previous wave of spouses from China marrying into Taiwanese families. It is not unusual to now see sellers at Nankan market who predominantly communicate in Thai or Vietnamese, deflecting some interactions to a Mandarin-speaking counterpart overseeing the stalls.

Church involvement

Further down the main road, past more large, multilingual signboards, is a more spiritual hustle and bustle, as the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Church sees its usual Sunday morning rush. Some parishioners are heading out after the mass in Chinese, even as others stream in for the Vietnamese service.

On major feast days like Easter, the church’s three communities — Chinese, English, and Vietnamese — gather for a single trilingual service. The parish priest, Father Dominic Nguyen Anh Tuan, Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, who hails from Vietnam, views this as a living symbol of “one teacher, one Father, one Church.” Nguyen is assisted in serving the community by three nuns from the Philippines.

On regular Sundays, the Chinese Mass is celebrated in the original 70-year-old church building. The Vietnamese service, however, requires the adjoining extension, a much larger space where the faithful frequently fill out both the building itself and the courtyard. This Sunday, the church is also preparing to host a Vietnamese wedding. “We have many such weddings here,” says Wu Yu Ying, a community leader originally from Vietnam who has witnessed the transformation of the parish over the last 30 years. In 2018, with the Vietnamese community growing and with support from the three nuns, Wu advocated for a dedicated Vietnamese liturgy. The church saw its first Vietnamese mass in November of that year.

Both the Vietnamese community and the church’s predominantly Filipino English-language congregation have continued to grow. In contrast, “the [Chinese] church in Taiwan is actually shrinking,” laments Sister Marnie Cabiles, Sisters of Jesus the Good Shepherd, who oversees the spiritual activities of both the Chinese and Vietnamese communities. “Most of the xin zhumin (new immigrants), we encourage them to attend Chinese mass,” partly because the church’s Sunday School is run in Mandarin.

This form of linguistic integration, whether at a neighborhood church or in a public classroom, is critical for new immigrant families with school-aged children. Language barriers often cause challenges for such students when they enter local schools. “If government educational authorities and schools fail to address the placement and Chinese language acquisition of these students during this critical timeline of language learning, it can eventually result in a failure to integrate into the environment, learning difficulties, and challenges regarding self-identity,” explains Chun Chen-cheng, a professor at National Kaohsiung Normal University (NKNU).

To prevent these systemic issues, the government is stepping in. Chun, for example, heads a team at NKNU that handles programs to help track the progress of transnational students in Taiwan’s schools. The team, established under the Ministry of Education, also welcomes the participation of parents who wish to help their children learn the local language.

Grassroots community centers like Sacred Hearts church frequently act as local partners for government social and educational initiatives, often hosting free Mandarin lessons for new residents. These interventions complement broader civic investments, like the Taoyuan New Immigrants Culture Hall near Taoyuan Railway Station.

Online, the Taoyuan City Government takes a more practical, everyday approach to help new immigrants settle in, launching a dedicated multilingual portal that provides guides on legal and medical resources, anti-fraud measures, and vocational and language courses. The government also catalogues and promotes new immigrant-owned specialty stores, treating this demographic not just as a group needing assistance but as integral to the cultural identity of the city.

Growing Muslim presence

Taiwan is also now home to a growing Muslim community. In fact, one in every three migrant workers in Taiwan is from Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country.

Historically, meat and food producers in Taiwan sought Halal certification for exports to Southeast Asia and the Middle East. While demand is still primarily for exports, local demand from new immigrants, migrant workers, and international students is on the rise. “Although the number of [Muslim] tourists is increasing annually, their consumption share is not yet as significant as that of the local community,” explains Nabeel Chang, a technical auditor at the Taiwan Halal Integrity Development Association (THIDA).

Since the mid-2010s, Taiwan has gained recognition for launching campaigns promoting Muslim-friendly travel, equipping public facilities like MRT and high-speed rail stations as well as airports with prayer rooms, and Halal-certifying over 230 hotels and restaurants.

The everyday reality for Muslim residents, though, is slightly different. “The common misconception among the Taiwanese public is that halal is restricted entirely to ‘abstaining from pork and alcohol,’” says Chang. This oversimplification ignores the strict requirements for religiously compliant slaughter, which must be performed by a Muslim slaughterer.

Several domestic slaughterhouses have passed Halal certification, but “the problem lies at the downstream end of the supply chain, where a severe information gap exists,” says Chang. He points to the lack of standardized halal labeling in Taiwan and the high risk of cross-contamination during secondary processing and repackaging.

Muslim residents have therefore had to engineer their own workarounds, turning to community networks. For many migrant workers and students, acquiring halal meat means relying on trusted channels such as specialized food trucks and stalls outside local mosques during Friday Jumu’ah prayers. Like in the courtyards of the church, faith, commerce, and solidarity intersect outside local mosques.

Corporations on board

Beyond churches and mosques, public squares often serve as third spaces for migrant workers. On their limited days off, workers often gather in transit hubs and parks, a visible presence that occasionally sparks friction and online debate among citizens. But NGOs like One-Forty are leading efforts to bridge this cultural divide, working to break stereotypes and foster connections between local Taiwanese and the migrant workforce.

The negative response to these gatherings highlights a fundamental question in civic infrastructure: whether the city’s public spaces serve everyone. “Cities must design and manage spaces where everyone feels they belong, especially when migrant workers make up a significant share of the labor force that keeps those cities running,” says urban planner Tiffany Chu, who until recently served as chief of staff to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

While civic infrastructure can be slow to adapt to these shifting demographics, Taiwan’s private sector is moving quickly. Driven by both a labor shortage and a recognition of Taiwan’s changing demographics, major corporations in Taiwan are redesigning their operational models to better integrate new immigrants and migrant workers.

Restaurant chain Kura Sushi, for example, has prioritized the recruitment of new immigrants and foreign students, especially bilingual Vietnamese and Mandarin speakers. Meanwhile, convenience store chain Family- Mart has run several focused initiatives in recent years. The company, working with One-Forty, has transformed more than 4,000 of its stores into migrant-worker-friendly zones. It’s also opened a “new immigrant employment-friendly” convenience store and is one of the sponsors of the 2026 Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants.

Those experiencing this cultural shift are now looking at what comes next. For community leader Wu, the focus is on deeper socioeconomic integration: “I hope that both the Church and the Taiwanese government will pay attention to our lives and livelihoods, creating more opportunities within the Taiwanese working environment,” she says, noting that lingering prejudices still present hurdles.

For THIDA’s Chang, the next step is a deeper fusion of cultures. He notes that domestic Halal dining is still largely seen as an “exotic” cuisine. “Compared to Japan and South Korea, which have already localized Halal versions of specialties like ramen or Wagyu beef, Taiwan still has substantial room for growth in promoting the fusion of cultural diets.”

Wu’s push for equity and Chang’s culinary vision represent a yearning to move from cultural coexistence to integration. Whether and when that transition happens remains to be seen. But for now, the growing influence of new immigrants and migrant workers on Taiwan is already apparent.