The Resilient Self explores how international migration re-shapes women’s senses of themselves. Chien-Juh Gu uses life-history interviews and ethnographic observations to illustrate how immigration creates gendered work and family contexts for middle-class Taiwanese American women, who, in turn, negotiate and resist the social and psychological effects of the processes of immigration and settlement. 

Most of the women immigrated as dependents when their U.S.-educated husbands found professional jobs upon graduation. Constrained by their dependent visas, these women could not work outside of the home during the initial phase of their settlement. The significant contrast of their lives before and after immigration—changing from successful professionals to foreign housewives—generated feelings of boredom, loneliness, and depression. Mourning their lost careers and lacking fulfillment in homemaking, these highly educated immigrant women were forced to redefine the meaning of work and housework, which in time shaped their perceptions of themselves and others in the family, at work, and in the larger community.  
 

CHIEN-JUH GU is an associate professor of sociology at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. She is the author of Mental Health Among Taiwanese Americans: Gender, Immigration, and Transnational Struggles. 

"The Resilient Self examines how immigration creates gendered work and family contexts for middle-class Taiwanese American women. Gu's fresh perspective positions these women as social agents and producers of knowledge, not simply as recipients of social forces."

"An interesting, clearly written book that articulates how sociocultural factors shape women's individual voices, self development, and lived experiences. It adds novel information and hidden knowledge about this particular group of migrants from Taiwan."

"A study of middle-class, educated Taiwanese women and their efforts to redefine their lives after immigration as dependent spouses initially unable, by the terms of their visas, to work outside the home."

"[The book] empathize[s] with these women's experiences and to celebrate their adaptation to and acceptance of their new lives and circumstances. Readers seeking these kinds of narratives and microstudy data will be the best served by The Resilient Self."

“The Resilient Self contains many fascinating vignettes about the experiences of Taiwanese immigrant women in the United States. It also highlights the effect immigration can have on the mental health of women..Its theoretical framing…holds promise for future work in migration studies.” 

"The Resilient Self examines how immigration creates gendered work and family contexts for middle-class Taiwanese American women. Gu's fresh perspective positions these women as social agents and producers of knowledge, not simply as recipients of social forces."

"A study of middle-class, educated Taiwanese women and their efforts to redefine their lives after immigration as dependent spouses initially unable, by the terms of their visas, to work outside the home."

"An interesting, clearly written book that articulates how sociocultural factors shape women's individual voices, self development, and lived experiences. It adds novel information and hidden knowledge about this particular group of migrants from Taiwan."

“The Resilient Self contains many fascinating vignettes about the experiences of Taiwanese immigrant women in the United States. It also highlights the effect immigration can have on the mental health of women..Its theoretical framing…holds promise for future work in migration studies.” 

"[The book] empathize[s] with these women's experiences and to celebrate their adaptation to and acceptance of their new lives and circumstances. Readers seeking these kinds of narratives and microstudy data will be the best served by The Resilient Self."