Executive Director

I have been fortunate to receive the kindness and support of many people... I am still exploring my way home, and perhaps this journey might be able to offer some guidance to fellow wanderers seeking a path back to where they belong.

Director of Public Relations

I am from a mixed background of Taiwan’s ethnic groups, including the Indigenous Pangcah/Amis people. I earned a Ph.D. in Law at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, and an affiliate of the UW Center for American Indian & Indigenous Studies. My research bridges law, technology, and Indigenous studies, focusing on Indigenous self-determination, decolonization, artificial intelligence, and data sovereignty. My work also engages with international networks of Indigenous scholars and practitioners to advocate for Indigenous rights and to raise cultural awareness on topics such as cultural appropriation. 

Director of Program Management and Communications

Huiyu was born and raised in a Taiwanese Hokkien speaking household in Chiayi, Taiwan. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at the University of Washington. Through her dissertation study titled Indigenous Language Teaching and Learning: Practices in the Cou Saviki Tribal Classroom in Taiwan, Huiyu partnered with the Cou Saviki community and explored an Indigenous-led educational program that sustain the language and culture. Her work highlights the importance of Indigenous educational sovereignty and challenges dominant Western assumptions about knowledge, language, learning, and educational authority.

Huiyu currently resides on the ancestral land of the Puyallup People in Tacoma, Washington, where she serves as a Teaching Associate and Field Supervisor in the School of Education at the University of Washington Tacoma. Her broader scholarly and teaching interests include Indigenous language reclamation, inclusive and multilingual education, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and social justice-oriented teaching and learning.

Director of Operations

Yi-Jen Yu was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, on the traditional territory of the Ketagalan people, as a descendant of Taiwan’s Minan and Hakka settlers. She later moved to the United States and now resides in Princeton, New Jersey.

Yi-Jen received her B.A. in Chinese Literature and M.A. in Butoh and Activist Theater Studies from National Taiwan University, and her Ph.D. in Theatre and Dance with a focus on Performance Studies from the University of California, San Diego.

Even while fully aware of the difficulty of confronting reality through fiction, she continues to believe in theatre’s power to change the world. Her research explores the convergence of Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, and Indigenous Studies to examine the political and affective momentum that bodily materiality generates within performing contexts. This inquiry leads her to investigate the multisensory representation of bodies across media such as photography, musicking praxis, literature, and contemporary dance in East Asia. Her doctoral research, Between Body and Object: Utopia, Materiality, and Performance in Taiwan, examines the systemic erasure of bodies within the aftereffects of Taiwan’s authoritarian and Han nationalist past. Her study of Paiwan pop artist Aljenljeng Tjaluvie’s work was recently published in Performance Matters (2024) under the title “Startled Stomach: Contemporary Indigeneity and Sensorial ‘Culture Shock’ in Aljenljeng Tjaluvie’s Paiwan Pop Music.”

Director of Operations

Oscar is currently a PhD student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Victoria, specializing in Indigenous education. He previously served as a research assistant for the Presidential Office’s Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee, where he contributed to advancing transitional justice in textbooks and worked as an instructor for related courses. He has also worked as a guide at the Hualien Indigenous Wild Vegetable Center, promoting the concept of food sovereignty and the conservation of Indigenous plant foraging knowledge. His goal is to draw on Indigenous Wholistic Theory to contribute his knowledge and expertise to land-based pedagogy, strengthening connections between communities, land, and ecology, and expanding how future generations imagine Indigenous cultural well-being.

Director of Finance

Katy descends from Minan and Hakka settlers and the Pazih people. She grew up in Xindian, the traditional territory of the Ketagalan people. She holds Master of Social Work and Master of Public Administration degrees from the University of Washington and currently works as a mental health therapist at a community health clinic. In the past, she has worked in secondary education, emotional support for LGBTQ+ communities, behavioral health, crisis intervention, and gender-based violnece. She is learning to approach case and community work, as well as policy advocacy, from trauma-informed and decolonial lenses.

Director of Finance

Raised in Taiwan and now a full-time mother based in the Seattle area, I believe that the more local, the more global. I hope to play a part in passing on Taiwanese culture.

Managing Director

Sra Kacaw (Chen Bo-jun) is an Amis from Taiwan who has long been rooted in Shoufeng, Hualien, advancing the Cikasuan community memory project. His work spans curation and grassroots action: leading the “Tracing Cikasuan” cultural route and cultural-heritage research; collaborating with the Hualien Indigenous Wild Vegetable School and Slow Food travel initiatives; and developing the Alupalan natural-dye craft as a community industry. He also advocates annually around the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and co-founded the North America PAFATIS network (Pacific Alliance for Autonomous Traditions, Indigenous Sovereignty). In recent years, combining fieldwork and archival research from Hualien to Tokyo, he has advanced a decolonial dialogue on “island war memory,” working to embed cultural sovereignty in everyday community life.

Managing Director

Ljavaus is Paiwan and grew up in a multicultural family with both Paiwan and Han heritage. Having a mixed background, she’s always had a lot of thoughts and feelings about identity. She’s currently working as a specialist at the National Human Rights Commission, mainly focusing on Indigenous people human rights issues.

Managing Director

I work as an engineer at the Hualien Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agency of Rural Development and Soil and Water Conservation. Since my college days, I have been involved in indigenous-led social movements and programs. Recently, I have been helping my tribal community with our cultural assets and field research. I am also promoting culture and slow food movement organizing with eastern Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples. I hope to show the world Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples’ strength and beauty through multiple angles.

Related Experiences:

Spokesperson for Slow Food Concepts- Indigenous Peoples Culture and Tourism in Eastern Taiwan

Consultant for Hualien City’s Municipal Policy Promotion

President for Hualien Cultural Association

Lead Guide for Hualien Indigenous Wild Vegetable Center