Jhuolan H.S. Recruitment With Powerful Points

      I was asked to give an English presentation on Wednesday November 23rd to Taiwan EFL students. I would drive with Leona to Jhuolan Senior High School in Jhuolan, Miaoli to present "Read the World and the World Reads You" but it was more than that.

     The organizer, who learned of me through Kang Hsuan publisher, flippantly said I should talk with the students about the multiculturalism in New York City, but I thought it was far-fetched and incendiary with what I know from being a teacher there for twenty-five years unless I was to give some lame propaganda tourism. For a Taiwanese child, multiculturalism in NYC wouldn't work.

      It would be an effort for an immigrant child to find a way through New York City without injury. I had in mind a scenario of a child in Jhuolan H.S. who goes home one day to his parents telling him they will move to New York City that summer. The title of the new power point presentation was going to be "A Stranger in a Strange Land; A Child's View of New York City." The slides show would include topics such as Satellite Children, Snakehead Refugees, Child Labor Sweatshops and Construction, Territorial Gangs, Safeguarding Yourself from Pick-Pockets and Robberies,  Bullying in Schools, Racism and Sexism, Being a Latch-Key Kids, but also How to Get the Most Out of Your Metrocard, The Lower Eastside Tenement Museum, Museum of Chinese-American History, Ellis Island, and The Statue of Liberty. 

     Multiculturalism in New York City might be an interesting topic for foreign adult visitors, only that ethnic restaurants wouldn't even matter; no Taiwanese visitor would dare go to the places I would introduce or eat any foreign food besides pizza. It would be boring for the kids to hear. The organizer wasn't thinking of them. 

     I asked Leona to ask the organizer to ask the teachers to ask the students to ask questions. When she asked, she learned the students I would be presenting to weren't students of the high school that I would be presenting at; the high school is using my presentation to recruit students from local junior high schools. 

     With only a few days before the presentation, it would be impractical for the students to brainstorm topics. With no preparation, unlike what the  students did in Hu-Wei(https://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2016/05/read-world-and-world-reads-you.html) with no idea of what they would be hearing, or understanding, the power point would be most important. I would stop after each slide and try to use  reported speech to get students involved.

     That morning, we set out in a driving rain to National Jhuolan Senior High School on the edge of Miaoli in the mountainside, forty minutes from Taichung, across two washes northeast of the Taichung reservoir for me to give a presentation to the twenty junior high students the school was recruiting. I used the “Read the World” and “NYC 7 Day-Trip” power point presentations, combined with an emphasis on using English to travel abroad. Using ‘reported speech’ as a medium, I tried to engage the shy children in asking and answering reported questions, but sticking to the presentation.

      I began with an introduction of myself through slides, emphasizing my connection to Taiwan. I then went into selections from the “Read the World” slide show, stopping at “Places of Interest Outside Taiwan,” “Requirements for Foreign Travel,” “Affording to Live and Travel,” “English Resources for Students,” “Methods for Communication; Reported Speech,” and “Caring for Pets and Wildlife” stopping to give the “Emergency” quiz in which students chose, by raising hands, three items to rescue in a fire the three pets, of course! I then went into the  "New York City; Far From the Madding Crowd 7-Day Trip” slide show.
"Read The World And The World Read You"  
https://1drv.ms/p/s!AjeCH0KvEOz8hUFMLbJZfapNIjvd

"New York City; Far From the Madding Crowd 7-Day Trip” 
https://1drv.ms/p/s!AjeCH0KvEOz8iV9semqeiq2qu4Zy

      Before I started the "New York City; Far From the Madding Crowd 7-Day Trip” slide show, I asked how much they thought it would cost; one teacher guessed it would cost 100,000 NT-$3125 for a seven-day trip to New York City. I worked on that premise, showing the children the cost of expenses like airfare, hotel lodgings, subway and attraction admission, and food, making a joke out of eating ramen noodles and slices of pizza and how they could get by on that amount.
     The children loved the slides that had videos embedded in them, such as the "Museum of the Moving Image" video with views of Star Wars costumes they have on display, and the videos of Wonder Wheel, The Cyclone, and The Parachute Jump (defunct as it is) on the Coney Island slide. 
     Before we knew it, time was up. It was a delightful 90 minutes for the children and me. The children in this obscure Hakka town that had been devastated by the 1999 earthquake loved having a foreign teacher  from New York City visit and talk with them. They could see how important it was to learn English well. 

Education act amendment passed

TRAINING BOOST:Department of Teacher and Art Education Director Chang Ming-wen said NT$6m had been earmarked for scholarships for teacher interns

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of Education yesterday passed a draft amendment to the Teacher Education Act (師資培育法), which requires college students to pass teachers’ certification exams before they can work as interns.

Deputy Minister of Education Tsai Ching-hua (蔡清華) said that the amendment was proposed to improve the quality of education, as it would cut the number of interns assigned to teaching work, while helping university students preparing for teachers’ certification exams focus on their studies and not be distracted by internships.

Department of Teacher and Art Education Director Chang Ming-wen (張明文) said that education majors who qualify as teachers would be required to do internships of six months and start teaching at junior-high schools, elementary schools and kindergartens in rural areas or overseas from the third month.

Interns will be required to fulfill work quotas of no more than eight hours per week and would be paid, he said.

The ministry has earmarked NT$6 million (US$190,724) in scholarship funding to go to 100 interns from middle and low-income families, with each student expected to receive NT$10,000 per month during their internship, Chang said.

The draft amendment is to be delivered to the Executive Yuan for approval before going to the legislature for final review.

Taipei teacher rehiring quizzed

KO U-TURN?Music teacher Hsiao Hsiao-ling said that if the mayor had used ‘so-called transitional justice’ as a means to humiliate her, then he should ‘take it back’

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Former Zhongshan Junior High School music teacher Hsiao Hsiao-ling, center, speaks behind a row of certificates at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.

Photo: Kuo Yi, Taipei Times

The Control Yuan yesterday asked the Taipei City Government to explain the legal basis behind its decision to rehire music teacher Hsiao Hsiao-ling (蕭曉玲).

In a letter signed by Control Yuan President Chang Po-ya (張博雅), the agency said that Hsiao’s dismissal by Zhongshan Municipal Junior High School had been upheld by the Supreme Administrative Court and should not be repealed.

It asked the local government to explain what its legal basis was when it overruled the court, saying in September that it would have the Taipei Department of Education rescind the dismissal order.

Hsiao accused the school of persecuting her, including through firing her in 2008 after she initiated a lawsuit against then-Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) over Hau’s “one guideline, one curriculum” education policy.

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) last month told the Taipei City Council that rescinding Hsiao’s dismissal order does not mean she would be rehired and that an evaluation panel would be created to consider her reinstatement.

Ko previously said that the city would compensate Hsiao for lost wages, totaling about NT$4 million (US$127,150), a decision that drew criticism from Taipei city councilors of the pan-blue camp.

Hsiao yesterday decried what she said was a U-turn by Ko.

“If the so-called transitional justice that you claim to value so much is just a tool to humiliate me a second time, take it back,” Hsiao told a news conference in Taipei, which was attended by members of the Humanistic Education Foundation and the Taiwan North Society.

Hsiao said that she would not accept more “institutional violence” like Hau subjected her to nine years ago.

She denied having called a former student a “lowlife” — an accusation leveled against her by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) and reportedly among the reasons she was fired.

That term was directed at former Zhongshan student affairs director Chu Wu-wo (朱毋我), who Hsiao said climbed up to a window to photograph her in a preparation room adjacent to a classroom after she turned down Chu’s request that she submit to an inspection of the work area.

She dismissed questions over whether she had called students “tone deaf” and “cheeky,” as Wang has alleged.

Wang should provide evidence of the accusations, Hsiao said.

Author and civil advocate Neil Peng (馮光遠) accused Ko of “flip-flopping” in policy regarding the Hsiao case and other issues.

Ko, an independent, exploited social angst built up during a string of massive protests before the 2014 Taipei mayoral election and got himself elected, but he has never participated in a social movement, which shows that he lacks core values and would be readily swayed by issues he deems most beneficial for his re-election campaign, Peng said.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) said that Ko’s comments last month were due to political pressure from KMT Taipei city councilors, because the city’s budget proposals are to be reviewed during the current council session.

Bill takes aim at retired Taiwan senior-level education officials

Bill takes aim at retired senior-level education officials

By Rachel Lin  /  Staff reporter

In a bid to prevent possible corruption at private universities, the Ministry of Education on Wednesday passed a draft amendment to the Organization Act of the Ministry of Education (教育部組織法), that would bar officials from assuming posts as presidents, vice presidents, directors or supervisors at such schools within three years of their retirement.

If passed by the legislature, the rule would apply to those holding the posts of minister or deputy minister of education, secretary-general of the ministry and director of the Department of Higher Education.

These officials have actual influence over higher education, as they are entitled to formulate policies and allocate resources, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said, adding that the amendment was proposed at the request of education groups and legislators.

Whenever officials who had served in these roles took up jobs at private universities, critics complained that the former public servants were acting as “guardians” in their new roles and helping schools avoid the ministry’s supervision, Pan said.

Ex-officials who secure jobs as directors or supervisors at private schools are often described as “fat cats” because they still receive their government pensions while earning a private salary, Pan said.

“These accusations are a very harsh criticism of the ministry and myself,” Pan said.

The amendment would be sent to the Executive Yuan for approval and then the legislature for a final review, he said.

The amendment would be based on the principle of legitimate expectations, meaning that former officials who have already taken up posts at private institutions would not be affected, the ministry said.

There are 10 former senior ministry officials who now hold jobs at private universities, including former minister Yang Chao-hsiang (楊朝祥), who is president of Fo Guang University; former deputy minister Lin Tsung-ming (林聰明), president of Nanhua University; former deputy minister Chen Yi-hsing (陳益興), president of TransWorld University; and former deputy minister Chou Tsan-te (周燦德), the president of Hsing Wu University.

The Executive Yuan late last month passed a draft amendment to the Retirement of School Faculty and Staff Act (學校教職員退休條例), which seeks to bar retired public-school employees who are later hired by government-funded institutions from receiving their pensions while working.

The bill is pending a final review by the legislature.

The National Federation of Teachers’ Unions has criticized that bill for not including retired school employees who land jobs at private institutions on the list of personnel who would be barred from double-dipping.

As of August last year, 1,667 retired public servants, public-school employees and military personnel were working at private universities, ministry statistics showed.

The legislature’s Budget Center panned retirees who have adopted this practice, saying that they are basically receiving two salaries, which violates the principle of social justice

Taiwan Students occupy DPP headquarters to protest labor bill

Students occupy DPP headquarters to protest labor bill

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Students yesterday break into Democratic Progressive Party headquarters in Taipei, hoping to talk to President Tsai Ing-wen about the government’s plans to cancel seven national holidays.

Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times

Students stormed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters in Taipei yesterday, escalating a protest over controversial amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).

About 20 students from groups affiliated with the Workers’ Struggle Alliance scuffled with police guarding the glass doors lead to the DPP’s offices, shouting for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to come out and face them over the party’s plan to cut the number of national holidays per year from 19 to 12.

The cuts would be implemented following the passage of a bill that is part of reforms to implement a 40-hour workweek, with a final vote possible as soon as next week after the expiration of a one-month waiting period imposed after cross-caucus negotiations.

Protesters occupied a reception area at the DPP offices shortly after noon, prior to a meeting of the DPP Central Standing Committee, after reportedly failing to force their way down to a lower floor where the meeting was to be held.

They pasted slogans across foyer walls and doors, occasionally shouting slogans in between speeches.

“The main reason [for the occupation] is the response we received from [DPP caucus whip] Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) yesterday [Tuesday] and the fact that we have protested in front of DPP headquarters many times, but have never received a response,” Taiwan Higher Education Union student action committee member Su Tzu-hsuan (蘇子軒) said.

Ker on Tuesday said he was only willing to discuss the amendments with other legislators, after protesters briefly occupied one of his offices at the Legislative Yuan to demand a public debate.

The protesters also criticized statements by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), who said Tuesday’s occupation was unacceptable, as a legislator’s office constitutes “private space.”

“If offices were truly ‘private space,’ then Su as legislative speaker should not have issued an official condemnation and the fact that he did not shows that they at least partially belong to the public,” Su Tzu-hsuan said, threatening that the protesters would follow DPP members “like shadows” if they failed to respond.

“We have to draw a line between ourselves and this ‘capitalist’ party that is advancing the interests of the wealthy, meeting secretly with business groups and capitalists, rather than listening to young people,” he said.

The protesters occupied the foyer for about an hour before attempting to stage a retreat, only to be blocked briefly by police officers before they were allowed to quietly trickle into the elevators.

DPP officials reportedly asked the police to refrain from dragging the students out of the building.

Su said the protesters staged a voluntary retreat after it became apparent there was “absolutely no way” that they would meet with Tsai.

DPP spokesman Juan Chao-hsiung (阮昭雄) said the party respected the protesters’ opinions and their right to freedom of expression.

“We respect different opinions and believe these young people have fully expressed theirs,” Juan said when asked why no DPP officials tried to communicate with the protesters.

Tsai did not comment on the protest during the committee meeting, Juan said.

Additional reporting by Chen Wei-han

Taiwan Group slams plan to scrap subsidies on foreign students’ NHI premiums

Group slams plan to scrap subsidies on foreign students’ NHI premiums

‘UNFAIR’:Foreign students would be required to pay the same premium as a Taiwanese earning NT$87,600 per month if the proposal is passed, a rights group said

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) proposal to cancel government subsidies on monthly National Health Insurance (NHI) system premiums paid by foreign students discriminates against the students, who would have to pay unreasonably high premiums compared with Taiwanese residents, the Taiwan International Students Movement (TISM) said yesterday.

The group advocating international students’ rights criticized the policy, which seeks to expand NHI coverage to include Chinese students while canceling government subsidies for all international students, which means they would be required to pay a premium of NT$1,249 per month.

International students are currently required to pay NT$749 in premiums under the NHI.

Group member Oung Kang Wei (黃康偉), a Malaysian, said the government allows international students to work 20 hours per week in part-time jobs, while prohibiting Chinese students from working.

“However, international students should by no means be considered well-paid,” Huang said, adding that instead of raising the premiums, the government should charge foreign students according to the national minimum wage of NT$21,900, which would put premiums for international students at NT$308 per month.

Charging higher premiums from international students would put them in a difficult financial situation, considering they are already being charged high tuition fees at universities, he said.

Group member Tan Seow Nee (陳曉妮) said she is in favor of extending NHI coverage to Chinese students, but is against raising NHI premiums.

If the premiums are raised, the government would be charging every foreign student as much as a Taiwanese who earns NT$87,600 per month, which is unfair, she said.

The government is charging international students as much as a Taiwanese earning NT$53,000 per month, she added.

Tsai’s proposal is not final, Ministry of Education official Liu Su-miao (劉素妙) said, adding that relevant statutes are still being drafted.

The Democratic Progressive Party legislative caucus is to propose a draft amendment on the issue on Monday, she said.

If the proposal is passed, the new premium rate will not affect students who are already enrolled in universities, she said.

The NHI system, with its expansive coverage, is a leading health insurance system in the world, Liu said, adding that premiums that international students are charged would still be relatively low after the increase compared with those of other nations.

She said that international students pay higher tuition fees than local students because the government subsidizes tuition fees for Taiwanese using the taxes they pay.

The tuition fees that international students pay at Taiwanese universities are only a fraction of what Japanese, South Korean and US institutions charge their foreign students, she said.

Teachers retiring at 65 won’t fix budget: union

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Requiring teachers to wait until 65 before they could retire would not relieve the government’s budget woes, while training for new teachers would be thrown into crisis, National Federation of Teachers’ Unions (NFTU) officials said yesterday, disputing Minister Without Portfolio Lin Wan-i’s (林萬億) claims of a national consensus on the issue.

“While in most professions a highly paid employee who retires is replaced by someone with a comparable salary, the salary structure for teachers is different. Teachers receive their highest salaries after 50 and those who retire are replaced by graduates who only earn about half as much,” union president Chang Hsu-cheng (張旭政) said, adding that requiring teachers to retire at 65 would not relieve the budgetary pressures because of the higher “replacement ratios” for older retirees.

“The total monetary value of pensions for someone who retires at 65 is not much less than for someone who retires at 55, because the 65-year-old retiree would have contributed considerably more per year to their pension,” he said. “When you weigh it all up, a later retirement age is not necessarily going to be better for the budget.”

Lin last week announced that the national pension reform commission had reached a consensus that, with appropriate “supplementary measures,” the retirement age for most professions should be raised to 65, sparking a protest by civil servants and teachers outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Sunday.

Private-sector workers begin receiving their pensions at 60, with civil servants and other government employees often allowed to take a discounted pension if they retire earlier.

Given the declining demand for teachers as the number of schoolchildren shrinks following years of low birth rates, raising the retirement age to 65 would effectively rule out the recruitment of any teachers for at least 10 years, preventing schools from receiving any new blood, Chang said, adding that the average retirement age for teachers is 54.

“From an institutional perspective, it would make more sense to adjust the formula so that the overall pension received by a teacher is the same, regardless of when they retire,” he said, adding that some parents prefer their children to be taught by younger teachers.

“We recommend that the government choose a more natural mechanism [than a mandatory retirement age],” he said, adding that voluntary retirement allows for a “natural elimination” of teachers who feel worn out or lack the passion to educate.

Taiwan Student’s poems become Facebook hit

Student’s poems become Facebook hit

By Lee Jung-ping and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

An undated photograph shows poems and simple illustrations on the pages of a book used for daily communication between a student and his teacher at Taoyuan Sinwu Junior High School.

Photo copied by Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times

A junior-high school student’s correspondence with his teacher through poems has helped the two garner millions of online fans after the writings were published on social media.

Taoyuan Sinwu Junior High School eighth-grade teacher Lu Chang-hsiao (陸昌孝) said that since April, he has been sharing poems with a student in his daily communication book after the student began writing poems to communicate his thoughts to the teacher.

Lu on Sunday said it was rare to see a student express his thoughts through poetry.

After the beginning of the school year in August, the student wrote poems every day for a month, Lu said, adding that he responded to them every time.

The poems were posted on the school’s Facebook page, drawing more than 2.95 million visitors, many praising the student for his prowess at poetry.

“Is this the talented child poet Tang Po-hu (唐伯虎) of the Ming Dynasty?” one netizen asked, while others praised the teacher for his patience and compassion.

In response, Lu wrote a message jokingly saying: “He writes poems every day and I do not have the wits to keep up.”

When asked about his reaction to the poems garnering about 3 million views on Facebook, Lu said: “I was shocked. This will be the death of me. All this attention, I wonder how many more viewers will there be?”

Lu said he asked Taoyuan Sinwu Junior High School principal Chen Ta-kuei (陳大魁) to reduce his course load so that he can have more time to respond to students through their communication book reports.

Lu, who is a geography teacher, said it was the first time that he had encountered a student who writes poems in his daily communication book.

He added that writing daily poems had him doing mental gymnastics and that all he can do is tell the students that “you have to stop writing” poems.

The school said the student is the top of his class, but prefers to keep a low profile and only wanted to share his thoughts with the teacher, adding he is happy that he and the teacher can have such good rapport.

Born In The U.S., Raised In China: 'Satellite Babies' Have A Hard Time Coming Home

Nicole Xu for NPR

Chun Zheng has lived through a house fire, a flood and an earthquake. None of that, she says, compares to sending her infant daughter and son abroad to live with her extended family.

"It's the worst hardship I've ever had to bear," says the 42-year-old hotel housekeeper, speaking in Mandarin.

Both of her children — 7-year-old Joyce and 5-year-old Jay — were born in Boston. But for the first years of their lives, they stayed with relatives in Fujian, a southeastern province of China. Joyce spent more than four years with her aunt, whom she still calls "ma." (She calls Chun Zheng "mommy.")

Anytime you eat at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, it's likely that somebody in that restaurant has a child who is in China at the moment."

Cindy Liu, psychologist, Harvard Medical School

At the time, Chun Zheng and her husband were living in a cramped room in Boston's Chinatown, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with strangers. She says they worked long hours at restaurants to save enough money to eventually bring their kids home.

"Anytime you eat at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, it's likely that somebody in that restaurant has a child who is in China at the moment," says Cindy Liu, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. She points out that no one knows exactly how many Chinese immigrant families send their babies to be raised by family in China.

That's partly why she helped start a research project focusing on Chinese immigrants in the Boston area who are raising what some psychologists call "satellite babies." Like satellites in space, these children leave from and return to the same spot.

You can find similar arrangements among immigrant communities from South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, researchers say. The satellite babies of Chinese immigrants usually come back to the U.S. in time for school.

When Satellite Babies Go To School

For their study, Liu and her colleagues interviewed adults who were once satellite babies to try to track the long-term impacts of the experience. Researchers say there are benefits from spending your early years in another country, away from your birth parents. Many satellite babies are exposed to their immigrant parents' mother tongues and often develop strong ties with their grandparents and other extended relatives.

While Liu says that separation between satellite babies and their biological parents does not necessarily harm their relationship, some teachers and principals in New York City, where researchers also see this phenomenon, say these children can sometimes show subtle signs of trauma.

Listen to the story from WNYC

Born In The U.S., Raised In China: 'Satellite Babies' Have A Hard Time Coming Home

"They're always looking around to see who's there with them," says Principal Elizabeth Culkin of P.S. 176 in Brooklyn. "And they always need that sense of knowing where they are and who's there to protect them."

Members of Culkin's staff say sometimes these children may act out by pushing or shoving other students to get attention. There are, of course, language difficulties, and some children show signs of attachment disorders.

Brenda Tang, who teaches kindergarten at P.S. 176, has seen satellite babies in her classroom every year. This year, she spotted 5-year-old Vivien Huang on the first day of school. While most of the other students were busy drawing, Vivien only scrawled a couple of shapes. Her mother, Hong Zheng (no relation to Chun Zheng of Boston), says Vivien returned from China in June.

Hong Zheng's story may sound familiar; she says she took Vivien to live with her grandparents in Fujian province when she was a baby. That way she and her husband could continue to put in long hours working at a restaurant. She did the same when her younger daughter was born a couple years later.

Five-year-old Vivien Huang reads a book in her kindergarten classroom. After being raised in China, her teacher says she's eagerly learning English from picture books.

Jennifer Hsu/WNYC

Though Hong Zheng says she cried for a month after Vivien left, they stayed in touch through video chats.

Now, Hong Zheng says she's quit working to care for the girls, and she's planning to bring her parents to New York City from China because Vivien misses them so much.

"Every morning she demands to video chat with her grandfather," she says in Mandarin.

The Role Of Social Services

In Boston, Yoyo Yau, who directs family and community engagement at Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, says she's concerned that parents and their children are often not prepared to be reunited in the U.S.

"That separation is so heavy for the parent to bear because they say, 'I'm the parent here. You should love me. I love you. How we can not do it?' But the child just can't," says Yau, who has organized parenting classes and offered counseling for mothers and fathers of satellite babies.

Similar services exist in New York City. In Flushing, Queens — home to one of the city's three booming Chinatowns — Lois Lee is an evangelist for the cause. She runs a child care program for the Chinese-American Planning Council inside a public school. Lee says the satellite babies she knows often experience a complicated mixture of emotions about leaving one family for another.

"They're angry," she says. "'Why did you send me away? How come my brother's here but you sent me away?' And then they're disconnected."

More free day-care programs, she argues, could encourage parents to bring their children back from China at an earlier age or even prevent families from sending children abroad. Lee says New York City's expansion of universal pre-kindergarten in New York City may be one reason why she's noticed anecdotally more children returning at age 4 instead of 5.

Meanwhile, her solution is to engage children in conversations about their experiences.

During a visit to a class of 8- and 9-year-olds, almost every hand shot up when Lee asked how many children were satellite babies — a term she says they all know. Many have vivid memories about the difficult transition, using the words "upset" and "frustrated" to describe how they felt about moving back to New York. We aren't using the children's names to protect their privacy.

One boy says he was angry because, "My parents lied to me that they were going to visit me" in China. Another says he was frustrated because, "I didn't even know my parents exist" until he got off the plane and they greeted him with gummy bears.

One girl recalls, "I was like, 'Grandpa, grandma, why are you leaving now?' And then my grandmother started crying."

NPR ED

The Big Move To Improve Head Start

Many of the children seem to understand that they were sent abroad because their parents needed more time to focus on their jobs, often in restaurants or nail salons.

"They didn't have enough money to raise us, to raise me in America," one boy adds.

Researchers say they don't think the satellite babies phenomenon is going anywhere in the U.S. as long as affordable child care stays out of reach for many immigrant families.

Translations provided, in part, by WNYC producers Richard Yeh and Jenny Ye.