On July 5 the Northwest Chinese Baptist Church in Phoenix opened its weekly Mandarin service with a verse from the Old Testament. A pianist, a guitarist and a drummer prepared to lead the 100 congregants in song. The deacon read out the preamble to the Declaration of Independence \u2014 \u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident\u201d \u2014 and then invited the congregation to rise and sing \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic.\u201d It was a good moment to exalt American ideals. The prior night, fireworks marked America\u2019s 250th anniversary of independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next speaker was a guest, Timothy Cheng, the chief executive of a Christian media company. Flicking through a slide presentation, he spoke about the significance of semiconductors, noting that chips made in Taiwan are the lifeblood of the American economy. He clicked to the next slide. The faces of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jensen Huang appeared on the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn earlier years, Western missionaries brought knowledge, education and English to the East,\u201d Mr. Cheng said. \u201cThey brought the Gospels and Western medicine. Now that Taiwanese have become fortunate and strong, why should they not transfer knowledge to the United States to make it powerful?\u201d…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parents are more concerned. Not about food fights \u2014 though the idea perplexes them \u2014 but about the laxity of education. Arizona\u2019s public schools rank among the lowest<\/a> in the country for graduation rates and the third-lowest<\/a> in spending per pupil. Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> I went to Phoenix to spend time with the Taiwanese community. TSMC will invest $265 billion and send thousands of engineers and their families, which marvel at their new lives in the Sunbelt\n\nMy first feature as a contributing writer to the New York Times:\nhttps:\/\/t.co\/n73RydKBiD<\/p>— Dan Wang (@danwwang) October 23, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>\n
Taiwanese families were enticed to the United States in substantial part by the promise of sending their children to American colleges. Now parents fret that the Arizona educational system won\u2019t help their kids get there. They\u2019re nonplussed that teachers sometimes wave off assigning homework to high school seniors; some schools allow seniors to take Friday afternoons off. The idea astonishes parents used to spending big sums on extracurricular prep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n