ABSTRACT
The cityscape of Taipei is a fluid social space or cultural realm that certain residents, particularly the émigré elites, experienced on emotional, intellectual, and ideological levels, allowing them to connect with American culture. Focusing on the transnational, anticommunist bloc building of the United States Information Service (USIS), I explore the general America-longing mindset among Taiwanese youths, regardless of their attitudes toward nationalist rule, fostered by the USIS’s apparatus throughout the 1960s and 1970s. This US-centric, anticommunist liberalism is manifested in two cases—the comparatively apolitical and literature-emphasized stance of the USIS-subsidized journal Literary Review, and the highly inclusive open-mindedness of the Iowa International Writing Program facilitated by the USIS director Richard McCarthy’s personal network. I conclude that Taipei’s cityscape continues to reveal signs of various cultural influences arising from different outside forces even now.
