Italian-American Mike Fonte was a Catholic missionary in Taiwan back in the 1960s where he became proficient in Taiwanese Taigi, related to the Hokkien languages of China and Southeast Asia. This in due course brought him into contact with dissident pro-democracy activists and eventually to him becoming the U.S. representative for Taiwan's now ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
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00:00Taiwan, Tien Koong.
00:05Italian-American Michael Fante speaks one of Taiwan's native languages.
00:10He's fluent in Taiwanese Tai Chi, known by some as Holloway.
00:15That's me studying Holloway, 1967, in Taichung, Sanmenlao.
00:22Fante learned it working as a Roman Catholic missionary in central Taiwan back in the 1960s.
00:29From those beginnings, Fante would go on to become a prominent figure in Taiwan's ruling
00:34Democratic Progressive Party.
00:36He's good friends with former President Tsai Ing-wen and current Vice President Bi-Kim Hsiao.
00:42She's really a very warm person.
00:44You might not see that in action unless you got to know her well.
00:47So I consider her a real friend.
00:50I think she considers me a friend as well.
00:53His house is decorated with honors and letters given to him by President Lai Ching-te and
00:58former Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.
01:01But Fante's name doesn't make headlines in Taiwan because he's mostly been in the United
01:06States working for the DPP in Washington, D.C.
01:11How did Fante land that job?
01:14Well, he left Taiwan in 1970 after realizing that the social justice work he wanted to
01:20do just wasn't viable under Taiwan's authoritarian government at the time, which had imposed
01:26martial law.
01:28I mean, one of my problems that I had when I was there was that the Roman Catholic hierarchy
01:32was not willing to see us do anything that would upset the government.
01:37Okay, I'll go now.
01:40Fante then pursued an Asian Studies degree at the University of Michigan, where he met
01:46leading Taiwanese democracy activists Peng Ming-min and Lin Zong-yi.
01:51This one I really treasure because the woman I mentioned to you, who was Lin Zong-yi's
01:56daughter, Hyuk-bun, gave it to me.
02:01Taiwanese Daii was at the time perceived as the language of the dissident community.
02:06And Fante's proficiency helped him become a conduit for democracy activist exiles in
02:11the U.S.
02:12I know it was considered a bit of an irritant that we were studying Taiwanese, we were speaking
02:18Taiwanese.
02:19There's still an awful lot of nervousness on the KMT side about, are these people going
02:25to rise up?
02:26Here we go.
02:27This is hard.
02:29After a few years in California, Fante reconnected with Peng Ming-min in Washington in 1986,
02:36the same year the DPP was officially founded.
02:39Shortly thereafter, USNGO, the National Democratic Institute, invited the party to Washington.
02:45So Peng said to me, go be their gopher, take them around.
02:49So I did that.
02:50And I got to know all the founders.
02:51That's where I met Chou Yi-ren, all the other people, Sol Jin-jung, people like that.
02:58Chou and Su, leading DPP figures who went on to take government positions in the 2000s,
03:05helping the party expand its presence abroad.
03:07I worked for 10 years as a consultant with Xiao Bi-khim and Chou Yi-ren.
03:14There was a DPP mission here from 1995 to 2000.
03:17Bi-khim was actually in charge of it for a while.
03:20And when the DPP reopened its U.S. mission in 2013, the party tapped Fante as the office's
03:26director.
03:27Bi-khim Xiao, now the country's vice president, had gone on to become a legislator in Taiwan,
03:33and Fante was a staunch friend of the party.
03:35I speak English.
03:36I know the Washington scene fairly well.
03:38I've got my degree in Asian studies, whatever the hell.
03:42It all worked together to make me a viable candidate at that point.
03:46Fante was the perfect go-between for the DPP and U.S. policymakers.
03:52Our job is to be as honest as we can with the DPP about what we're hearing here about
03:58policy from a variety of sources, mostly from the government in power here, but also the
04:04opposition as well.
04:06Fante has since passed the torch as DPP's Washington director.
04:11But his love for Taiwan is still very much a part of him.
04:14I'm Italian-American, and when I got to Taiwan, I realized family, food, and friends, right?
04:20It's the same for Taiwanese, it's the same for Italians.
04:23So it's very easy to feel part of that culture and make a lot of good friends.
04:28From Brooklyn, New York, to the farms of central Taiwan, to Washington, D.C., Michael Fante
04:34probably never imagined that his early years as a missionary would spark a career in politics
04:40and the Democratic Progressive Party probably never thought that one of its biggest overseas
04:45champions would be an Italian-American fluent in Taiji.
04:50Leon Lien, Laurel Stewart, and Leslie Liao in Washington, D.C. for Taiwan Plus.