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Peter Goodman: Inside Arizona’s TSMC Community
Nothing about Sentio, an apartment complex in North Phoenix, gives away its connection to the future of American manufacturing. Its 325 units are arrayed around a courtyard and a swimming pool.
But the compound is widely known as TSMC Village. Four miles to the north, in the middle of a desert valley, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is building a constellation of factories to make advanced computer chips. The project has relied on an influx of skilled workers from Taiwan who have delivered an infusion of expertise to a country that had not built a major chip factory in more than a decade.
TSMC Village is where many of the incoming families land.
The newcomers have faced challenges in transitioning to life in an American region defined by sprawling suburbia and summer temperatures reaching 110. They have also transformed a sleepy and remote stretch of Greater Phoenix into a fast-growing Taiwanese community.
Businesses aimed at serving the workers and their families have proliferated, from boba tea shops to law firms and insurance agencies that include Mandarin speakers.
Sharon Lee, a former television anchor from Taipei, arrived two years ago with her husband, a TSMC quality control manager, and their twins, then still babies. She knew no one, spoke little English and could not drive. She was also suffering postpartum depression.
Life at TSMC Village quickly supplied her with a community. She organized a group of mothers with small children, and they planned get-togethers in surrounding playgrounds.
With few Chinese restaurants nearby, they took cooking classes and made wontons, hand-pulled noodles and pastries.
“If you want to eat, you have to learn how to cook,” Ms. Lee said. Her group now includes 220 people.
She and her family recently moved out of their apartment, joining five other TSMC households in buying homes in the same community. Their children play together while the parents socialize.
Families arriving from Taiwan are typically shocked by how much house their money can buy. This has supplied Tina Lu, 31, a real estate agent, with what may be the easiest gig in the local industry.
For years, housing prices in Phoenix have been soaring to such heights that even professional couples bemoan the possibility of satisfying their needs and their budgets at the same time.
Not Ms. Lu’s clients. She specializes in finding houses for families that have recently arrived from Taiwan. Most have moved for jobs at TSMC or its suppliers. They are accustomed to paying a king’s ransom for cramped apartments in Taiwan.
She takes them to see modest bungalows beyond the urban fringes. She shows them townhouses looking out on freeways. They are charmed by the community pools, the playgrounds, the space to barbecue.
“They will say, ‘Oh, it’s only $700,000 for a whole house,’” Ms. Lu said. “No matter how small the houses are, they still like them and think they are cheap.”
Born in Taiwan, Ms. Lu moved to Southern California to live with an aunt when she was 12. She speaks Mandarin and English.
She gets most of her clients from referrals via a friend whose husband works at TSMC. She introduces them to Mandarin-speaking mortgage brokers and interior decorators. She takes them shopping for paint and tiles. She shows them how to order Asian groceries online.
Her husband, Ting Chen, who grew up in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, imports boba and distributes it to area tea shops.
All around them are indications of Taiwanese influence. Taroko, a popular chain of baseball batting cages and video games in Taiwan, recently opened an outlet in Mesa, east of Phoenix. Din Tai Fung, a famous purveyor of xiao long bao — Shanghai-style soup dumplings — is opening a restaurant in Scottsdale. China Airlines is launching three-times-a-week nonstop flights from Phoenix to Taipei.
South of the TSMC factory complex, in an area known as Deer Valley, warehouses line new streets, home to Taiwanese construction, engineering and chemical companies that are supporting the building of the chip plants.
Spouses of TSMC employees have started businesses catering to others in the community.
Iwa Ling, 39, grew up in Tainan, a city in the south of Taiwan. Her husband works for TSMC. Two years ago, they moved to Phoenix. She recently opened So Good Kitchen, which makes Taiwanese-style lunches. Every day, she delivers more than 100 of them to the TSMC factory.
Ms. Ling and her husband recently moved into a new house that has twice the room of his old apartment in Taipei, and for half the price.
She misses the convenience of Taiwan — the clusters of restaurants and markets within walking distance. But she does not miss the crowds and the revving of motorbikes. She looks out her dining room window and revels in the view of mountains on the horizon.
Peter S. Goodman is a standout keynote speaker on global economics, trade policy, and financial markets, known for his ability to translate complex economic shifts into clear, compelling narratives. Goodman offers a vital perspective on the geopolitical and economic consequences of policy chaos, making him an essential voice for audiences seeking to understand the fragility of markets in an age of uncertainty. His speaking engagements are managed exclusively by WWSG. To host him for your events, contact us.
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