Asia-Pacific in the Making of the Americas: Toward a Global History

Chinese Mestizo Identity Before the Philippine Revolution

Toward the latter part of the nineteenth-century, the Spanish colonial government ended the Chinese mestizo-indio legal classification in most places. The government stopped taxing its colonial subjects according to ethnic classification, but rather on their capacity to earn. The Spanish government also removed the gremios, a “kind of combined municipal governing corporation and religious sodality” formed by the Chinese and the Chinese Meztios in 1687 and 1741, except in Manila and in some other urban centers with a significant Chinese mestizo population.[12] In these areas, the term “Chinese mestizo” remained as a social classification.

How did Chinese mestizos identify themselves? Most studies focus on Chinese mestizos who were male and second, third, or several generations removed from their original paternal Chinese ancestor.[13] These Chinese mestizos, especially those who belonged to the upper-class, did not identify with their “Chinese” identity.[14] They were described as being largely “Hispanicized” and “Catholic.” On the other hand, lower-class Chinese mestizos were more likely to be perceived as “more Chinese,” especially in areas where there was a large Chinese community.[15]

There was an effort amongst reformist Chinese mestizos to identify themselves with the larger majority of indios, in order to counter Spanish racial prejudice against Philippine colonial subjects.[16] Some Chinese mestizos like Jose Rizal aligned with the indios and called themselves “indios bravos,” i.e. “brave Indians.” When the demand for reforms did not succeed in changing Spanish treatment toward its colony, a revolution broke out. Several Chinese mestizos—including Emilio Aguinaldo, Juan Ponce, Telesforo Chiudian, Luis Yangco, and Mariano Limjap—joined forces with indios to fight for independence from Spain and later on from the Americans. They occupied the leadership positions in the revolutionary government. Thus, in the nationalist version of Philippine history, many of these Chinese mestizos are considered “fathers” of the “Filipino” nation. Scholars consequently emphasize the “Hispanic” and “Catholic” side of these Chinese mestizos in order to fit their lives into the nationalist version of “Filipino” identity, one which is characterized as largely Hispanicized and Catholicized.
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[12] Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 19.
[13] Edgar Bernard Wickberg, “The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History,” in Journal of Southeast Asian History 5, no. 1 (1964).; Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life.; Antonio Tan, “Chinese Mestizos and the Formation of Filipino Nationality,” in Chinese in the Philippines, ed. Theresa Cariño (Manila: De La Salle University, 1985).
[14] Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life,137.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Concerned that contact between Chinese mestizos and indios might lead to a collaboration to topple the Spanish government in the Philippines, Spanish writers such as Sinibaldo de Mas, in a secret report in 1842, proposed the prohibition of intermarriages and that a strict divide and rule be applied. This way, the “brains and money” of the Chinese mestizos would not be allied with “the numerical strength of the indios” to drive away the Spaniards from the colony (Wickberg 2000, 144).  

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