From ‘sangley’ to ‘Chinaman’, ‘Chinese Mestizo’ to ‘Tsinoy

Unpacking ‘Chinese’ identities in the Philippines at the turn of the Twentieth-Century

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6039697
AutoresRichard T Chu (Associate Professor, History Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen24
Número1
Páginas7-37
Fecha de publicación2023-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAsian Ethnicity (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1463-1369 • E-ISSN: 1469-2953
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14631369.2021.1941755
OpenAlexW3175746481
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas17

This paper examines the historical antecedents of the terminologies ascribed to the Chinese in the Philippines, focusing on the late Spanish to the early American colonial periods. Many government records, newspapers, or books categorized the “Chinese” as either sangley, intsik, Chinese mestizo, or “Chinese/Chino,” in contradistinction to Christianized natives who were labeled as “Indios” and later “Filipinos.” Following dominant and nationalized classifications of race, past scholarship on the Chinese in the Philippines also tended to paint the “Chinese” in the Philippines in a binarist opposition against “Filipinos.” The essentialization of ethnicities has resulted in the perpetuation of a homogenized and monolithic “Chinese” identity that we see in the country today. Using government and non-government publications from the period under study, this paper seeks to demonstrate the power dynamic at particular moments in Philippine society that has led to the reification, reinvention, and reconfiguration of what it means to be “Chinese.”

Asian studies · China · Colonialism · Ethnic chinese · Ethnic group · Ethnology · Government (linguistics · Opposition (politics · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture