More Tsinoy Than We Admit: Chinese-Filipino Interactions Over the Philippines

In a country that has been forcibly colonized and occupied by various foreign powers over the centuries, the role played by the Chinese in the Philippines is unique. From our earliest precolonial history, traders from China arrived on these shores to do business and, eventually, make a new home. The intermarriage of Chinese settlers and natives produced a new social class of mestizos, with their own distinctive contribution to Philippine society. The government under Spain and, later, the United States, tried to reap the economic benefits of the Chinese presence, while at the same time exerting control over them.

Today, the term “Tsinoy” encompasses a broad range of Chinese cultural mixture and influence in the Philippines. In More Tsinoy Than We Admit, leading scholars explore how Tsinoys have helped shape the destiny of the country and the region over hundreds of years up to the present day. From revolution against Spain and guerrilla resistance against the Japanese, to nationalism and political upheaval in China; from archaeological records to modern cinema; from society and the nation to family and the individual—these essays lay out the complex reality that Tsinoys have had to navigate, as both more “Chinese” and more “Filipino” than we may admit.