Latino or Asian? I’ve seen both mentioned and was just curious.
I know a Filipino who thinks she is Puerto Rican, but I wouldn’t say she is representative.
My dad married into a Filipino family, and to the best of my knowledge, none of them consider themselves Latino.
Plus, aren’t the Filipines much closer to Asia?
They do have some Spaniard genes from previous colonization. Plus, Catholicism is quite entrenched in the Filipino peoples, so I suppose they have many parallels with Carribean/Latino population (Spaniard genes infused with locals of asiatic/mongoloid ancestry).
But categorically, they are not considered Latinos.
The Phillipines are right in the middle of SE Asia, so they are indisputably Asian.
Latino means lots of things. It can just mean someone of Lati American descent, in which case it can’t apply to Phillipinos. It is also used as a linguistic term. A small number of Phillipinos speak Spanish, and so are are technically Latino as well, although I’ve never heard anyone apply the term. But the majority of Phillipinos are not Latino by any defintion.
Blake: I believer you’re referring to the Chavacanos? They are not at all Latinos, but rather Asian-Pacific Islanders (specifically: Filipinos) who speak a Spanish-based creole.
Some consider themselves “Pacific Islander” rather than “Asian” (note - single digit sample size)
I have no idea what they are called, The family I know call themselves Phillipinos. Actually they call themselves the Pesigans. ;). I know they can speak a creole as well, but the whole family except the youngest speak fluent Spanish, or at least that’s what they claim and I have nor reason to doubt them. They seem to believe that in the area they come from most people speak Spanish.
And as I said they are Latinos by the defintion of Latino as someone speaking a Latin language.
Some Filipinos would consider themselves “Hispano” - Isabel Preysler (Julio Iglesias’ ex-wife and Enrique Iglesias’ mother for instance) - as they speak Spanish and identify with the Spanish culture. I think in general many Filipinos see the Spaniards as imperialists and outsiders, and identify with their Malay ancestry.
There is a lot of confusion over the word Latino (or Hispanic). For one thing it is not truly based on “race” - though in practice it is often synonymous with mestizo phenotypes in much of the United States. Some Filipinos share that phenotype, but that doesn’t automatically make them “Latino” instead of “Asian”. Also a person can be Latino and something else at the same time, for instance a Black Panamanian or a Japanese Peruvian.
So I would not automatically say all Filipinos are Latinos or not, but some certainly are based on language, culture, and self-identification. Even some people who are natives of Latin America do not always identify with being ‘Latin’ (i.e. Native peoples, descendants of West Indian Blacks, German Mennonites).
As far as I know, I don’t know of a specific Latino organization (such as LULAC) that consider Filipinos as Latinos. A good mainstream definition of “Latino” can be found at FedStats. The pinoys that I have met in South Texas consider themselves Asian-American. There is a strong historic connection between the Philippines and Mexico, but both groups consider them culturally separate.
XicanoreX
I consider myself Asian or Pacific Islander depending on who I’m with. While I don’t speak Tagalog, my dad does, and I remember hearing a lot of Spanish words thrown into the language.
Hmm…some random info I’ve picked up from my dad…most Filipinos (or Flips as the younger generations like to be called) are a little Chinese and a little Spanish. The poor ones eat dogs. They eat blood pudding that looks a lot like chocolate pudding. And there’s a creature like the boogy man called the Mandarugu.
At my school, the Filipino-American Student Association is one of several under the umbrella organization Asian-American Student Association.
All of the Filipinos I know strongly consider themselves to be Asian.
Blake: If the area they come from in the Philippines is where most people speak Spanish, then they are Chavacanos from the Zamboanga peninsula of Mindanao.
The Filipinos I work with speak English and Tagalog, not Spanish (although one of the two has a Spanish name). I see the split as more “are they Asian or Polynesian?”
It’s a big stretch to say that Filipinos speak Spanish. They typically know a good number of Spanish words, since these were absorbed into their native tongues. Most of them don’t speak Spanish fluently, though.
Many Filipino college graduates were required to learn Spanish. I suppose that those who took to the language well could be said to “speak Spanish,” albeit imperfectly. Knowing most college students though, I think it’s a safe bet that most of them promptly forgot most of what they learned, especially if they had no particular desire to use the language.
Thanks. That’s a peice of trivia I can casually throw into a conversation to impress them.
I don’t think anyone said that. Some Phillipinos certianly do and as such can be considered Latino at a stretch.
It’s not a stretch at all to say that some Filipinos speak Spanish. For one thing, Spanish or a Spanish Creole (both communities exist) have native speakers who just so happen to be Philippine citizens residing in the Philippines. For another, Spanish is studied at all levels of education for obvious reasons.
Blake: Happy to help. Here’s an interesting website regarding Chavacano. It has some good information about the language and the people.
I work with a copywriter who is Filipino. She identifies herself as Asian and speaks English and some Tagalog.
[/anecdotal evidence]
Err, Monty, I grew up in the Philippines, and Spanish wasn’t taught in the elementary schools. It used to be compulsory in high school, but I’m not sure if it still is.
Plus, only something like 3% of Filipinos today are fluent in Spanish. See this page: http://filipinokastila.tripod.com/hoy.html
There you go. From June 2001, only 2% of Filipinos could speak Spanish, with only 2 657 people speaking it as a mother tongue. This is compared to English as a second language, with 36 million speakers, or 42% of a population of 85 million.
Oops, I typed a 3 where I should have typed a 2.
Gee, Sinungaling: since the percentage you provide is greater than 0.00%, I’d have to say my assertion stands. Also, it depends on where you grew up in the Philippines as to if Spanish is taught at all levels.