Filipino Mexicans
Model of the ship San Pedro de Cerdeña on display at the San Diego Fort in Acapulco
Total population
1,200 Filipino nationals residing in Mexico
Regions with significant populations
Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero and Colima
Languages
Spanish, English, Philippine languages
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholicism
Related ethnic groups
Other Filipino diasporas

Filipino Mexicans (Spanish: Mexicanos Filipinos) are Mexican citizens who are descendants of Filipino ancestry.[1] There are approximately 1,200 Filipino nationals residing in Mexico.[2] In addition, genetic studies indicate that about a third of people sampled from Guerrero have Asian ancestry with genetic markers matching those of the populations of the Philippines.[3]

History

Filipinos first arrived in Mexico during the Spanish colonial period via the Manila-Acapulco Galleon. For two and a half centuries, between 1565 and 1815, many Filipinos and Mexicans sailed to and from Mexico and the Philippines as sailors, crews, slaves, prisoners, adventurers and soldiers in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon assisting Spain in its trade between Asia and the Americas.[4] The majority of the Asian migrants to Mexico during this period were Filipinos, and to a smaller extent, other Asian slaves bought from the Portuguese or captured through war.[5][6][7][8]

Embassy of The Philippines in Colonia Veronica Anzures, Mexico City

During the early period of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, Spaniards took advantage of the indigenous alipin (bonded serf) system in the Philippines to circumvent the Leyes de las Indias and acquire Filipino slaves for the voyage back to New Spain. Though the numbers are unknown, it was so prevalent that slaves brought on ships were restricted to one per person (except persons of rank) in the "Laws Regarding Navigation and Commerce" (1611–1635) to avoid exhausting ship provisions. They were also taxed heavily upon arrival in Acapulco in an effort to reduce slave traffic. Traffic in Filipina women as slaves, servants, and mistresses of government officials, crew, and passengers, also caused scandals in the 17th century. Women comprised around 20 percent of the migrants from the Philippines.[4][5]

Filipinos were also pressed into service as sailors, due to the native maritime culture of the Philippine Islands. By 1619, the crew of the Manila galleons were composed almost entirely of native sailors. Many of whom died during the voyages due to harsh treatment and dangerous conditions. Many of the galleons were also old, overloaded, and poorly repaired. A law passed in 1608 restricted the gear of Filipino sailors to "ropa necesaria" which consisted of a single pair of breeches, further causing a great number of deaths of Filipino sailors through exposure. These conditions prompted King Philip III to sign a law in 1620 forcing merchants to issue proper clothing to native crews. During this period, many Filipino sailors deserted as soon as they reached Acapulco. Sebastian de Piñeda, the captain of the galleon Espiritu Santo complained to the king in 1619 that of the 75 Filipino crewmen aboard the ship, only 5 remained for the return voyage. The rest had deserted. These sailors settled in Mexico and married locals (even though some may have been previously married in the Philippines), particularly since they were also in high demand by wine-merchants in Colima for their skills in the production of tubâ (palm wine).[5][9]

Christianized Filipinos comprised the majority of free Asian immigrants (chino libre) and could own property and have rights that even Native Americans did not have, including the right to carry a sword and dagger for personal protection.[4] They often owned coconut plantations in Colima, an example from 1619 was Andrés Rosales who owned twenty-eight coconut palms. Others were merchants, like Tomás Pangasinan, a native of Pampanga, who was recorded to have paid thirteen pesos in taxes for the purchase of Chinese silks from the Manila galleons in the 17th century. The cities of Mexico, Puebla, and Guadalajara had enough Filipino neighborhoods that they formed segregated markets of Asian goods called Parián (named after similar markets in the Philippines).[4]

The descendants of these early migrants mostly settled in the regions near the terminal ports of the Manila galleons. These include Acapulco, Barra de Navidad, and San Blas, Nayarit, as well as numerous smaller intermediate settlements along the way. They also settled the regions of Colima and Jalisco before the 17th century, which were seriously depopulated of Native American settlements during that period due to the Cocoliztli epidemics and Spanish forced labor.[5] They also settled in signiciant numbers in the barrio San Juan of Mexico City, although in modern times, the area has become more associated with later Chinese migrants.[4] A notably large settlement of Filipinos during the colonial era is Coyuca de Benítez along the Costa Grande of Guerrero, which at one point in history was called "Filipino town".[10]

Influence

The Filipinos introduced many cultural practices to Mexico, such as the method of making palm wine, called "tubâ",[11][12][13] the mantón de Manila,[14][15][16] the chamoy,[17] and possibly the guayabera (called filipina in Veracruz and the Yucatán Peninsula).[18] Distillation technology for the production of tequila and mezcal was also introduced by Filipino migrants in the late 16th century, via the adaptation of the stills used in the production of Philippine palm liquor (lambanog) which were introduced to Colima with tubâ.[19][20]

Filipino words also entered Mexican vernacular, such as the word for palapa (originally meaning "coconut palm leaf petiole" in Tagalog), which became applied to a type of thatching using coconut leaves that resembles the Filipino nipa hut.[4]

Various crops were also introduced from the Philippines, including coconuts,[21] the Ataulfo and Manilita mangoes,[22][23] abacá, rice, and bananas.

A genetic study in 2018 found that around a third of the population of Guerrero have 10% Filipino ancestry.[3]

Historical records

Colonial-era Filipino immigrants to Mexico are difficult to trace in historical records because of several factors. The most significant factor being the use of the terms indio and chino. In the Philippines, natives were known as indios, but they lost that classification when they reached the Americas, since the term in New Spain referred to Native Americans. Instead they were called chinos, leading to the modern confusion of early Filipino immigrants with the much later Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Intermarriage and assimilation into Native American communities also buried the true extent of Filipino immigration, as they became indistinguishable from the bulk of the peasantry.[5][24]

Another factor is the pre-colonial Filipino (and Southeast Asian) tradition of not having last names. Filipinos and Filipino migrants acquired Spanish surnames, either after conversion to Christianity or enforced by the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos during the mid-19th century. This makes it very difficult to trace Filipino immigrants in colonial records.[5]

Notable Mexicans of Filipino descent

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Filipinos in Mexican history". www.ezilon.com. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  2. ↑ ":: Welcome to Manila Bulletin Online ::". Manila Bulletin. Archived from the original on 2009-02-09. Retrieved 2017-02-15.
  3. 1 2 Wade, Lizzie (12 April 2018). "Latin America's lost histories revealed in modern DNA". Science. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Carrillo, Rubén. "Asia llega a América. Migración e influencia cultural asiática en Nueva España (1565-1815)". raco.cat. Asiadémica. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Guzmán-Rivas, Pablo (1960). "Geographic Influences of the Galleon Trade on New Spain". Revista Geográfica. 27 (53): 5–81. ISSN 0031-0581. JSTOR 41888470.
  6. ↑ Bethell, Leslie, ed. (1984). The Cambridge History of Latin America. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge History of Latin America: Colonial Latin America. I-II (illustrated, reprint ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 21. ISBN 0521245168.
  7. ↑ López-Calvo, Ignacio (2013). The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru. Fernando Iwasaki. University of Arizona Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-0816599875.
  8. ↑ Hoerder, Dirk (2002). Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium. Andrew Gordon, Alexander Keyssar, Daniel James. Duke University Press. p. 200. ISBN 0822384078.
  9. ↑ Machuca, Paulina (2019). "To make tuba in Mexico and the Philippines. Four centuries of shared history". EncArtes. 2 (3): 214–225. doi:10.29340/en.v2n3.82.
  10. ↑ "Cultural exchanges between Mexico and the Philippines". Geo-Mexico. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
  11. ↑ Astudillo-Melgar, Fernando; Ochoa-Leyva, Adrián; Utrilla, José; Huerta-Beristain, Gerardo (22 March 2019). "Bacterial Diversity and Population Dynamics During the Fermentation of Palm Wine From Guerrero Mexico". Frontiers in Microbiology. 10: 531. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2019.00531. PMC 6440455. PMID 30967846.
  12. ↑ Veneracion, Jaime (2008). "The Philippine-Mexico Connection". In Poddar, Prem; Patke, Rajeev S.; Jensen, Lars (eds.). Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures – Continental Europe and its Empires. Edinburgh University Press. p. 574. ISBN 9780748630271.
  13. ↑ Mercene, Floro L. (2007). Manila Men in the New World: Filipino Migration to Mexico and the Americas from the Sixteenth Century. UP Press. p. 125. ISBN 9789715425292.
  14. ↑ Arranz, Adolfo (27 May 2018). "The China Ship". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  15. ↑ Nash, Elizabeth (13 October 2005). Seville, Cordoba, and Granada: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press. pp. 136–143. ISBN 9780195182040.
  16. ↑ Maxwell, Robyn (2012). Textiles of Southeast Asia: Trade, Tradition and Transformation. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 9781462906987.
  17. ↑ Tellez, Lesley. "The Spicy, Sour, Ruby-Red Appeal of Chamoy". Taste. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  18. ↑ Armario, Christine (30 June 2004). "Guayabera's Origin Remains a Puzzle". Miami Herald. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
  19. ↑ Zizumbo-Villarreal, Daniel; Colunga-GarcíaMarín, Patricia (June 2008). "Early coconut distillation and the origins of mezcal and tequila spirits in west-central Mexico". Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution. 55 (4): 493–510. doi:10.1007/s10722-007-9255-0.
  20. ↑ Bruman, Henry J. (July 1944). "The Asiatic Origin of the Huichol Still". Geographical Review. 34 (3): 418. doi:10.2307/209973.
  21. ↑ Gunn, Bee F.; Baudouin, Luc; Olsen, Kenneth M. (22 June 2011). "Independent Origins of Cultivated Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) in the Old World Tropics". PLOS ONE. 6 (6): e21143. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021143. hdl:1885/62987.
  22. ↑ Rocha, Franklin H.; Infante, Francisco; Quilantán, Juan; Goldarazena, Arturo; Funderburk, Joe E. (March 2012). "'Ataulfo' Mango Flowers Contain a Diversity of Thrips (Thysanoptera)". Florida Entomologist. 95 (1): 171–178. doi:10.1653/024.095.0126.
  23. ↑ Adams, Lisa J. (19 June 2005). "Mexico tries to claim 'Manila mango' name as its own". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Archived from the original on 11 October 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  24. ↑ Slack, Edward R. (2009). "The Chinos in New Spain: A Corrective Lens for a Distorted Image". Journal of World History. 20 (1): 35–67. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 40542720.
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