Richard T. Chu Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila: Family, Identity, and Culture, 1860s–1930s

Abstract

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Focusing on the 1860–1930 period, Richard Chu’s book deals with
an important aspect of Philippine history that has been relatively
neglected in recent years. It contributes to transnational
histories by documenting the flexible border-crossing diasporic
strategies of a select number of Manila-born “Chinese mestizo”
merchants and their families. The illustrative cases include those
of Joaquin Barrera Limjap and his son Mariano Limjap, Ignacio Sy
Jao Boncan, Ildefonso Tambunting, Cu Unjieng, Carlos Palanca Tan
Quien-sien as well as Bonifacio Limtuaco (a mestizo born in China
unlike the others and saw himself decidedly as Chinese). Chu argues
that these Chinese mestizos deployed identities flexibly and
strategically, especially during the late nineteenth century.
Excelling in “liminal virtuosity” (300), they retained a Chinese
mestizo identity, but concomitantly identified themselves as
Chinese (chino or sangley) and were also
naturalized Spanish subjects (españoles
naturalizados)—a flexibility seen in their diverse and
ethnically crisscrossing relationships. Settling on a particular
identity as either “Filipino” or “Chinese,” Chu contends, did not
occur until the 1920s and the 1930s, when singular identities
hardened and were reified due to developments in Chinese and
Filipino nationalisms.
These interesting points are pursued by describing in rich
detail various familial practices ranging from dual families and
residences (usually one in China and another in the Philippines) to
the malleability and multiplicity of names, religious practices,
adoption of children, inheritance practices, business practices,
public presentations of self, linguistic adaptability, and so on.
Akin to a subplot, kinship hierarchies oppressive of women and
children are also discussed.
Chu emphasizes that, whereas Edgar Wickberg focused on
macrohistory, his book’s focus is microhistory. Nonetheless, some
assertions in the book are intended to rewrite Wickberg. In
particular, the assertion that in the late nineteenth century
Chinese mestizos did not necessarily identify with “Filipinos” or
indios—or, more accurately, the
naturales—is decidedly revisionist.
It should be noted that Wickberg’s broad canvass of history is
supported by quantitative data gathered by Daniel Doeppers (listed
in the book’s bibliography), which demonstrate a considerable
decline in public identification with the mestizo category during
the 1880s and 1890s. In Manila Chinese mestizos accounted for 10.6
percent of all announced burials in 1868–1870 and 10.2 percent in
1881–1882; however, by 1892 Chinese mestizos represented 5.2
percent only of the total. The reduction by half is demographically
exceptional (unless large numbers emigrated to China or moved en
masse to the provinces) and could be explained only by the
large-scale shift in social identities during this period. This
overall sea-change in identities did not preclude the existence of
both the gremio de chinos and gremio de
mestizos in Binondo, the existence of which Chu refers to as
emblematic of the vibrancy of the mestizo category (252). It is
known that the gremios were not formally dissolved despite the
abolition of the tribute and the attendant legal categories of
indios, mestizos, and chinos in the 1880s.
By 1903 US census data on males of voting age (21 years and
above) in the city of Manila showed a substantially diminished
group that publicly identified itself as mestizo. Removing
Americans, Europeans, and Japanese from the total count, we find
that the 802 mestizos represented a mere 1 percent of Manila’s
population of “browns” (75 percent), “Chinese” (24 percent), and
mestizos. The diminution of the mestizo category signified a shift
to either the naturales or the chino labels: more likely the
majority identified with the former. By implication, they rejected
their Chinese heritage, at least in their public persona. In
contrast to this macrohistorical portrait, Chu argues that “from
the perspective of micro-history and first-generation
Chinese mestizos (even the upper class) like Mariano Limjap, the
picture looks different” because these mestizos “were very much in
touch with their ‘Chinese-ness,’ even if, as in Mariano’s case,
they may publicly or officially identify as ‘Chinese mestizo,’
‘Spanish mestizo,’ or even ‘indio’” (255). One wonders, however,
just how many mestizos were in a situation similar to Limjap’s. The
progressively diminishing percentage of those who publicly
identified themselves as Chinese mestizos, as macrohistory informs
us, is rather difficult to reconcile with Chu...