Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15380082-chinese-and-chinese-mestizos-of-manila

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

For centuries, the Chinese have been intermarrying with inhabitants of the Philippines, resulting in a creolized community of Chinese mestizosunder the Spanish colonial regime. In contemporary Philippine society, the “Chinese” are seen as a racialized “Other” while descendants from early Chinese-Filipino intermarriages as “Filipino.” Previous scholarship attributes this development to the identification of Chinese mestizos with the equally “Hispanicized” and “Catholic” indios. Building on works in Chinese transnationalism and cultural anthropology, this book examines the everyday practices of Chinese merchant families in Manila from the 1860’s to the 1930’s. The result is a fascinating study of how families and individuals creatively negotiated thier identities in ways that challenge our understanding of the genesis of the ethnic identities in the Philippines.