Chinese Filipino - Intermarriage

Intermarriage

Chinese mestizos are persons of mixed Chinese and either indigenous Filipino or Spanish (or both) ancestry. They make up 25% of the country's total population (those who are pure blooded or at least 50% Chinese make up at least 2% of the population). A number of Chinese mestizos have surnames that reflect their heritage, mostly two or three syllables that have Chinese roots (e.g., the full name of a Chinese ancestor) with a Hispanized phonetic spelling.

During the Spanish colonial period, the Spanish authorities encouraged the Chinese male immigrants to convert to Catholicism. Those who converted got baptized and their names Hispanized, and were allowed to intermarry with indigenous women. They and their mestizo offspring became colonial subjects of the Spanish crown, and as such were granted several privileges and afforded numerous opportunities denied to the unconverted Chinese. Starting as traders, they branched out into landleasing, moneylending and later, landholding.

Chinese mestizo men and women were encouraged to marry Spanish and indigenous women and men, by means of dowries, in a policy to mix the races of the Philippines so it would be impossible to expel the Spanish.