Filipinos Are Not Hispanic
A Few FAQ's I Keep Having to Answer
There seems to be an all-too prevalent belief among the many westerners I meet, which is the notion that Filipinos are Hispanic. While I can see (more or less) how this could be reasoned in a roundabout way, and make its own odd sense, it is nonetheless wrong. To someone who has grown up in the Philippines, it does sound plausible from a certain point of view, yet still very strange for a number of reasons. I will address some questions I frequently get asked on this apparently novel piece of information.
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Where is the Philippines? According to Wikipedia ( as well as every single one of my social studies teachers) the Philippines is in Southeast Asia. At this point, I rather think this should end any further explanation. We are much, much closer to Taiwan, China, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore than any country in Europe or Latin America. the geographical neighborhood alone should clue you in to the probable ethnicity of the Filipinos. Perhaps it is simply this lack of awareness as to where the Phiippines actually is, that causes many people to guess and consequently, make mistaken assumptions based on that.
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How do you explain the 80% Catholicism, which is obviously from Spanish colonization of the Philippines? This is true. We were converted from mostly earth-based, ancestral worshipping spiritual beliefs, and baptized as Catholics in the 16th century. This was instrumental in Spain's control over the Philippines for over three centuries as colonial property, by using organized religion along with political manipulation (without separation of Church and State). This had the effect of having Filipinos subservient to Spanish rule, without enjoying the benefits of being citizens. In short, we were the property of Spain, but we were not Spanish citizens.
- But don't Filipinos speak Spanish? I get this question several times a year, almost on a monthly basis, and every time I want to say a resounding "No!", they point out my own particular situation, because I happen to speak it passably well. In my case, as I believe is the same with many Filipinos living in the United States, I learned it here: both from Mexican friends and the local community college. The truth is, most Filipinos do not speak Spanish at all. Almost none of us do. From the 19th century American occupation, English has long replaced Spanish as the western lingua franca of the country, and has been for a hundred years.
It certainly doesn't help that Filipinos are generally adaptable, and being from a country with over a thousand local dialects, will be averse (or too polite!) to saying they do not understand, or are unable to learn a certain language. We eventually pick up enough of the local language to get by. True, our main dialect, like many others, is in fact peppered with Spanish words, making it fairly easy for us to learn Spanish if we tried. But what few Spanish words that we use in our daily colloquial speech are mostly pidginized and remarkably different from their original meanings (Get this: "leche" is a mild curse word in Tagalog!). Also, we have much more of the neighboring language groups in our vernacular: mostly Malaysian, Chinese, Arabic, and more recently, plenty of English.
- Why do you have a Spanish last name? Doesn't that mean you have at least one Spanish bloodline? A Spanish surname is very common among Filipinos, and this understandably can lead to confusion. It's like meeting a Japanese person named Park, or more commonly, a Caucasian person named Lee. It however, does not reveal a person's ancestry automatically. In the case of most Filipinos, the mass-conversion also led to our being relabeled with 'Christian' surnames. Genuine intermarrying was probably quite rare back then. I can confidently say that I am no more Hispanic than your roll of "Scotch" tape has been anywhere near Glasgow.
So I hope it no longer seems to you a bold statement to say that Filipinos are not Hispanic, not from Latin America, do not speak Spanish nor are even of mostly Spanish ancestry. I encourage you to look up even more information on sites such as Wikipedia, and if possible, find some Filipino friends and raise a discussion, which I have no doubt will be a lively one. And have share some Filipino food while you're talking. We like to think it's better than Taco Bell, anyway.
Published by Jon Torres
Former stay-at-home dad and PC Tech of various talents: calligraphy, healthy cooking,running, and raising my son. My writing is markedly humorous:I take my writing cues from Terry Pratchett and Dave Barry. View profile
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- Filipinos do not speak Spanish, even if it sounds like it sometimes.
- Filipinos are (mostly) not of Spanish descent.
- The Philippines is in Southeast Asia, yet many westerners assume Filipinos are Hispanic.
255 Comments
Post a CommentLook. You may think that filipinos are hispanic because of history... but, that doesnt mean they are hispanic.. they are Asian... i have a lot of filipino friends that even look like japanese.. even my brother does.. just because their culture is kinda like hispanic, doent mean they are.. well...
Phillipinos are not latinos like Latin Americans or spaniers because they always look like chinesse people., so they are asians and no more.
i think filipinos are more alike to latinos like mexicans...
If you didn't notice, the things that would make Filipino culture Hispanic is too big to even fit my last message.
I believe Hispanofilipino culture needs to be more thought to Filipinos. Filipino-ism, Filipiniana, the patriotism of the Revolutionaries, it bears resemblance to those of Latin America. The words uttered by the Filipino Revolutionaries: ¡VIVA LA REPUBLICA FILIPINAS! as they waved the new Philippine flag made from British Colonial Hong Kong.
Why Filipinos are Asian by location, heritage and ethnicity: Philippine archipelago located in Asia, majority of Filipinos have Asian ancestry, and most Filipinos are of Austronesian ethnicity.
Why Filipinos are Hispanic by culture: 90% of Filipinos are Roman Catholics that follow Hispanic traditions (Misa de Gallo, Nochebuena, Flores de Mayo, Dia de los Santos, etc.) these traditions are often not practiced by non-Hispanics, many of the traditional arts are of Spanish origin or have Spanish influence, classical literature is in Spanish, a former Spanish colony of 333 years (3 centuries, 3 generations of Filipinos were once essentially Hispanic), the existence of three Spanish Creole languages: Chavacano de Cavite, Chavacano de Zamboanga, Chavacano de Ermita, the former existence of Spanish pidgin languages: Español de Cucina (Chinese-Spanish hybrid once spoken by Chinese merchants in the Philippines) and Español de Japonesa (Japanese-Spanish hybrid once spoken by Japanese merchan
Filipinos are Asian by location and heritage, but I think culturally we are Hispanic.
The only thing Filipinos lack from Latin Americans is our inability to speak Spanish, mainly due to the Americans who abolished the Spanish language and introduced English.
During the Philippine-American War and the First Philippine Republic (República Filipina), Spanish remained the language of government, commerce and education.
It was ultimately during the American colonization, the Marcos Regime, and Cory Aquino's abolishment of Spanish in the education system that lead to the death of the Spanish language.
The Philippines is most often cited as as the perfect example of language shift. Classical Filipino literature is in Spanish, less than a hundred years ago. Today, modern Filipino literature is often written in English or Tagalog.
Why are the Spaniards not calling themselves Arabics, in response to us having to classify ourselves as Hispanics. After all Spain was ruled much longer, 700 years, by the Arab speaking Moors and the influence of the Arab language is still present in Spain. Not only the language was influenced, architecture, food, irrigation systems in Spain were also touched by the Moors.
Let us not forget the truth, unless you studied the language or were born into it (mostly mestizos if not pure bred) you do not learn Spanish from your parents or on the street in the Philippines. It is not everyday that one encounters a real Spanish speaker in the Philippines again unless your neighbors are descendants of Spaniards who either married a native or settled with their Spanish wives in the Philippines then carried on the tradition of speaking Spanish. Even they have to speak in Tagalog when buying pandesal from the neigborhood store. Too many Filipinos in the USA claim on their job applications that they do speak 'Spanish but are unable to do so when required. When spoken to in Spanish they do not understand . Spanish is not something we really speak not because we hate the Spaniards and their language but it is what it is.
well, there are many words in the current filipino language that were from the spanish language. spanish used to be the official language of the philippines until it was officially removed in 1987. philippines is made of hybrids from different bloods and i respect that. howerver, it is impossible for filipinos to not have spanish blood because spain had ruled the philippines for over 300 years. now think, 300 years and no intermixing? ofcourse there was!
It's quite a frequent mistake that a lot of filipino people have that they are "part" Spanish.
Many friends of mine make that claim and even when I point out that this was used for mass conversions into Catholicism and is essentially our "slave names" I get scoffed at.
It's almost like a lot of filipinos aren't happy just being filipino and they have to be half of something to be special (not that there is anything wrong with that).