@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix dc: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Arts, Faculty of"@en, "Anthropology, Department of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Chua, Dorothy Ang"@en ; dcterms:issued "2009-11-23T21:23:41Z"@en, "2004"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Arts - MA"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description "This paper is an examination of the changing identities of the Chinese in the Philippines through three generations - the China-oriented first generation, the Philippine-born second generation, and the Philippine-oriented third generation. This paper explores the differential constructions of Chinese Filipino identity by colonial and postcolonial governments, the factions representing the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, Philippine opinionmakers, and the Chinese Filipinos themselves. This paper also examines the construction of a Chinese racial category in the Philippine context, and how a racialized construction of class has constituted the identity formation of Chinese Filipinos. Racially triangulated vis-à-vis the colonizers and the Filipinos, the Chinese were valorized relative to the natives for their economic skills but ostracized from the body politic due to their perceived foreignness. Throughout their history, they have been racialized as 'alien' and 'economically privileged' - the intersection of race and class at the center of Chinese Filipino identity."@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/15537?expand=metadata"@en ; dcterms:extent "3589999 bytes"@en ; dc:format "application/pdf"@en ; skos:note "F R O M C H I N E S E T O FILIPINO: C H A N G I N G IDENTITIES OF T H E C H I N E S E IN T H E PHILIPPINES by D O R O T H Y A N G C H U A B.A., Eckerd College, 1993 A THESIS S U B M I T T E D IN P A R T I A L F U L F I L L M E N T OF T H E R E Q U I R E M E N T S FOR T H E D E G R E E OF M A S T E R OF A R T S in T H E F A C U L T Y OF G R A D U A T E STUDIES (Department O f Anthropology and Sociology) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard T H E U N I V E R S I T Y OF BRITISH C O L U M B I A Apr i l 2004 © Dorothy Ang Chua, 2004 Library Authorization In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Dorothy Ang Chua 26/04/2004 Name of Author (please print) Date (dd/mm/yyyy) Title of Thesis: From Chinese to Filipino: Changing Identities of the Chinese in the Philippines Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2004 Department of Anthropology and Sociology The University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Canada A B S T R A C T This paper is an examination of the changing identities of the Chinese in the Philippines through three generations - the China-oriented first generation, the Philippine-born second generation, and the Philippine-oriented third generation. This paper explores the differential constructions of Chinese Fil ipino identity by colonial and postcolonial governments, the factions representing the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, Philippine opinionmakers, and the Chinese Fil ipinos themselves. This paper also examines the construction of a Chinese racial category in the Philippine context, and how a racialized construction of class has constituted the identity formation of Chinese Filipinos. Racially triangulated vis-a-vis the colonizers and the Fil ipinos, the Chinese were valorized relative to the natives for their economic skills but ostracized from the body politic due to their perceived foreignness. Throughout their history, they have been racialized as 'al ien' and 'economically privileged' - the intersection of race and class at the center of Chinese Fil ipino identity. i i T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S Abstract i i Table of Contents i i i Introduction 1 Research Methods 6 A Br ief Overview 6 Chapter I Discourses on Chinese Identities and the Social Construction of Race 10 The Concept of Race 18 Constructing Chineseness 22 Chapter II Changing Identities of Chinese Filipinos 27 From Generation to Generation 29 First Generation 31 Second Generation 36 Third Generation 41 Chapter III The Racialized Construction of Class in the Formation of Chinese Fil ipino Identity 48 From Drooling Chinaman to Taipan 49 Race as a Process 52 Conclusion 62 Bibliography 67 i i i Introduction A s a third-generation Chinese, born and raised in the Philippines, I have had to deal with issues of identity throughout my life. I was raised as a 'Chinese,' which at that time meant that I should speak Chinese, socialize with Chinese friends, and have 'Chinese' values. I attended Chinese schools during primary and secondary schools, where the medium of instruction was English, and the afternoon Chinese classes were conducted in Mandarin. It was not until I attended a Philippine university that I met and developed friendships with Fil ipinos. It was also in university where I learned that although my ancestors came from China, the Philippines is now my home and that as much as I am Chinese, I am also Fil ipino. I have been asked many times whether I am more Chinese or Fi l ipino, as i f being more Chinese means being less Fil ipino, and vice versa. The tendency of dichotomizing Chinese and Fi l ipino identities has lead Peter Pojol, S.J. (2003) to reflect on his own experience: How am I Chinese? ... I have slits for eyes, my skin is yellow, and my native tongue is Hokkien. Other answers get a bit entangled: I've been to Chinese temples but I hardly know what goes on inside; I studied in a Chinese school but must shamefully admit that I cannot read Chinese news; I value discipline and hard work, but which culture doesn't? Now, how am I Fil ipino? Instinctively, I think of how I am \"not Chinese enough\", not fluent in Mandarin, not well versed in Chinese worship, not immersed in Chinese entertainment - as i f being Fil ipino were a negation of my being Chinese. In some ways, therefore, my being Chinese remains to be my point of reference, which does not do justice to my being Fil ipino, (xxi) 1 This binarism reflects the relational nature of identities (Rutherford, 1990). Our identities are oftentimes constructed in relation to others. However, there are material consequences when differences are polarized. As Rutherford (1990) argues, \"difference in this context is always perceived as the effect of the other\" (p. 10). These polarities create hierarchies and consequently, inequality and discrimination. A s we shall see throughout the paper, hierarchies and discriminatory acts are oftentimes created due to the'construction of polarities between groups. A s I examine my own identity as a Chinese Fil ipino, the quote from Ang 's (2001) book, On Not Speaking Chinese, resonates deeply in my subjective experience: \"... ' identity' [is] a double-edged sword: many people obviously need identity (or think they do), but identity can just as well be a strait-jacket. 'Who I am' or 'who we are' is never a matter of free choice\" (Preface). I have realized that identity is indeed a double-edged sword - it gives me a sense of belonging, and yet 'who I am' is never entirely up to me to define. Sometimes 'who I should be' captures the condition of identity more than 'who I am.' No matter how 'F i l ip ino ' I have become, culturally and politically, my Fil ipino friends still see me as 'Chinese' and think that my 'culture' is different from them. They expect me to give them a tour of Mani la 's Chinatown even though I have never lived there in my life and I often get lost whenever I go there. First and second-generation Chinese think I am not 'Chinese' enough because I have already been 'Fi l ip in ized' and 'Westernized.' To them, I have lost a considerable amount of my 'Chineseness' because I speak better English and Fil ipino than Mandarin. Even among my Chinese Fil ipino friends, we tend to characterize the Chineseness of others by labeling those who are 'too Chinese' as ' G . I.' or 'genuine instik? {instik being a derogative term used by Filipinos to refer to people of Chinese origin). These are the 2 traditional Chinese who are not 'modern' enough in our eyes because their attitudes and outlook are similar to earlier-generation Chinese. Even though I also see myself as Chinese, and other people perceive me as one, I know we do not share the same concept of Chineseness, in the same way that my grandparents, my parents and I have different views of what it means to be Chinese today, especially to be Chinese Fil ipino. If my grandfather had the option to return to China i f things did not turn out well in his adopted country, I don't think my father had that choice readily. Even though my father reads Chinese newspapers and keeps abreast with news from China, he no longer sees himself as a sojourner in a foreign land. Despite holding citizenship, however, the specter of racial taunts and anti-Chinese legislation during his time has constantly reminded him of the precarious state of being Chinese in the Philippines. I did not grow up in such an oppressive environment. Being Chinese to me meant I have to deal with annoying stereotypes, such as my family is rich and I am forbidden to marry non-Chinese. Although in my formative years I was ambivalent about being a Fi l ipino, I realized at some point that I had nowhere else to call my home but the Philippines, and I had to embrace it as my own in order for me to belong. And yet, the terms 'Fi l ip ino' and 'Chinese' by themselves, do not seem to capture the collective experience of an ethnic minority whose identity has been constantly redefined by itself and by others through various historical, political and social circumstances. And so the search for a Chinese Fil ipino identity begins. In this paper, I examine the changing identities of Chinese Fil ipinos through three generations. The different meanings my grandfather, my father, and I have of being 'Chinese' illustrate how identity is \"constituted out of different elements of experience and subjective posit ion\" (Rutherford, 1990, p. 19). It demonstrates how historical processes shape 3 our identities as Chinese in the Philippines and reveal how we ultimately become 'creatures of our times.' This does not mean that 'Chineseness' has always been externally imposed, or that we are mere products of external forces, over which we have no control. On the contrary, growing up in different historical contexts means that members of a particular generation experienced their identities differently from members of another generation. I therefore focus on the interaction between the host government and the Chinese Fil ipino community in shaping a Chinese Fil ipino identity by showing how the social and political structures of the host country both promote and contain the expression of Chinese identities in the Chinese Fi l ipino community, as well as how the community responded to these challenges. Identity, like race, is a construct that has always been bitterly contested and negotiated by individuals, state authorities and interest groups. It is also constantly changing and \"contains traces of its past and what it is to become. It is contingent, a provisional full stop in the play of differences and the narrative of our own l ives\" (Rutherford, 1990, p. 24). When Chang (1994) talks about inheriting a legacy of discrimination when he immigrated to the United States, he is also talking about how \"each individual is the synthesis not only of existing relations but of the history of these relations. He is a precis of the past\" (Gramsci, as cited in Rutherford, 1990, pp. 19-20). By looking at how Chinese Fil ipino identities have evolved over three generations, I have realized that as a third-generation Chinese, I am also inheriting a legacy of social relations between and among Chinese, Fil ipino and colonial groups. I also focus my analysis on the intersection of race and class in the identity formation of Chinese Fil ipinos. The racial taunts that my grandparents and my parents experienced during their times were those that made fun of old Chinese men who worked as manual 4 laborers and street vendors. M y generation still gets racial taunts, but of a different kind. People assume that I am rich just by looking at my physical features and my last name. These assumptions and stereotypes are also carried over in transnational settings. I remember being at a dentist's office in Vancouver and meeting the dental assistant who was Fil ipino. When she found out that I was Chinese Fi l ipino, she remarked matter-of-factly, \" Y o u must be r ich.\" It was not a question but a statement. How could she have come to that conclusion, other than basing it on my Chinese features and the meanings associated with being Chinese in the Philippines? This leads me to the theoretical approaches I have used in my analysis of Chinese Fil ipino identities. I utilize the theory of racial formation, as defined by Omi and Winant (2001), in developing the construction of a 'Chinese race' in the identity formation of Chinese Fil ipinos both by colonial governments and the Chinese government. They define racial formation as \"the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed\" (p. 372). I also utilize Gotanda's (2000) framework for analyzing race through the analysis of the racial profile in examining the various factors that led to the racialization of the Chinese in the Philippines. Racial profil ing includes a particular characterization of a group and the \"culturally situated understandings associated with the racial category\" (p. 1691). The third approach captures the Phil ippines' history of colonialism and how that has played a major part in the racialization of Chinese vis-a-vis Fil ipinos. K i m ' s (1999) discussion on the racial triangulation of Asian Americans is useful in my study. She observes that \"public discourse about racial groups and their relative status generates a field of racial positions in a given time and place\" (p. 106). In the case of the Chinese in the Philippines, I argue that they have been racialized relative to and through 5 interaction with the colonial rulers and Fil ipinos. The racial triangulation of Chinese occurs through the dual processes of relative valorization and civic ostracism (K im, 1999). By uti l izing these theories, I have been able to develop a racialized construction of class in the identity formation of Chinese Filipinos. Research Methods In the course of doing my research for the paper, I have mainly used secondary sources in documenting the changing identities of Chinese Filipinos. Although personal interviews and archival data would have enriched my analysis by affording me my own interpretation of events, I have dealt with this limitation by attempting to consult as many sources as possible to document the history of the Chinese in the Philippines. A t various times in the paper I have cited several authors for one specific historical event in order not to depend on one scholar's interpretation. I have also performed a review of the existing literature regarding the construction of Chinese identities in Southeast As ia and the theories surrounding identity and race. I have utilized them to inform my analysis o f the evolution of Chinese Fil ipino identities and the racialization of Chinese in the Philippines. A Brief Overview The first chapter situates the Chinese in the Philippines in the broader context of Southeast As ia. I problematize the ways Chinese identity is defined in Southeast As ia through the use of terms and labels that do not fully capture the various experiences of the Chinese in their own geographical, social and political contexts. I review the existing literature on Chinese identities in Southeast As ia, comparing the works of Wang (1988), Hirschman (1988), Gosling (1983) and Tan (2001). I note the strengths and weaknesses of their works and relate how their works can inform my analysis of Chinese Fil ipino identities. 6 I also discuss the importance of Barth's (1969) study on the boundary maintenance of ethnic groups. He analyzes the boundaries of groups, instead of their so-called cultural differences, in order to explain how social relations are maintained between the dominant and minority groups despite the increased interaction and reduced cultural differences. I compare the earlier scholarship that linked Chinese identities to a 'Cultural China' with the more recent scholarship that view Chinese identity as a site of contestation, operating in different historical and geographical contexts. In addition, I discuss the concept of race and its social construction by reviewing the literature on race, particularly by Omi and Winant (2001) and Lopez (2000). I show how theories of race inform my analysis of Chinese Fi l ipino identities through three generations. In the second chapter, I examine the changing identities of Chinese Fil ipinos through three generations. I briefly describe the history of the Chinese in the Philippines from the Spanish colonial period to the present time. I try to demonstrate the different constructions of 'Chinese,' 'F i l ip ino, ' and 'Chinese Fi l ip ino' by various groups, such as colonial regimes, the Philippine government, factions representing China and Taiwan, various Chinese-related organizations, and the Chinese people themselves in each generation. I illustrate how Chinese Fil ipino identities were contested and negotiated by different groups and I also try to portray the struggles of these groups to represent the Chinese community. I explore the various historical, social, economic and political factors that shape Chinese Fil ipino identities. I try to show the transformation of the Chinese in the Philippines from sojourners to naturalized Fil ipinos and finally, to Filipinos of Chinese descent whose orientation is entirely towards the Philippines. I try to show the fluidity and multiplicity of identities within generation and between generations. I note that despite the varied experiences of Chinese Fil ipinos brought 7 about by their different locations and social classes, as well as their cultural and political orientations, Chinese as a group were generally viewed as 'aliens' and 'economic opportunists' by the Philippine mainstream society for most of the 20 t h century. The third and final chapter is an analysis of the multiple racialization processes of the Chinese in the Philippines throughout their history in the Philippines. The 'Chinese race' has been constructed through various political projects by colonial rulers, the Philippine government, and the Chinese government. In particular, I explore the intersection of race and class in the formation of Chinese Fil ipino identity. I apply Omi and Winant's (2001) theory o f racial formation and Gotanda's (2000) study of racial profiling in the creation of the Chinese racial category. I also utilize K i m ' s (1999) theory of racial triangulation, particularly the field o f racial positions, in analyzing the relative status of Chinese Fil ipinos vis-a-vis ethnic Fil ipinos and colonial rulers in Philippine history. I argue that throughout the history of Chinese Fil ipinos, their identity has been formed through a racialized construction of class. On the one hand, they have always been racialized as alien and foreign; on the other, being 'Chinese' has evolved from the poor, sojourning Chinaman to the economically privileged members of the middle and upper classes. By looking at how Chinese Fil ipino identities have evolved through three generations, I hope to demonstrate how identities are shaped by competing publics and counterpublics, which affirm the fluidity and multiplicity of identities. By also examining how these identities have been affected by multiple racialization processes throughout history, I hope to illustrate how the categories of race are produced by conflicting social and political forces. Even though there has not been any scientific basis for dividing groups into racial lines, race continues to play an important role in structuring and representing the world. A s Wildman 8 and Davis (2000) point out, there are patterns of domination and subordination within each classification. Although racial tensions have always been present throughout history, calling someone racist \"lays the blame on the individual rather than the forces that have shaped that individual and the society that the individual inhabits\" (p. 657). This paper is not about the racist attitudes of Fil ipinos, Chinese, or the colonizers. It is about exploring the systemic nature of power systems like race in perpetuating patterns of domination and subordination, and the material consequences of these systems on the identity formation of a minority group. 9 Chapter 1: Discourses on Chinese Identities and the Social Construction of a 'Chinese Race' This chapter is a review of the existing literature on Chinese identities and the social construction of race. While the changing identities of the Chinese in the Philippines are the focus of the second chapter, the first chapter wi l l situate their experiences in the broader context of Southeast Asia. The first part of this chapter examines the different discourses on Chinese identities, including the various constructions of Chineseness in Southeast As ia. The second part o f this chapter focuses on the literature surrounding the social construction of race in order to examine the influence of a 'Chinese race' and the racialized construction of class on the formation of Chinese Fil ipino identity, which is the focus of the third chapter. O f the almost 31 mil l ion Chinese l iving outside of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in 1990, the vast majority is found in Southeast As ia (Pan, 1998). The Philippines has one of the smallest Chinese populations in Southeast As ia , and an even smaller proportion of Chinese in the country compared to other Southeast Asian nations. In 1999, the Chinese population in Southeast As ia was estimated at 23 mil l ion and distributed as follows: 27 percent in Indonesia, 24 percent in Malaysia, 23 percent in Thailand, 12 percent in Singapore, 5 percent in Vietnam, 4 percent in the Philippines and the remainder in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Brunei. The proportion of Chinese in each country also differs with the largest proportions in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei (Armstrong and Armstrong, 2001). Most of the early Chinese who migrated to Southeast As ia came from the southeastern provinces of China, such as Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan, and speak various kinds of spoken Chinese, such as Hokkien, Cantonese and Hokchiu. They were regarded as sojourners, aliens and temporary residents. Some came to provide trading services while 10 others were recruited to work in mines and plantations for the colonial regimes in the region. They were mainly oriented to China and not directly active in local politics until the twentieth century. Instead, they allied themselves with those holding political power that served their own interests. The independence of new nation-states in the mid-twentieth century forced the Chinese to redefine themselves as participants within a new national context, and later took up citizenship offered in their host countries. Historically, they managed to thrive under colonial rule and modern nation-states although their economic success and wealth brought jealousy from the indigenous population. Chinese in Southeast As ia over many centuries have contributed substantially to the economic development and growth of the region. They continue to be in transition from 'overseas Chinese' to fully integrated local citizens of their adopted countries. They also found their identity as 'Chinese' to be an asset for doing business with China and overseas Chinese communities (Armstrong and Armstrong, 2001; Wang, 1988, Parmer 2001). The various experiences of Chinese in Southeast As ia make it difficult to define a single Chinese identity. Scholars of Chinese communities in Southeast As ia have generally acknowledged that there is no single Chinese identity but multiple Chinese identities - each formed by its unique and historical circumstances (Wang, 1988; Hirschman, 1988; Gosling, 1983). Wang (1988) even maintains that \"the Chinese have never had a concept of identity, only a concept of Chineseness, of being Chinese and of becoming un-Chinese\" (p. 1). If that is the case, how then do we define the term 'Chinese?' And how do we measure the degree of a person's 'Chineseness?' Many attempts have been made to define 'Chinese identity' and to measure one's degree of 'Chineseness.' A salient feature of being Chinese is to trace one's biological line, as the legend goes, to the Yel low Emperor. Another feature is simply being 11 born in China. Being Chinese also means the ability to speak Mandarin or any of the Chinese 'dialects.' It can also mean practicing a code of ethics, such as fil ial piety, toward one's 'mother country.' If being born in China is a condition of Chinese identity, it wi l l immediately exclude mill ions of overseas Chinese who consider themselves as ethnically Chinese (Tu, 1994). There is also the problem of labels and language - what to call the people who are the subject of study. Armstrong and Armstrong (2001) sum up the dilemma quite articulately in the following paragraph: When we speak and write in English are the Chinese populations of Southeast As ia Overseas Chinese? Are they diaspora Chinese? Is ethnic Chinese the appropriate label? ... Is it acceptable to speak collectively of Southeast Asian Chinese? ... Should we be guided by what people call themselves? (p. 9) These issues highlight the importance of treating Chineseness as a construct. As the identities of Chinese in Southeast As ia are oftentimes imposed by political circumstances as well as defined by the Chinese themselves, the meaning of being Chinese is constantly changing (Tu, 1994). The fluidity of Chinese identities can been seen in Wang's (1988) study of the changing Chinese identities in Southeast As ia. He examines the ways different identities were used to define a sense of Chinese identity during particular periods. Instead of constructing a fixed identity of the Southeast Asian Chinese, he argues that the Chinese in Southeast As ia assume multiple identities throughout their history in the region. Before the Second World War, the historical identity was used to define who was Chinese through the emphasis of their family system, place of origin, traditional family values, as well as symbols 12 of a glorious Chinese past. During the 1920s and 1930s, however, a predominant Chinese nationalist identity was found among the overseas Chinese (Nanyang huaqiao) who responded to the idea that their racial origins should enable them to identify with the new nationalism in China propagated by Sun Yat-sen. As can be expected, not all Chinese changed in favor of Chinese nationalism. Some chose to identify with local indigenous nationalist movement, while others found a new kind of identity that focused on economic class. The national (local) identity in each of the new nation-states became the third kind of Chinese identity. Whether it was merely a change in official label or a willingness to assimilate and politically integrate is a matter of deep contention. This leads us to the cultural aspect of identity. The new awareness of culture recognized the ways the Chinese communities could learn from modern non-Chinese cultures. With the establishment of the modern nation-states in Southeast As ia , Chinese found that they had to choose between assimilation and integration - co-existence was no longer a viable option. The concept of cultural identity enabled researchers to examine the willingness of the Chinese to accept the local national identity even as they sustain their Chinese identity, and to some extent accept a totally new non-Chinese identity. Some of these cultural values included religious conversion, non-Chinese language skills, and behavioral patterns influenced by non-Chinese customs. However, there were limits to the usefulness of the concept of cultural identity. It did not address the relations between politics, race and minority groups in Southeast As ia in the late 1960s. The concept of ethnic identity was used to deal with issues relating to racial origins and minority rights. In the 1980s there was class identity, which crossed racial boundaries and was used to explain the role of Chinese enterprise in the rapid growth of Southeast Asian economies and the willingness of 13 most Southeast Asian Chinese to embrace Western capitalist institutions - events that could not be satisfactorily addressed by ethnicity or culture (Wang, 1988). In a critique of Wang's theories, Hirschman (1988) points out that there is insufficient attention given to the causes of ethnic change, such as how and why the shift from traditional to modern Chinese culture occurred. He argues that the study of identities needs to be linked to the interaction between subjectivist approach (how people define themselves and are seen by others) and objective conditions. The questions regarding the definition of ethnic groups and the boundaries that divide them also need to be addressed. He pushes for the measurement of differences between ethnic groups and how these differences narrow or widen over time. He suggests three dimensions to be considered in studying Chinese ethnicity in Southeast Asia. The first is socioeconomic inequality, which includes the distribution of valued resources and rewards (i.e. education, occupation, income, power, prestige). The second dimension is cultural differences, which include subjective identities and ethnic variations (i.e. language, religion, values and beliefs). The third is structural differentiation, which is the degree of ethnic participation in the social institutions of society. Furthermore, Hirschman argues that the Chinese in Southeast As ia \"can be better understood as minority groups who happen to be Chinese rather than as Chinese who happen to be l iving outside of Ch ina\" (p. 30). Tan's (2001) study on the nature of Chinese identities in Southeast As ia and in the changing global context affirms the multiplicity of local Chinese identities. Because Chinese in Southeast As ia have adapted to different local cultural, social, and political environments, they have developed their own local cultural identities. Tan terms this concept of state-bound ethnic identity as national ethnic identity. In most cases, the state-sanctioned expression of 14 ethnicity is the highest level of ethnic identification. It is the \"expression of ethnic identity by an ethnic group at the national level\" (p. 230), such as Chinese Malaysians or Chinese Fil ipinos. Aside from one's national ethnic identity, Tan (2001) identifies another type of identity that addresses the relationship of ethnic Chinese with China and the international networks among ethnic Chinese. The concept of civilizational ethnic identity focuses on the \" 'common' identification as 'Chinese' by people of Chinese descent everywhere in the transnational setting\" (p. 212). He argues that \"because of the identification with Chinese civi l ization, the original source of Chinese cultures, Chinese worldwide can be said to have a civil izational ethnicity\" (p. 225). This particular identity does not involve a sense of attachment to a global Chinese community, nor to the state of China. Instead, it is an identification with Chinese civil ization as expressed through their respective national ethnic identities. Chinese ethnic identity in Southeast As ia differs in language, occupation, and varying degrees of acculturation and accommodation to indigenous cultures. Some, such as the Baba in Malaysia, even developed a 'new' identity. Gosling (1983) identifies the different forms that shifts in Chinese identities acquire: there could be adaptation, accommodation or assimilation into indigenous societies and cultures. There could be a renewed emphasis on a common Chinese culture or it could shift toward a Western or modern model of Chineseness, one that is based on class rather than ethnicity. He also names several factors that could influence the shifts in identity: the size of the Chinese community, economic role of the Chinese, local political policies, intermarriage and the availability of Chinese partners, communication within the Chinese community, and the Chinese perception of the local 15 population. On the extreme end is total assimilation and on the other end is the maintenance of a distinct Chinese community and identity. In between these two extremes is what Gosling (1983) refers to as intermediate identities or situational ethnicity, the mixing of Chinese and indigenous cultures. He then identifies three different levels of use of local identities by the Chinese and the interchangeability of these identities. The first is the unconscious use of local identity, which signifies a high degree of acculturation. This results from intermarriages, the use of native language, and socialization by local domestic servants and peers. Those who use this identity are more local than Chinese. The second level of use of local identities is the conscious use through adoption of public behavior to offset the negative stereotypical view of the Chinese, while maintaining 'Chinese' behavior in private. The third is the manipulative use of alternative identities, where it involves a selective use of Chinese identity to achieve certain results. He uses the example of a Chinese shopkeeper who appeared to be acculturated to Malay culture, including the wearing of sarong, the use of 'quiet and polite' Malay speech, and having a 'humble and affable' disposition (p. 4). At harvest time, when he would go to the field to collect crops, he would put on his Chinese 'costume' and speak in a much more abrupt manner, acting 'just like a Chinese.' Whi le Gosling (1983) talks about the interchangeability of identities to match particular situations and to achieve certain results, Wang (1988) offers a simultaneous presence of many kinds of Chinese identities. Hirschman (1988), on the other hand, cites the importance of studying the interaction between socio-political structures and the subjective definition of identity, and the measurement of differences between the dominant and the minority groups over time. The problem with the approaches of Gosling and Hirschman is 16 that they tend to essentialize Chinese and native identities and present them as static and unchanging. Hirschman assumes that by measuring the differences between groups that the dominant group itself is not undergoing any changes and that the interaction between the two cultures does not have an effect on the dominant society, only on the ethnic minority. Although these approaches address certain aspects of Chinese identity, they fail to capture the complexities in the construction of Chinese identity and account for its fluidity and permeability. The various Chinese identities Wang (1988) explores in his study demonstrate how identities change over time. These identities are not discrete categories but overlap in a person's lifetime. Wang recognizes that while these identities have been used as a new way of representing Chinese identity, what most Chinese really have is not a single, fixed identity, but a mixture o f identities. Tan (2001) takes it further by stressing the importance of one's local experiences in providing historical and geographical contexts to a person's cultural identity. In my examination of the changing identities of Chinese in the Philippines, I try to show the causes of these changes over particular periods in Philippine history and demonstrate the unfixed and multiple natures of Chinese identities. I also try to address the boundaries that divide the Chinese minority and the mainstream Philippine society, as pointed out by Hirschman (1988). Barth (1969) explores the different processes that take place in generating and maintaining ethnic groups. He focuses on the ethnic boundary that defines the group and not on the 'cultural stuff that comprises it. He argues that even though there may be a drastic reduction of cultural differences between ethnic groups, as exemplified by the Chinese and Fil ipino ethnic groups in the Philippines, this does not mean there is a \"reduction in the organizational relevance of 17 ethnic identities, or a breakdown in boundary-maintaining processes\" (p. 33). In fact, even though there is frequent social interaction between ethnic groups, discrete categories may still be maintained \"despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories\" (p. 10). As Barth (1969) points out: \"one finds that stable, persisting, and often vitally important social relations are maintained across such boundaries, and are frequently based precisely on the dichotomized ethnic statuses\" (p. 10). In this paper, I explore the historical processes of Chinese identities and their negotiation by individuals, state authorities and interest groups. L ike Wang (1988) and Tan (2001), I try to demonstrate that there is no fixed Chinese Fil ipino identity but multiple identities, each shaped by various political, social and cultural factors. I use Barth's essay in studying the boundary-maintaining processes of the Philippine society. Despite increasing social interaction between ethnic Chinese and Fil ipinos, I argue that there can be found 'stable and persisting social relations' that define the boundaries between the two ethnic groups based on 'dichotomized ethnic statuses' (Barth, 1969). These social relations are based on the mainstream society's view of ethnic Fil ipinos as the dominant majority and the ethnic Chinese as foreign and economically privileged. These 'ethnic statuses' are based on the racialization processes of Chinese and Fil ipinos throughout history. The concept of race and its construction wi l l be discussed in the next section. The Concept of Race The concept of race usually invokes biologically based human characteristics. Although scientists have tried to distinguish human groups along the line of race, there has been no biological basis for the categories employed to differentiate human groups along racial lines. Omi and Winant (2001) defines race as \" a concept which signifies and 18 symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies\" (p. 371). Lopez (2000), on the other hand, defines it as \" a vast group of people loosely bound together by historically contingent, socially significant elements of their morphology and/or ancestry\" (p. 165). These two definitions provide a link between physical features and personal characteristics as constructed by contested systems of meaning (Lopez, 2000). The selection of particular human features as signifiers of race has always been a social and historical process (Omi and Winant, 2001). There is a continuous temptation to think of race as something \"f ixed, concrete and objective\" (Omi and Winant, 2001, p. 371), as well as an opposite temptation to think of it as a \"mere illusion, a purely ideological construct which some ideal non-racist social order would eliminate\" (p. 371). Omi and Winant (2001) argue that there is a need to challenge these two positions and transcend the seemingly rigid and bipolar relationships between them. Lopez (2000) in fact argues that 'race is neither an essence nor an il lusion, but rather an ongoing, contradictory, self-reinforcing, plastic process\" (p. 165). Although there is no scientific basis for racial categories, Omi and Winant (2001) insist that we cannot simply get rid of the concept of 'race' because it continues to play a fundamental role in structuring and representing the world. Instead, we should think of race as \"an element of social structure rather than as an irregularity within it; we should see race as a dimension of human representation rather than an i l lusion' (p. 372). In my analysis of Chinese Fil ipino identities in Chapter 3,1 have used the theoretical approach called racial formation in developing a racialized construction of class in the identity formation of Chinese Fil ipinos. Racial formation is defined as the \"sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed\" (Omi 19 and Winant, 2001, p. 372). Race is a matter of both social structure and cultural representation. It has no fixed meaning, but is constructed and transformed through \"a process of historically situated projects in which human bodies and social structures are represented and organized\" (p. 372), and via the power of hegemony - how society is ruled and organized. Gramsci argued that in order to consolidate their hegemony, \"ruling groups must elaborate and maintain a popular system of ideas and practices - through education, the media, religion, folk wisdom, etc. - which he called 'common sense.' It is through its production and its adherence to this 'common sense'... that a society gives its consent to the way in which it is ruled\" (p. 377). Anderson (1991) demonstrates the concept of cultural hegemony in her study of Vancouver's Chinatown. She argues that classifications of identity \"bear the... stamp of a dominant community conferring identity\" (p. 8) and that the perception of the Chinese in Canada as a different and distinct group is a \"comparable cultural abstraction that belongs to the beliefs and institutional practices of white European society...\" (p. 8). Assumptions about Chinese difference were then used to inform government policies toward the Chinese enclave and its inhabitants. According to Anderson, race should not be invested with its own explanatory status: race itself must be explained. Lopez (2000) uses the term 'racial fabrication' in explaining the social construction of race. He argues that \"races constitute an integral part of a whole social fabric that includes gender and class relations\" (p. 168). Races are also constructed relationally against one another. In Chapter 3,1 argue that colonial rulers have racially triangulated the Chinese in the Philippines vis-a-vis ethnic Fil ipinos (K im, 1999). Through the process of racialization 20 (Gotanda, 2000), Chineseness in the Philippine context has come to signify alienness and economic privilege. The power of racial formation is illustrated in Wu's (1994) essay on the two sentiments that identify all who see themselves as 'Chinese.' The first is a nationalist sentiment, which is a feeling of connectedness with the fate of China as a nation. It is also associated with a \"sense of fulfillment, of being the bearers of a cultural heritage handed down from their ancestors, of being essentially separate from non-Chinese\" (p. 149). The second sentiment is membership of a 'Chinese race' or the 'Chinese people,' a concept I have been discussing in this section. According to Wu , both sentiments represent \"an identity based on concepts of cultural and historical fulfillment rather than the more conventional modern notions of nationality or citizenship\" (p. 150). The overseas Chinese or huaqiao are considered to have identified with these two sentiments. Different factors have contributed to the creation of a strong China-oriented identity outside of China. These include rising nationalism since the early Republic, the threat of Japanese invasion, and discrimination experienced by overseas Chinese in most host countries. The influence of Chinese schools in propagating a 'Chinese race,' and eventually a Chinese identity, has been profound in Southeast Asia. This nationalist ideology was brought to overseas Chinese schools v ia branch organizations of the Kuomintang party and other overseas Chinese organizations (Wu, 1994). Overseas Chinese were subject to racialization not only by their host countries and colonial rulers, but also by the Chinese government that claimed them. 21 Constructing Chineseness A discussion about Chineseness always leads inevitably to a reference to China. According to Tu (1994), the \"meaning of being Chinese is intertwined with China as a geopolitical concept and Chinese culture as a lived reality\" (p. 1). It is associated with ethnic, territorial, linguistic, and ethical-religious terms. However, it is no longer confined to the center, which in this case is China. The periphery, which consists of the communities outside China, presents powerful and persistent economic and cultural challenges as well. Tu suggests that the Chinese culture, or what is referred to as 'Cultural China, ' can be examined in terms of a continuous interaction of three symbolic universes. The first consists of societies populated predominantly by cultural and ethnic Chinese (mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore). The second consists of Chinese communities throughout the world, and often referred to by political authorities in Beijing and Taipei as huaqiao (overseas Chinese). They have also defined themselves as members of the Chinese diaspora. These communities rarely exceed three percent of their country's population. The third symbolic universe consists of scholars, journalists, industrialists and writers who try to understand China intellectually and who continually attempt to shape the international discourse on cultural China. In his book, The Liv ing Tree, Tu (1994) attempts to examine the \"fluidity of Chineseness as a layered and contested discourse, to open new possibilities and avenues of inquiry, and to challenge the claims of political leadership in Beij ing, Taipei, Hong Kong, or Singapore to be the ultimate authority in a matter as significant as Chineseness\" (Preface, vi i i). Ang (2001) takes it further by arguing that \"Chineseness is not a category with a fixed content - be it racial, cultural or geographical - but operates as an open signifier whose 22 meanings are constantly renegotiated and rearticulated in different sections of the Chinese diaspora\" (p. 38). By conceiving Chineseness as a discursive construct, there is a disruption of the stability and certainty of Chinese identity, but it does not \"negate its operative power as a cultural principle in the social constitution of identities as Chinese\" (p. 40). W u (1994) focuses on how Chinese conceptualize their own Chineseness in the diaspora, demonstrating the complexity of incorporating indigenous language and culture without losing their sense of Chinese identity. He points out that many Chinese who have acculturated to the indigenous population are still labeled Chinese and subject to suspicion, discrimination or exclusion from social and political participation. This is particularly true for overseas Chinese entrepreneurs who were behind the region's economic growth but are still viewed with suspicion. This reflects the ongoing negotiation of Chinese identity, both within and outside the overseas Chinese community, depending on their host countries' politics and conventional thinking about race and culture. Wang (1999) expresses his reservations about the use of the term 'diaspora' in relation to overseas Chinese. This was brought about by the problems the Chinese encountered with the concept of huaqiao and the political use of the term by China and hostile governments: From China's point of view, huaqiao was a powerful name for a single body of overseas Chinese. It was openly used to bring about ethnic i f not nationalist or racist binding of all Chinese at home and abroad. In the countries which have large Chinese minorities, that term had become a major source of the suspicion that the Chinese minorities could never feel loyalty towards their host nations, (p. 2) 23 For Wang (1999), there is not a single Chinese diaspora but many different diasporas, just as there are many kinds of Chinese. This is an important point because it allows us to see how each Chinese community develops its own distinctive identity different from the one that nationalist Chinese scholars and officials, as well as various governments, had tried to impose on them. Political conditions in Southeast As ia during the 1950s were crucial in forcing the Chinese to re-consider what nationalism meant for them outside China. In recent years we have also witnessed Chinese remigration, from a Southeast Asian country to the United States, Canada or Australia. Globalization and more liberal immigration policies have made it possible to affiliate with a new country. Identification with a state is now becoming a matter of affiliation by choice. The experience of l iving in different parts o f the world wi l l continue to shape Chinese identities. Ethnic identities are dynamic and can be transformed and redefined. As Tan (2001) predicts, \"the trend is towards global networking with each country as a base for national identity and Chinese civilizational identity as a principle of association\" (p. 233). In a departure from the mainstream tendency of ascribing contemporary Chinese identity to long-standing roots in China or to China's civil ization, Ong and Nonini (1997b) seek to deconstruct modern Chineseness by arguing that identity is formed \"out of the strategies for the accumulation of economic, social, cultural, and educational capital as diasporic Chinese travel, settle down, invest in local spaces, and evade state disciplining in multiple sites throughout the As ia Pacif ic\" (p. 327). Although groups and persons in Southeast As ia have long engaged in movements of all kinds, what is new about the modern Chinese transnationalism that started to occur in the last 20 years is its links to the \"dynamics of globalization, the workings of flexible Asian capitalism, and the related forms of cultural 24 production which generate new group and personal identities\" (Nonini, 1997, p. 260). The identity formation of modern Chinese transnationalists is becoming \"increasingly diaspora-based rather than land-based\" (Ong and Nonini , 1997b, p. 326): Our approach opens up the question of identity - racial, ethnic, cultural, spatial, gender, and personal - as a politics rather than as an inheritance... as fluidity rather than fixity, as based on mobility rather than locality, and as the playing out of these oppositions across the world.. . The varieties of Chinese identity thus emerge out of the continuous invention and reinvention of Chineseness as a product of the multiple and contradictory effects of ultramodernist attitudes, transnational subjectivities, and the nostalgic imaginaries marketed by late capitalism and its culture industries, (p. 327) This approach seeks to reconceptualize the relationship between Chinese identities and place-bound theorizations implied in such terms as territory, region, nationality and ethnicity. Chineseness is not measured by the 'Chinese' values or norms a person or group possesses, but is understood only in terms of the multiple ways in which it is an \"inscribed relation of persons and groups to forces and processes associated with global capitalism and its modernities\" (p. 4). Modern Chinese transnational!sm decenters China as the ultimate analytical reference for understanding diaspora Chinese and treats it as only one of many sites in which Chinese transnational practices are played out. It is an \"interplay between strategies of accumulation and the experiences of dislocation... and the different constructions of modernity by capitalist interests and by nation-states\" (p. 16). Ong and Nonini (1997a) also mention the constraints on the strategies o f accumulation of the diaspora Chinese, which they call 'regimes of truth and power.' These 25 are the regimes of the Chinese family, the capitalist workplace, and the nation-state. Each of these regimes \"disciplines persons under its control in different ways to form acceptable and normal subjectivities\" and requires \"the localization of disciplinable subjects - that persons be locatable and confinable... to specific spaces defined functionally by these regimes: the home, the factory, the nation\" (p. 23). Chinese transnationalists try to resist the localizations imposed on them by these regimes by playing with different cultural fragments \" in a way that allows them to segue from one discourse to another, experiment with alternative forms of identification... or evade imposed forms of identifications\" (p. 27). This has lead to the proliferation of various ways of being Chinese, which has \"engendered complex, shifting, and fragmented subjectivities that are at once specific yet global\" (p. 26). The discourses on Chineseness and Chinese identities in Southeast As ia are important in studying the changing identities of Chinese Filipinos from the late 19 t h century to the late 20 t h century. These discourses provide historical context and background to the formation and transformations of Chinese identity in the Philippines. Treating Chineseness as a discursive construct also opens up various forms of inquiry, including the racial formation of the Chinese in the Philippine context and the effects of this process on their identity. It also demonstrates the complexity of studying an ethnic group that is unbounded to a single place nor defined by a single identity. 26 Chapter 2: Changing Identities of Chinese Filipinos The Chinese have a long history in the Philippines. They are said to have been in the country much earlier than the Spanish, although knowledge about Chinese trade and residence in the Philippines dates only from the 16 t h century. During this time, a sojourning pattern prevented permanent settlement. It was only near the end of the 19 t h century that a steady stream of Chinese immigrants began to settle permanently in the country. A n exception is the case of the Chinese mestizos, the mixed offspring of male Chinese sojourners and Fi l ip ina women during the Spanish period, whose history and unique status in Philippine society is not within the scope of this paper (Wickberg, 1998). The overwhelming majority of Chinese in the Philippines trace their regional origin to Fujian province. Hokkien, as they are commonly called, make up 85-90 percent of the Chinese population, mostly from South Fujian regions such as Jinjiang, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, and Shishi. A significant number also came from Nan'an county and the Tongan-Xiamen area. The dialect spoken is Minnan, also known as Hokkien. The Cantonese from Guangdong Province are the only other regional Chinese group in the Philippines. They began to arrive in the Philippines only in the 19 century and comprise 8.8 percent of the Chinese population (Wickberg, 1998; Pan, 1998). This chapter primarily deals with the Hokkien and their changing identities as Chinese Fil ipinos. They came to the Philippines in the 16 t h century and established trading connections brought about by the development of a lucrative connecting trade between Mani la and Mexico in the 1570s. They provided silk and porcelain goods and monopolized commercial and service occupations (Wickberg, 1998). By 1600, there were 20,000 Chinese in the Mani la area. The Philippines was considered as a \"Hokkien hinterland of jobs and remittances. Chain migration of individual family members from Fujian was the principal 27 historical feeder of the Philippine Chinese population\" (Wickberg, 1998, p. 187). Fel low villagers usually joined migrant pioneers who had established a base in the host country (Pan, 1998). Both Spanish and American colonial policies have had a significant impact on the cultural, political and economic orientation of the ethnic Chinese. These colonial regimes sought to contain the Chinese population in order to exert control and management over the country (Carino, 1994). The Spanish were ambivalent about the Chinese presence, resulting in the creation of inconsistent policies and actions. On the one hand, the Chinese were valued for their skills as they monopolized commercial and service occupations. On the other hand, their indispensability aroused suspicion from the Spaniards. They feared that the Chinese would try to overthrow Spanish rule in the Philippines. A series of uprisings and massacres as well as immigration controls and expulsions contained the Chinese population to about 5,000 to 10,000 by the late 18 t h century. However, in the mid-19 t h century, the Chinese were allowed to immigrate in greater numbers as Spain opened the Philippines to world trade and needed their expertise. When the United States assumed colonial control over the Philippines in 1898, the Chinese had already numbered around 100,000 and had dominated the export and import business, rice and corn processing and sales. In 1946, Philippine independence gave rise to increased Fil ipino nationalism, which was partly directed against the Chinese. A number of anti-Chinese measures were passed aimed at reducing their economic power (Tan, 1972; Wickberg, 1998; Parmer, 2001). Today, there are over a mil l ion Chinese in the Philippines, or roughly 1.5 percent of the total population. More than half live in Metro Mani la, while smaller groups can be found in provincial cities such as Cebu and Davao. About 90 percent of Chinese are citizens of the 28 Philippines. The size of the Chinese population in the Philippines is among the smallest in Southeast As ia (Wickberg, 1998). The relationship of the Chinese to Philippine society has been oscillating from that of being excluded to that of being included at various times throughout the country's history (Wickberg, 1998). Their economic clout and their perceived cultural 'alienness' have made the Chinese a target of discriminatory laws and a scapegoat for the country's poverty. As Hau (2003) points out, \"the contradiction between formal political equality and actual economic equality... plagues Philippine nationalism and is resolved only when it is expressed and manifested as anti-Chinese sentiment\" (p. 279). Their race and class have constantly been used by various administrations, whether colonial or Fi l ipino, to justify their exclusion from the dominant society. However, Wickberg (1998) argues that the period from 1975 to present offers the most potential for inclusion. Almost all ethnic Chinese are citizens and \"there is every indication that most ethnic Chinese are in the Philippines to stay and identify themselves with it\" (p. 191). Although there has been some progress in the past two decades towards the integration of ethnic Chinese into Philippine society, they are still not completely accepted by the majority of Fil ipinos. Chinese are still viewed as outsiders who dominate the Philippine economy. The next section wi l l examine the factors that contributed to the multiple identities of Chinese Fil ipinos throughout their history in the Philippines. From Generation to Generation Scholars have sought to capture the changing identities of Chinese Fil ipinos through the passing of generations. Tan (1988) classifies these identities as the China-oriented, first generation, the increasingly Philippine-oriented second-generation Chinese, and the fully Philippine-oriented, third-generation Chinese. Focused on slightly different time periods, 29 Wickberg (1998) calls them the Oldest, Middle and Youngest generations. Both scholars have examined the factors that have influenced each generation's identity and cultural orientation. Other scholars have tried to capture the multiple identities of Chinese Fil ipinos through different stages. In a study on the political integration of Chinese Fil ipinos, Teresita Ang See (1994) identifies three stages of transition of the Chinese community from the huaqiao or sojourner stage to the Filipino-Chinese stage in post-World War II, where some had acquired citizenship but had not socially and economically integrated with mainstream society, and to the Chinese Fil ipino stage, where most have obtained citizenship and have largely integrated with the mainstream society. Other factors have also influenced the identity formation of Chinese Filipinos. Chinben See (1988b) distinguishes between the China-born and the local-born Chinese, as well as the Manila-based and province-based Chinese. Those who lived in the provinces had more contact with the Fil ipino community due to their small numbers and were said to be more Philippine-oriented than their Manila-based counterparts. Class is also an important factor in shaping one's identity within the Chinese community. The upper-class, local-born Chinese tended to identify with the 'Westernized' Fil ipino upper class rather than with the Chinese community. Because half of the Chinese population lives in Metro Mani la, they run the Chambers, schools and major Chinese associations. They have played a major role in shaping 'Phil ippine Chinese culture.' Carino (1994) argues that a crucial element in shaping identity has been the attitude of government and its policies toward the Chinese. Decades of integration or assimilation can be easily undermined by reversals in state policies. The process of integration depends partly on government perceptions and intentions, not only with regard to the Chinese minority but also in terms of relations with China. 30 In the next section, I depict the changing identities of Chinese in the Philippines through three generations. I have chosen to do an intergenerational comparison in order to show how various identities were formed and contested by various groups within each generation, and how these processes has influenced the identity formation of succeeding generations. I try to show how Chineseness has been differentially constructed and negotiated by state authorities, individuals and interest groups. It is not my intention to present each generation as a homogenous group. There were often marked and bitter differences regarding the cultural orientation and political loyalty of Chinese within a single generation. Although most members of the first generation were culturally and politically oriented towards China, there were others who had already identified with the host country. Yet despite the varied experiences of Chinese Fil ipinos as well as their various locations and social classes, most of them, whether they were in Mani la or the provinces, whether upper class or lower class, male or female, were viewed as 'aliens' by the Philippine government for most of the 20 t h century. I have chosen to use the label(s) of Chinese in the Philippines depending on the particular historical period. For example, while the term 'Chinese Fi l ip ino' is now commonly used among the third generation, the term 'Overseas Chinese' were often used during the time of the second generation. The next sections focus on the historical and social factors that shaped the changing identities o f Chinese in the Philippines. First Generation The members of the first generation were born either in the Philippines or China. Some were brought to the Philippines while they were very young. They came to maturity during the 1930s and 1940s. Some came to the country to earn a l iving then returned home, 31 while others settled in the Philippines. The first-generation Chinese had more of the 'sojourner' mentality. Their orientation was towards their hometown in China, and they regularly sent remittances to support their relatives who were left behind (Tan, 1988; Carino, 1994; Wickberg, 1998). Some invested in Fujian's local industries and supported its schools. In the 1930s, Philippine remittances to China averaged over $6 mil l ion per year, up to 30 percent of which were sent to Fujian. The first-generation Chinese maintained ties with their home community since they had minimal contact with the host population (Pan, 1998). The major markers of Chinese identity for the first generation were family clan, native village, and one's orientation towards the homeland. Pan (1998) explains the idea of native place in the following paragraph: To a Chinese sojourner abroad, 'home' or 'native place' may not be 'Ch ina ' so much as the county or village in Fujian where M i n is spoken - and not just M i n either, but the particular variety or dialect of M i n which he and his parents speak, (p. 24) Because of this orientation, many Chinese established surname and native-place associations, as well as Chinese newspapers and Chinese schools to express and, at the same, preserve their culture. Chinese education was a very important factor in the maintenance and propagation of a Chinese ethnic identity (Tan, 1988; See, 1988a; Wickberg, 1998). It was during the Spanish era that Chinese started becoming conscious of their status as a minority group. Tan (1972) argues that \"grievances generated by Spanish colonial policies and practices prepared the seedbed for the later development of nationalist sentiment\" (p. 39). These included discriminatory taxation, a system of travel pass that restricted their mobility, and legal discrimination. The anti-Chinese policies made them 32 aware of their common fate and \"made them more conscious of their ancestral ties, aroused a sense of responsibility for assisting other Chinese in trouble, and stimulated a sense of rt identity\" (p. 69). It was in 1880 that the local Chinese first appealed to China for consular protection against the discriminatory practices of the Spanish colonial rule. Unt i l then, China had largely disregarded the overseas Chinese. A t the end of the Spanish rule, China started to claim responsibility for the overseas Chinese and established its first consulate in Mani la in 1899. The first Chinese school was opened that same year and many more followed during the American occupation (Tan, 1972; Pan, 1998). The American occupation of the Philippines in 1898 was a mixed blessing to the Chinese. On the one hand, the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act that was initially implemented in the United States was extended to the Philippines in 1902. The purpose of this legislation was to prohibit people of Chinese ancestry from entering the United States, where a very strong anti-Chinese sentiment prevailed during that period. There were exceptions to this rule, but it was enacted primarily to prevent an influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States and later, to the Philippines. Although the Americans did not object to the presence of Chinese immigrants in the Philippines, the Act was nonetheless extended to the Philippines in order to prevent Chinese immigrants from using the colony as a gateway into the United States (Tan, 1972; Tan, 1988). In order to make the exclusion law applicable to the Philippines, the American administration portrayed this act as preserving 'the Philippines for the Fi l ipinos' (Tan, 1972; Tan, 1988). On the other hand, it was under the American occupation that the Chinese immigrants were first granted the equal protection of the laws that enabled them to live in relative freedom and economic security. The Chinese were permitted by the American 33 colonial regime to establish their own institutions and to expand their business networks all over the Philippines. The Chinese settled in most parts of the Philippines and entered new types of occupations. Having dominated the import and export business and rice and corn mil ls, they went into the labor contractor business and the retail trade. This success brought a backlash from the Fil ipino population. The Philippine legislature passed the Bookkeeping Act of 1921 against the Chinese business community by requiring that all business accounts must be kept in English, Spanish or a local dialect. This legislation was officially declared to end the \"defrauding of the public treasury of mill ions of pesos annually by the 15,000 small Chinese shopkeepers\" (Purcell, 1965, p. 543) due to the inability of Fil ipino officials to check their books. The Chinese business community fought to repeal the law in the Philippine legislature, and having failed to do so, took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court which declared the Act unconstitutional (Purcell, 1965; Wickberg, 1998). Although the first Chinese daily newspaper appeared in 1888, it was not until the 1920s that the local Chinese press started to flourish. By the 1930s there were five Chinese daily newspapers and one weekly with a combined circulation of 32,000. The Chinese press was also used by different factions within the Chinese community to pursue political ends, both locally and those involving events in China. The Chinese press was mostly divided into pro-Kuomintang or pro-Communist mouthpieces (Tan, 1972). The Chinese General Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines was established in 1904 in order to nurture and protect Chinese commerce. Its membership consisted of trade associations, business firms and individuals and worked closely with charitable organizations in Mani la. The Chamber of Commerce also organized protest actions against anti-Chinese laws and practices and was 34 instrumental in fending off the Bookkeeping Act of 1921. As this organization became more powerful, it represented the Chinese community as a whole (Tan, 1972; Wickberg, 1998). Events in China also influenced Philippine Chinese identity. In 1909, the Nationality Law was passed in China, which was based on the principle of jus sanguinis - any person born of a Chinese father or mother was a Chinese citizen regardless of birthplace. Interest in overseas Chinese became stronger during Sun Yat-sen's Republican government. This was in part due to the contributions of the overseas Chinese to the Kuomintang party. In 1927 the Sun Yat-sen government established an Overseas Chinese Affairs Bureau and in succeeding years passed numerous laws and regulations dealing with overseas Chinese education, investment, migration and voluntary associations. It also guaranteed the protection and political participation of overseas Chinese in the country's draft constitution. In 1937, there were more than 2,000 overseas Chinese schools to strengthen the emigrants' cultural and patriotic ties to China (Pan, 1998). The growth of Chinese schools in the Philippines coincided with the development o f modern educational systems in China and the Philippines. In 1935, there were 7,214 Chinese students enrolled in 58 Chinese schools. As the Chinese in the Philippines sought their identity in the host country, they turned to Chinese education as one of the means to achieve it. It served to instill 'Chineseness' and promote 'Chinese culture' and, in a sense, assured the community's very survival (Tan, 1972; See, 1988a). Most of the first-generation Chinese identified with the growing nationalism in China as they followed, and some even participated in, political events and movements in China especially against Japanese aggression in the 1930s. After the war ended, the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party brought their battle overseas, in the schools and community organizations. Various Chinatown organizations in Mani la emerged reflecting the 35 politics in China, with some taking a 'pro-Kuomintang' or 'pro-Communist' stance (Tan, 1988; Wickberg, 1998). It almost seemed like most Chinese had no choice but to identify with the nationalism in China. They realized that their fate as overseas Chinese was somehow linked to the future of their homeland. Although there were 'pure-blooded' Chinese who fought side by side with Fil ipinos against the Japanese, and there were those who consider themselves as Fil ipinos, most of them were excluded from the political and social structures of the country, and were resented by the Fil ipino population because of their success in business (Pan, 1998; Tan, 1988; Wickberg, 1998). The Chinese were considered \"obnoxious because they were economically dominant, strange because they were culturally alien, repulsive because they were socially clannish, and disloyal because they were politically unreliable\" (Tan, 1988, p. 179). In turn, the Chinese looked down on the Filipinos and referred to them as 'barbarians' (Wickberg, 1998). Second Generation The second-generation Chinese were those who were born in the Philippines between the early 1920s and late 1930s. They were raised as 'Chinese,' both culturally and politically, by the China-oriented first-generation elders. This meant that they attended Chinese schools and were taught to regard China as their native land (Tan, 1988). However, many of them were also increasingly being acculturated to the Fil ipino way of life, which prompted some first-generation Chinese to regard them as neither truly Chinese nor truly Fil ipino - \"they were suspended between two cultures neither which claimed them\" (p. 183). Yet a closer look into the history of this generation reveals that it was actually this generation of Chinese Fil ipinos that was being vigorously 'claimed' by various governments. These governments, with their various ideologies and political interests, played pivotal roles in shaping the 36 identities of the second generation, as well as subsequent generations. The members of the second generation reached maturity between 1946 and 1975, which was a crucial period in the history of the Philippines. Major historical factors made tremendous impacts on the structure and identity of the second-generation Chinese. These included the growing nationalism of the new modern nation-state, the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China, the growing influence of the Republic of China on Taiwan on the overseas Chinese, and the mass naturalization granted to 'al ien' Chinese in 1975 by then-President Ferdinand Marcos. The declaration of Philippine independence from American rule in 1946 ushered in a new kind of Fi l ipino nationalism, which sought to preserve the Philippines for the Filipinos and which also reinforced the identity of the Chinese as 'alien.' Laws were enacted to nationalize various trades, occupations and professions. These policies were meant to exclude those who were not Fi l ipino citizens, and indirectly, the local-born Chinese who controlled most of the retail trade and who were not citizens of the Philippines. The 1935 Constitution had already excluded 'foreigners' from owning land, developing natural resources and running public utilities. The Retail Trade Nationalization Act provided that only Fi l ipino citizens were allowed to engage in retail trade after May 1954. The Nationalization of Rice and Corn Industries in 1960 required 'aliens' to liquidate their businesses within two to three years from the date of the passage of the act. A number of lawmakers continued to file more bills proposing the nationalization of lumber, the import and export business, the restaurant business, among many others. This culminated in the young nation-state's 'Fi l ipino First' policy in 1961. Its aim was to enable the Fil ipinos to 37 obtain a substantial share of commerce and industry (Tan, 1988; See, 1994; Suryadinata, 1994; Carino, 1994). The government also differentiated between natural-born citizens and naturalized citizens. In 1957, the Central Bank required that commercial banks must be fully owned by natural-born citizens, which was later modified to 80% owned by natural-born citizens and 20% owned by naturalized citizens. These laws severely affected the Chinese who dominated the retail, rice, and corn trades, as well as in the import and export business. The second generation who sought professional degrees from Philippine colleges and universities were effectively locked out of certain occupations and professions. A n increasing number of Chinese applied for naturalization. Before 1975, many Chinese immigrants had difficulty in obtaining citizenship which created a large number of 'aliens' (Tan, 1988; See, 1994; Suryadinata, 1994; Carino, 1994). There were other factors that contributed to the shift in identity. When Mao Zedong's People's Liberation Army defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in 1949, the Nationalists fled to Taiwan. The rise to power of the Chinese Communist Party on the mainland led to the termination of diplomatic ties between the Philippines and China and meant that the Chinese community was cut off from the mainland. Immigration from China virtually stopped. In the meantime, the Nationalists established the Republic of China on Taiwan under the Kuomintang government. Using the overseas Chinese communities as their battleground, the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party resumed their rivalry and vied for supremacy in the schools and community organizations in these communities and the ultimate authority to represent the 'Chinese race' (Pan, 1998). 38 In 1955, the government of the People's Republic of China showed its willingness to renounce its claim to overseas Chinese who wished to take up local nationality. Bent on gaining the widest diplomatic recognition, this was considered a gesture o f goodwil l towards the newly independent nations in As ia, where overseas Chinese communities were \"feared as sources of subversion and a fifth column\" (Pan, 1998, p. 102). The government in China also encouraged overseas Chinese to take up local citizenship and integrate and assimilate into the societies of the host countries. This move was viewed by the Kuomintang Party as a 'sel l-out' and an abandonment of the overseas Chinese (Pan, 1998). The government in Taiwan quickly took up the role of a 'substitute China ' by recognizing citizenship on the basis of jus sanguinis. This enabled those Chinese born in the Philippines to be citizens of the Republic of China. It painted the image of communism in China as 'un-Chinese' because of its attitude towards many aspects of the Chinese cultural tradition (Wickberg, 1998). The shared hostility towards China between the Philippines and Taiwan led to a close relationship between the two governments and paved the way for Taiwan to define 'Chineseness' in the Chinese Fil ipino context. The Kuomintang maintained branches in the Philippines, published newspapers, operated schools, and influenced Chinatown politics. It encouraged the overseas Chinese to remain 'Chinese.' The Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission of the Republic of China identified Chinese education as the main thrust of its work. It supervised the curriculum of the Chinese schools in the Philippines by requiring them to fol low the curriculum set by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, which stressed the teaching of Mandarin, Chinese culture and literature. Local Chinese teachers were trained and systematically retrained in Taiwan. The schools were also used by the Kuomintang to create political loyalty to the nationalist government in Taiwan. The version of 'Chineseness' 39 taught was the one sponsored by Taiwan. A t their height in the 1950s, there were 43,000 students in over 160 schools in the Philippines (Tan, 1988; Carino, 1994; See, 1994, Wickberg, 1998). In another development, the Chinese middle class had expanded over the 1954-1975 period. Their way of life was increasingly similar to middle-class Filipinos in terms of their cultural and political orientation. Although most of the members of the second generation attended Chinese schools, increasing numbers were attending Philippine universities as well. In a bid to establish relations with China, the Philippines, under then-President Marcos, granted mass naturalization to the Chinese in 1975. This policy has had the most dramatic impact on Chinese identity in the Philippines. This also came at a time when China had rescinded its policy of dual citizenship and encouraged overseas Chinese to adopt the citizenship of their host countries. Although citizenship does not automatically endow a Philippine national identity, as some Chinese acquired it out of economic necessity, it nonetheless provides a condition to nurture this identity. For the first time, most Chinese became officially 'Fi l ipinos' and could practice within a wide variety of professions and participate in the electoral process (Carino, 1994). This was significant since it created a sense of security. Citizenship opened the way to integration and assimilation, as well as a reevaluation of the ethnic group's place in Philippine society. Unlike the first-generation Chinese who felt their future was tied up with China, the second-generation Chinese realized that their fortune and future were now tied up with the adopted country (See, 1988b; Suryadinata, 1994; Tan, 1988). The members of the second generation created organizations that were modeled after Western institutions, such as the Lions Club in the 1960s. There were various trade and civic 40 organizations that were established to voice the concerns of the ethnic minority, such as the Federation of Chinese Chambers of Commerce in 1954 and Pagkakaisa in 1970. One notable organization is the Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran (or Kaisa), established in the mid-1980s and composed of middle-class, university-educated professionals and business people. It sought to hasten integration and enhance the mutual understanding between Chinese and Fil ipinos (Wickberg, 1998; Wickberg, 1993; See, 1994). Despite the legal status of Chinese as citizens of the Philippines, they were not fully accepted by many Filipinos. Tensions, as well as stereotypes, remained between the two groups. Being a predominantly business community, they were often accused of price manipulation and unfair trade practices. Another source of conflict is the relation between Chinese employers and Fil ipino employees. As a letter writer to the Daily Globe explains her husband's decision to leave a company owned by an ethnic Chinese: \" . . . my husband left the company for we have realized that no matter how hard one works for a Chinese, one would never find upliftment in life, but have to remain slaves to these opportunists\" (as cited in See, 1997, p. 20). Chinese were still being perceived as outsiders and immigrants from a foreign land. As another letter writer put it: \"The Philippines is for us Fil ipinos. Why don't you just go home where you belong and leave the Fil ipinos at peace with whatever they may have?\" (as cited in See, 1997, p. 21). Ironically, many of the second-generation Chinese had no firsthand experience of China, and know no other home but the Philippines (See, 1997). Third Generation If the first-generation Chinese was oriented towards China and the members of the second generation were torn between China and the Philippines, there seems to be an overwhelming consensus that the third generation was oriented towards the Philippines. They 41 came to maturity during the 1980s and 1990s amidst unrestricted opportunities in the Philippines (Wickberg, 1998). Their outlook, attitudes and values were more 'F i l ip ino ' than those of the second generation, and were further removed from the China-oriented first generation (Tan, 1988). There is a tendency to homogenize the 'F i l ip ino' society just as there has been a tendency to 'Occidentalize' Europe and its construction of the Oriental (Anderson, 1991). It must be noted that Fil ipino culture and identity were simultaneously undergoing changes during this time and were constantly being redefined. For the third-generation Chinese, the main determinants in shaping their identity were the Fil ipinization o f Chinese schools in 1973, the reopening of China, and the concerted actions of Chinese Fil ipino groups to identify with the Philippines (See, 1997). In an effort to assimilate the Chinese into Philippine society, in 1973 the Philippine government prohibited the ownership and operation of 'al ien' schools in the country. Chinese schools were given four years to be phased out. Permits of the Chinese schools were revoked and all schools had to be administered by Philippine citizens. The teaching of Chinese was made optional and classes were reduced to 120 minutes a day or 10 periods per week (from 18 periods). Since 1976, all Chinese schools in the Philippines had been 'Fi l ip inized, ' and the medium of instruction had been Fil ipino (based on Tagalog). The reduction of the Chinese curriculum and the relegation of Chinese to the status of a foreign language affected the young generation's command of the Chinese language and their appreciation of traditional Chinese culture (See, 1994; Suryadinata, 1994; Tan, 1988). Other factors also contributed to this generation's decline in Chinese language skills. By this time, many families had moved out o f Chinatowns and were l iv ing in Fi l ipino neighborhoods. Most of the members of the third generation learned to speak the Fil ipino and 42 local dialects before they learned to speak Chinese. Hokkien might be spoken at home but an increasing number had been unable to obtain a good command of Mandarin, which was the language taught in Chinese schools. Many students had difficulty in reading and writing Chinese characters, and very few students read Chinese newspapers and other literature. They were more fluent in English or Fi l ipino and other local dialects than in Mandarin. The shift in the language skills of third-generation Chinese reflected their increasing cultural orientation to the Philippines rather than to China or Taiwan. Increasing numbers o f Chinese in Mani la and the provinces attended Philippine schools at all levels. They interacted with Fi l ipino classmates and friends (Wickberg, 1998; Tan, 1988). Their acculturation to the Fi l ipino way of life was such that it led Tan (1988) to comment: \"they think like Fil ipinos, talk l ike and dress like them\" (p. 190). The mass naturalization of the Chinese provided many new economic opportunities to the members of the third generation that were previously denied to the previous generations. These opportunities often required a university education and English language skil ls, not Chinese language skills. Many Chinese learned English at the cost of mastering Chinese, whether Hokkien or Mandarin. This also affected the pool of qualified teachers for Chinese schools since many graduates did not have the language skills to continue their education in Taiwan and many preferred to stay in the Philippines (Wickberg, 1998). Intergeneration conflicts occurred. Those who had chosen paths other than commerce faced disappointment from their parents. Dy (2003) explains his parents' negative reaction to his decision to become a priest as follows: \"my parents were simply being creatures o f their times, times when the Chinese in this country had very limited educational and professional opportunities 43 and practically all Chinese went into commerce to survive\" (p. 182). After a long time, his parents eventually accepted his decision to join the priesthood. The opening of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in 1975 had lead to the resumption of travel to China and allowed many first-generation Chinese to revisit their ancestral home and relatives in Fujian Province. It had also lead to the establishment of a pro-Beijing faction in Chinatown, or what Tan (1988) called the anti-Kuomintang faction. The absence of diplomatic relations with Beij ing had enabled the pro-Taiwan group to maintain power and influence in the Chinese community in the Philippines. The pro-Beijing faction tried to undercut the power and influence of the Kuomintang on the Chinese community by openly challenging its leadership in organizations like the Federation of Fil ipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry and its various branches. These include various trade groups, charitable organizations, family associations, among others. The cultural exchanges that had been sponsored by Taiwanese organizations were now also possible with the mainland. There had even been talks about 'resinification' as some overseas Chinese started to look towards China as it joined the global economy (Wickberg, 1998, Tan, 1988; See, 1988b). The identification of the third-generation Chinese with the Philippines occurred at a time when the country was also experiencing a shift in its attitude toward its ethnic minority. This generation did not experience the discriminatory policies in the same way as the earlier generations. They grew up in an environment where they enjoyed the same legal rights as the Fi l ipino population. They had taken part in elections and some Fil ipinos of Chinese descent had been elected to public office. This shift is reflected in the change of terminology by which the Chinese in the Philippines now identify themselves. The Chinese used to be known 44 as 'Fi l ip ino Chinese.' This implied that their primary identity was Chinese and they happened to be l iving in the Philippines. It was in the 1980s that the new terminology, 'Chinese Fi l ipinos' or Chinoys, was used to capture the new kind of Chinese l iving in the Philippines: \"primarily Fil ipino in nationality and allegiance, integrating into the mainstream society without sacrificing their culture and legacy... in reversing the order of the modifier and modified, proclaimed they are Fil ipinos, who happen to be of Chinese or igin\" (Palanca, 2003a, p. 5). This new term was coined by Kaisa, an organization that has evolved into a civic movement and a cultural institution documenting all aspects o f the Chinese in Philippine life. It also plays a visible leadership role in the public affairs of the Chinese community. It maintains a library on the history o f the Chinese Fil ipinos and a Chinese heritage center. The founder, Teresita Ang See, also leads a crusade against the kidnappings of ethnic Chinese and other ethnic groups by kidnap-for-ransom gangs (Palanca, 2003b). Its credo reads: The Philippines is our country, it is the land of our birth, the home our people. Our blood may be Chinese but our roots grow deep in Fil ipino soil, our bonds are with the Fil ipino people. We are proud of the many cultures which have made us what we are, it is our desire, our hope and aspiration - that with the rest of our people, we shall find our rightful place in the Philippine sun. (Kaisa para sa Kaunlaran, 2001) Although there is more interaction and acceptance than ever on both sides, relationships between Chinese and the Fil ipinos today are at times still clouded with mutual suspicion and resentment. There are still some Filipinos who are ambivalent about the presence of the Chinese minority. They suspect that the Chinese exploit the Philippine 45 economy without any commitment to the development of Philippine society (Wickberg, 1998). Chinese are still viewed as outsiders of the Philippine polity, as evidenced by the campaign against candidates of Chinese ancestry by an anti-Chinese group called Kalipi (Filipinos of same blood and race). This group maintained that the Chinese already controlled the Philippine economy and called on 'Fi l ip inos' to resist the attempts of the Chinese to control Philippine politics as well (See, 1997). Their status as an outsider, in addition to their perceived wealth, has made Chinese Fil ipinos vulnerable to kidnap-for-ransom gangs. Some Filipinos do not think that the Chinese deserve any sympathy for their vulnerability to kidnappings and other problems because they are economically better off than most Filipinos (Wickberg, 1998). The failure of traditional Chinese organizations to demand the government into taking action against the kidnappings is a reflection of the continued political marginalization of the Chinese community. The traditional leaders of the community are still \"wary about taking action that could be interpreted as political in nature\" (See, 1997, p. 128). Instead, these organizations \"used the old way of meeting and discussing the problem with the top-ranking government officials, who often demanded logistics or financial support for solving the problem\" (p. 128), to no avail. The death of a high school student on January 7, 1993 was the catalyst that mobilized the Chinese community. Members of the community, headed by Kaisa, organized a funeral march to protest the government's inaction on the kidnapping problem. Chinese schools and Chinese-owned businesses closed that day to allow their students and employees to join the mass action. More than 25,000 people joined the funeral march. It was considered a significant milestone in the history of Chinese Filipinos. A month later, the Citizens Act ion 46 Against Crime, a multi-sectoral organization composed of middle-class Filipinos, joined forces with more than a hundred Chinese-Filipino organizations to protest the rising criminality and kidnappings in the country. The mass actions forced then-President Ramos to order a revamp of the Philippine National Police in order to solve the kidnapping problem (See, 1997). Some Chinese feel that they will always be treated as an ethnic minority that is subjected to all kinds of harassment and discrimination - perennial scapegoats for the problems facing the nation. There are others who would rather identify themselves with the 'diasporic' Chinese community than identify with a Third-world nation. However, there is a growing number of Chinese Filipinos who are beginning to assert their rights as Filipino citizens and to demand protection from the government against racism and harassment. The pro-active approach of groups like Kaisa to construct the ethnic Chinese identity as part of a Filipino identity is an interesting development. It is a concerted effort of one group to integrate the ethnic Chinese to the dominant society - socially, culturally, politically and economically. 47 Chapter 3: The Racialized Construction of Class in the Formation of Chinese Filipino Identity The depiction of the changing identities of Chinese Filipinos in the previous chapter allows us to examine how Chineseness as a discursive construct operates in the contexts of colonial and postcolonial Philippines. For instance, it enables us to see how various governments, journalists, commentators, and interest groups have shaped the category of Chinese in the Philippines. This highlights the constructed nature of categories and classification systems and focuses on the process of cultural classification itself (Ang, 2001). By looking at the construction of Chinese Filipino identities, the purpose is \"not to dispute the fact that Chineseness exists... but to investigate how this category operates in practice, in different historical, geographical, political and cultural contexts\" (Ang, 2001, p. 40). It is meant to demonstrate \"how Chineseness is made to mean in different contexts, and who gets to decide what it means or should mean\" (p. 39) and the way it becomes the \"object of intense contestation, a struggle over meaning with wide-ranging cultural and political implications\" (p. 39). This approach also addresses the question of identity \"as fluidity rather than fixity\" (Ong and Nonini, 1997b, p. 327) and shows how different identities - race, class, nationality, subculture, dominant culture - intersect in and constitute an individual (Ong and Nonini, 1997b). The focus on Chinese Filipino identity brings us back to the study of race, particularly the differential constructions of a 'Chinese race,' and its enduring effects on group identity. Lopez (2000) explains that racial formation includes \"both the rise of racial groups and their constant reification in social thought\" (p. 168). Sustained by the power of a hegemonic culture, racial formation also has material consequences. As Anderson (1991) explains it, 48 \"negative representations of racially defined people shaped adverse attitudes and repressive policies in colonial and post-colonial states\" (p. 26). It is important that we address \"how such categories came to be reproduced as dominant ideological and material forms\" (p. 20). Whereas racial ideology in North America has constructed Chinese identity as alien and as a source of cheap labor (Anderson, 1991; K i m , 1999; Gotanda, 2000), the construction of Chineseness in Southeast As ia is slightly different: \"In the Asian context, in South-East As ia especially... Chinese identity is never a simple issue: it is both an expression of political marginalization in the postcolonial nation-state and an indication of (real and imagined) economic privilege\" (Ang, 2001, p. 12). In order to understand the marginalization of Chinese in different spaces, whether economic, political or social, it requires \"recognition of both the force of ideological conceptions of the Chinese as a category and the effectiveness of official representations of them as al ien\" (Anderson, 1991, p.22). It also requires the tracing of the historical construction of Chinese categories \" in such a way as to expose their changing form and demonstrate their enduring connection to structures of domination\" (p. 18). Examining the historical construction of Chinese categories in the Philippines enables us to analyze how Chinese Fil ipino identities have developed in the historical and contemporary periods. It also allows us to see how racial ideology had been institutionalized through government policies and territorial arrangements (Anderson, 1991). Finally, it enables us to see how the category of race is constructed, through its negotiation and contestation by different interest groups, individuals and state authorities. From Drooling Chinaman to Taipan Scholars on Chinese-Filipino relations have argued that the tensions between the two groups are not merely based on racial bias but on class differences as well (See, 1997; Go, 49 1996). Most Chinese immigrants who came to the Philippines in the 19 century were not rich - they worked as manual laborers and peddlers of Chinese goods. Fil ipinos have always referred to Chinese as Instik, a word which originally meant 'your uncle' but became increasingly charged with negative connotations. They were discriminated by the Fil ipino population and were subjected to racial taunts. Instik beho tulo loway describes the image of 'an old drooling Chinaman,' usually peddlers and manual laborers, who dozed off in the middle of their sixteen-to-eighteen-hour days while instik baboy ('Chinaman pigs') made fun of their personal appearance and physical hygiene (Tan, 1988). Hau (2003) argues that the phrase Instik beho tulo laway is not simply a racial taunt, \"but one that carries within it a hidden class bias against manual labor and the kind of people who submit to it\" (p. 279): the \"o ld, drooling Chinese... [whose] face [is] worn not by the prosperous merchant but by the bottle collector or taho vendor or stevedore eking out a l iving in the only way he knows how and with the only means he has: by the sinew of his own physical labor\" (p. 278). The evolution of Chinese upward mobility, from lowly laborers to members of a merchant middle class, has changed the attitudes of Fil ipinos toward the Chinese. Although these racial taunts are rarely used against the Chinese today, the issue of class remains. Hau (2003) reflects on her own reaction to that phrase and the construction of Chinese in today's society: Conversely, the ethnic Chinese's negative reaction (shame, outrage, humiliation) to that word is simply the flipside of the same class bias against the Instik, a bias sharpened by the distancing effects of upward mobility and the so-called generational gap. In reacting so defensively to the negative connotation of that phrase, I ended up assuming the very logic that I tried to 50 criticize, the one that said that being Chinese necessarily meant being wel l-off, (p. 279) The impression that the Chinese in the Philippines are rich and the resentment by Fil ipinos over the 'Chinese control' of their economy have lead several writers to address these stereotypes. While the Chinese are predominantly involved in the trade and light industry, See (1997) disputes the claim that they control the economy of the country. She points out that not all Chinese are rich and that there are some who are also poor. See (1997) further argues that racial tension between Chinese and Fil ipinos is caused mainly by differences in economic status, which leads to disparities in class and ways of life. She maintains that \"cultural conflict can also arise out of the cultural differences spawned by disparities in social and economic status. Such differences give rise to racial biases\" (p. 8). The racialized construction of class has often plagued Chinese Fil ipino identity: ...the equation of Chineseness with money, an identification forged by the Chinese's long history of economic specialization, and an equation that remains the unresolved question at the heart not just o f Chinese-Filipino efforts to claim an identity for themselves within the Philippines but also of Philippine nationalism itself. (Hau, 2003, p. 279) In this chapter, I examine the intersection of race and class in the identity formation of Chinese Fil ipinos by tracing the historical processes of the racialization of Chinese as 'foreign' and 'economically privileged' in the Philippine context. I argue that the Chinese have been racialized as 'foreign' by colonial administrations and because of this racialization, were permitted by those in power to form extensive business networks in the country so long as they remain 'outsiders' in the Philippine polity. In the process, they were 51 racially triangulated relative to the colonizers and the Fil ipino people during the colonial period. They were valorized relative to the natives for their economic skills but ostracized from the body politic due to their perceived foreignness. In a parallel development, the idea of a 'Chinese race,' promoted by the Nationalist government in China during the 1920s in a bid to obtain the support of overseas Chinese, also contributed to the multiple racialization of Chinese as permanently foreign and unassimilable in their host country, whose loyalty belonged to their homeland. The \"ongoing practices of racial triangulation laid an ideological foundation\" (K im, 1999, p. 115) that allowed for the passage of nationalization laws aimed at excluding the Chinese from Philippine society especially after the birth of the Philippine nation-state in 1946. Even as full-fledged Philippine citizens, Chinese Fil ipinos today still have to wrestle with the issues of race and class as they negotiate their changing identities in the Philippines. Race as a Process The current use of the phrase racial profiling has been articulated by Gotanda (2000) on his work on America's racialization of Asians. The profile, which is \" a particular characterization or social stereotype,\" is \" l inked to the raced individual's racial category\" (p. 1691) and is \"linguistically and conceptually separable from the racial classification or racial category of the person being profi led\" (p. 1691). Racial profiling does not necessarily characterize the racial 'other' as inherently inferior - \"instead of biological inferiority, the associations attached to the racial category are properly identified as a racial profi le\" (p. 1691). Racial profil ing is applied to culturally situated contexts and produces social and political consequences. This is especially applicable to the Chinese in the Philippines, as racial profil ing has allowed for the racialized construction of class. Chinese Fil ipinos have 52 been racialized as 'al ien' and 'economically privileged' and these stereotypes have political and material consequences, as evidenced by the nationalization laws aimed at this ethnic group. Taking it a step further, K i m (1999) points out that \"racialization processes are mutually constitutive of one another\" (p. 106), in the sense that \"groups become racialized in comparison with one another and that they are differently racialized\" (p. 107). In the context of the United States, she argues that \"As ian Americans have been racially triangulated vis-a-vis Blacks and Whites, or located in the field of racial positions with reference to these two other points\" (p. 107). She describes the field of racial positions as \" a normative blueprint for who should get what... [it] profoundly shapes the opportunities, constraints, and possibilities with which subordinate groups must contend, ultimately serving to reinforce White dominance and privilege\" (p. 107). It is also \"continuously contested and negotiated within and among racial groups, both at the elite level and at the level of popular culture and everyday l i fe\" (p. 107). Racial triangulation occurs through the processes of 'relative valorization' and 'c iv ic ostracism.' On the one hand, relative valorization refers to the process whereby the dominant group valorizes one subordinate group relative to another subordinate group on cultural and/or racial basis in order to dominate both groups. On the other hand, civic ostracism is a process whereby the dominant group constructs the valorized subordinate group \"as immutably foreign and unassimilable with [the dominant group] on cultural and/or racial grounds in order to ostracize them from the body politic and civic membership\" (p. 107). The racial triangulation of Chinese in the Philippines during the colonial period is similar to that of Asian Americans in the late 19 t h century to the mid 20 t h century. While 53 Asian Americans have been racially triangulated vis-a-vis Blacks and Whites, Chinese Fil ipinos have been racially triangulated vis-a-vis the colonizers and the colonized. In a field of racial positions, Chinese Fil ipinos were considered inferior to the colonizers but superior to Fil ipinos. By positioning Chinese immigrants as superior to the native population yet foreign and unassimilable, racial triangulation processes created a merchant class that would fulf i l l an economic purpose \"without making any enduring claims upon the polity\" (K im, 1999, p. 109). Although most Chinese chose to be sojourners during this period, the Spanish and American colonizers, just like the White elites in the United States, \"embraced and reinforced this arrangement for their own purposes\" (p. 109). One of these purposes is for Chinese to serve as 'middlemen' for the ruling class. Although many scholars offer various causes of this phenomenon, middleman minorities have been known for the economic role they play in their adopted countries. In contrast to other ethnic minorities, middleman minorities \"occupy an intermediate rather than low-status position\" (Bonacich, 1973, p. 583). They specialize in certain occupations, particularly in trade and commerce, and \"play the role of middleman between producer and consumer, employer and employee, owner and renter, elite and masses\" (p. 583). They thrive in societies characterized by a marked division between elites and masses, and, as in the case of the Philippines during colonial period, in \"colonial societies with a gap between representatives of the imperial power and the 'natives'\" (p. 583). They are economically dominant but feel essentially alien in their adopted countries. The native population resents their power since they believe that their country is being 'taken over' by a foreign group. Bonacich (1973) explains the functions of middleman minorities as follows: 54 ... their foreignness enables them to be \"objective\" in the marketplace; they do not have familistic ties with the rest of the society which can intrude on, and destroy business... [and] they act as a buffer for elites, bearing the brunt of mass hostility because they deal directly with the latter, (p. 584) Many of the Chinese who came to the Philippines were merchants who traded goods with the indigenous population and who eventually returned to China. During the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, the emergence of a cash economy expanded the market for Chinese goods in the country. Those who settled in the country were mostly laborers. These were the 'drooling Chinamen' being referred to in the racial taunt Instik beho tulo law ay. They provided manual labor and worked as peddlers of Chinese goods, becoming the \"inheritors of the early Filipino-Chinese trade\" (Go, 1996, p. 45). They laid the earliest foundation for Chinese economic expansion in the country. Before long Chinese had become indispensable to the local economy which aroused the suspicions of the Spaniards, who \"feared their economic power, cultural difference, and the possibility they might seek aid from nearby China to overthrow Spanish rule in the Philippines\" (Wickberg, 1998, p. 188). They were confined to a segregated residence called the parian, subjected to discriminatory taxation and forced labor drafts, and pressured to convert to Catholicism. Their \"monopolization of economic activities, their cultural alienness, apparent ties to a nearby and powerful China and the obvious mutual antipathies of Spaniards and Chinese\" (p. 189) also influenced Fil ipinos to adopt \"Spanish stereotypes and to despise the Chinese as a pariah group\" (p. 189). The series of expulsions and massacres that targeted the Chinese during the Spanish period drastically reduced their population to 5,000 - 10,000, most of which were converted 55 Catholics l iving in Manila. Their economic roles were taken over by the Chinese mestizos, the mixed offspring of a Chinese father and a Fil ipino mother. By the early 19 t h century they had become the most powerful and influential group under Spanish rule, and regarded, rather ironically, \"not as a special kind of Chinese but as a special kind of Fi l ip ino\" (p. 190). They were born in the Philippines, promoted Spanish and Fil ipino values and practices, and were not seen as a political threat. However, as Spain opened the Philippines to world trade in the middle of the 19 t h century, Chinese were allowed to immigrate in greater numbers than ever and this time, were permitted to settle not just in Mani la 's parian but also in every part of the Philippines (Wickberg, 1998). During the Spanish colonial regime, Chinese were valorized for their economic skills but were ostracized due to their 'cultural alienness' arising from their resistance to genuine conversion to Catholicism and their ties to China. The Filipinos, on the other hand, were racialized as 'inferior' and were called indios bravos ('savage indians') by the Spanish regime (Tan, 1972). When the United States assumed colonial rule in 1898, Chinese were now settled in most parts of the Philippines and established business networks all over the country. That subordinate groups are differentially racialized in order to serve the interests of the dominant group could not be more evident in the racialization of Chinese by the U.S. government. Although Chinese in both the United States and the Philippines were racialized as 'foreign' by the United States (the Chinese Exclusion Act was applied to both countries), the consequences were vastly different. In the United States, Chinese were valorized relative to Blacks because their 'unassimilability' made them \"more docile and less demanding than Black labor\" (K im, 1999, p. 110). Their civic disenfranchisement also made them \"useful pawns in the game of reasserting White dominance over Blacks\" (p. 111). In the Philippines, 56 the Americans needed the business networks of the Chinese to promote its economic policies, particularly the distribution of U.S.-made goods. The U.S. Department of Trade had even credited the Chinese for being the \"most important links in wholesale and retail trading\" (Go, 1996, p. 76). Go (1996) argues this was the reason why the colonizers encouraged, instead of restricted, the business activities of the Chinese. The Filipinos were not ready to take on that function, so the Chinese had to fill the role of middleman: While the Americans controlled the Philippine economy from behind the scenes, they gladly allowed the ethnic Chinese businessmen to be the front liners, thus hitting two birds with one stone. The ethnic Chinese not only sold the goods for the Americans, they also took the risks and became convenient scapegoats, (pp. 76-77) Scholars have generally acknowledged that the Chinese community became fully developed during the American colonial period (Go, 1996; See, 1997; Tan, 1972, See, 1988b). Chinese schools were established and Chinese language newspapers were published creating a sense of community. Numerous Chinese-related organizations were created to look after the community's affairs. However, it was also during this period that people in China and the overseas Chinese were subjected to a racial conception of their homeland, \"with its emphasis on a people united by common Han ancestry\" (Pan, 1998, p. 103). The Kuomintang government, ushered to power by Sun Yat-sen's 1911 revolution, adopted the Nationality Law first enacted by the Qing in 1909 (Pan, 1998). It ruled that all persons of 'Chinese race' were Chinese subjects, regardless of place of birth (Tan, 1988). Despite the strong anti-Chinese sentiments in the United States during that time, the American regime tolerated the development of national consciousness of the Chinese in the 57 Philippines and their allegiance to the Nationalist government in China led by Sun Yat-Sen. Apparently, this was not considered a threat by the Americans as long as it affected the Chinese in the Philippines. Go (1996) opined that this was even beneficial to American colonial rule in the country, and not simply due to the \"spirit of 'freedom' and 'democracy' which Americans profess to promote\" (p. 78). Both Spanish and American colonial regimes have been accused of promoting physical segregation between Chinese and the Fil ipinos, thus creating a gap between the two groups. These territorial arrangements further contributed to the racialization of Chinese. The Spaniards confined the Chinese to a parian, where Fil ipinos can go to shop but not to live (Wickberg, 1998; Go, 1996; See, 1997). Although the Americans allowed the Chinese to move freely around the country, they nevertheless permitted the Chinese to create their own ethnic communities and their own institutions separate from the rest o f the population, prompting Go (1996) to comment that \"the whole country was actually transformed into a 'big parian'\" (p. 79). Through these territorial arrangements, \"the racial category 'Chinese' became inscribed, both on the ground and in people's minds\" (Anderson, 1991, pp. 27-28). Chinese racialization emerged in the Philippines with the rise of colonialism. Their racial profile of cultural alienness and economic dominance were perpetuated by the colonial powers and adopted by the Fil ipino population. When the Philippines became fully independent in 1946, Filipinos had a dilemma: although \"the Chinese were indispensable to the desired national development... they seemingly were alien at a time when nationalism was at its height\" (Wickberg, 1998, p. 188). On hindsight, it seemed the implementation of Nationalization laws was inevitable. After centuries of colonialism, \"nationalism was equated with being anti-foreign and [therefore] anti-Chinese\" (See, 1997, p. 37). 58 Subordinate groups are not passive participants in the racialization process. They do not merely adopt the dominant group's racialization of themselves and other subordinate groups. They also form their own racialization about themselves and other groups. As K i m (1999) maintains, \"racialization is clearly a reflexive as well as externally imposed process\" (p. 129). Many Chinese chose to identify with the growing nationalism in China and this enhanced their perceived 'disloyalty' to the host country. Although it can be argued that they did not have any choice but to identify with the only country that claimed them, Chinese nationalism produced not only the idea of a Chinese race but also a sense of cultural superiority on the part of the Chinese in the Philippines over the colonized Fil ipinos. Because of their marginalization from the mainstream society, most of the personal contacts first-generation Chinese have had with Fil ipinos were limited to \"their workers, their employees, their maids at home, corrupt policemen and firemen, Bureau of Internal Revenue agents and city hall inspectors who harass them regularly, and politicians who befriend or lambaste them, depending on personal conveniences and purposes\" (See, 1997, p. 39). Their economic status relative to the Filipinos and their limited contacts with the native population led Chinese to racialize the Filipinos as lazy, corrupt and inferior. Fi l ipinos, on the other hand, perceived the Chinese as aliens - \"they are immigrants from foreign soil, and they are merely guests in the Phil ippines\" (See, 1997, p. 8) - and resented their economic success, which was facilitated by the colonial rulers. See (1997). argues that \"ambivalent feelings of nationalist pride combined with the reality of class and status differences complicate the relationship\" (p. 9). The racialization of Chinese as foreign and economically privileged laid the ideological framework for the implementation of the Nationalization laws targeted against the Chinese. Racial ideology gave the 'ruling sector' of 59 the newly independent country the power to define, in cultural and ideological terms, who were included in and excluded from the Philippine society. These consisted of politicians, police, bureaucrats, owners of capital, and other influential members of society. A s we have seen throughout the racialization of Chinese in the Philippines, \"their moral and legal authority helped to give the race concept its remarkable material force and effect, embedding it in structures that over time reciprocally reproduced it\" (Anderson, 1991, p. 24). Despite the mass naturalization of the Chinese in 1975, contemporary public discourse on the Chinese still hint on their foreignness and economic privilege. Politicians and government officials, as well as opinion makers, have often blamed Chinese businessmen for the economic problems afflicting the nation. Chinese have been accused of \"price manipulation, hoarding, unfair trade practices, or profiteering\" (See, 1997, p. 9). Journalists and community leaders have also portrayed Chinese as leaders of crime syndicates. Even though they are Philippine citizens, Chinese Fil ipinos are still seen as being unfit for public office. Groups have been formed to reject candidates of Chinese ancestry during the past elections. Various stereotypes of the Chinese continue to persist, such as their control of the Philippine economy, their enormous wealth, and the homogeneity and inscrutability of the Chinese community. The refusal of some Chinese to marry outside the community is considered 'proof of their inability to assimilate to the mainstream society, even though intermarriages are increasingly common (See, 1997). Even as more Chinese Fil ipinos integrate into the mainstream society through their participation in the cultural, political and economic activities of the country, there are still incidents involving the Chinese Fil ipino community that continue to remind them of their precarious status in the country. The kidnappings targeted against Chinese Fil ipinos have 60 been a recent 20 century phenomena. Although kidnap-for-ransom had been a problem ever since, it had only become rampant against middle-class Filipinos of Chinese origin in the early 1990s (See, 1997). Most of these kidnappings may be motivated by money, but the targeting of Chinese victims reveals a racial bias. In one sense, it exposes the continued vulnerability of Chinese Filipinos to harassment and their marginalization from mainstream society. In another, it exemplifies the racialized construction of class that has constituted Chinese Fil ipino identity. The upward mobility of the Chinese in the Philippines has produced a successful group of Chinese businessmen, whom the Philippine press has recently referred to as 'taipans.' These taipans have expanded to non-traditional Chinese industries, such as banking, property development, telecommunications, airlines, among others, to challenge the long-standing domination of these industries by the Spanish and other foreign elite (Wickberg, 1998). The word 'taipan' means \" a powerful businessman and especially formerly a foreigner l iving and operating in Hong Kong or China\" (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2004). The connotation of the term 'taipan' as foreigner and its connections to Hong Kong or China implies that the success of Chinese Fil ipino entrepreneurs is still not considered home-grown. This has prompted See (1997) to write that \"the concept of the Chinese as an ethnic and not an alien minority has not yet taken hold. . . growth in the Chinese sector of the Philippine economy is not yet perceived as a growth in the domestic economy\" (pp. 126-127). The Chinese may have shed the image of a drooling Chinaman in the minds of the Fil ipinos, but that has been replaced with a different kind of racialization, which is that of the Chinese as foreign and economically privileged - the intersection of race and class at the center of Chinese Fil ipino identity. 61 Conclusion A s the Chinese in the Philippines move closer towards integrating into the Philippine society, they have started to become conscious of their identity and place in the mainstream society. Yet \"many Chinese Fil ipino themselves do not understand their own identity. Some have not come to terms with their identity, much less understand the culture that they practice\" (Palanca, E., 2003, xxvi). Their culture, heritage and the dilemmas surrounding their identity are the subject of a recent coffee-table book entitled Chinese Fil ipinos. This book \"celebrates the coming of age of the Chinese - from being Fil ipino Chinese, who were ambivalent about their status and loyalty, to the present generation of Chinese Fil ipinos, who know only the Philippines as their home and country\" (xxvi). Wickberg (2003) contrasts the new immigrant Chinese from the long-time resident immigrant as follows: The new immigrant has no time, experience, or inclination to reflect on either the cultural environment he is entering or the nature of the Chinese cultural environment he comes from. By contrast, the long-time resident or member of a local-born generation has all those qualities, (xxiv) A s Chinese Fil ipinos become more confident of their status in mainstream Philippine society, they would like their cultural heritage to be shared and remembered (Palanca, E., 2003). This paper is a contribution to the discourse surrounding Chinese Fi l ipino identities in Philippine mainstream society. It addresses the entrenched dichotomy between 'Chinese' and 'Fi l ip ino, ' as well as the various constructs within each of these categories. Throughout this paper, I have argued for the importance of racial formation in understanding how identities are formed by various groups, and more importantly, as a means of perpetuating patterns of domination and subordination (Omi and Winant, 2001; Lopez, 2000). Racial profil ing leads 62 to an analysis of how racial categories are formed and the cultural meaning that came to be attached to the racial category (Gotanda, 2000). Racial triangulation, on the other hand, helps us to grasp that \"racialization processes are mutually constitutive of one another\" (K im, 1999, p. 106) and these processes generate hierarchies based on racial groups. The racialized construction of class as applied to the Chinese in the Philippines allows us to examine the marginalization of Chinese Fil ipinos throughout most of the last century, and their continued vulnerability in today's modern Philippine society. By conceiving Chinese Fil ipino identity as a contested discourse, it enables us to open new avenues of inquiry and challenge the stereotypes and myths that have surrounded this ethnic minority. A s K i m (1999) points out, \"the field of racial positions has now been rearticulated in cultural terms: rather than asserting the intrinsic racial superiority of certain groups over others, opinionmakers now claim that certain group cultures are more conducive to success than others\" (p. 117). The 'unique' characteristics of ethnic Chinese, based on Confucian values and Chinese culture, have been largely credited for the economic success of overseas Chinese in Southeast As ia. The emphasis on education, hard work, and other 'Chinese' qualities are supposed to be the 'formula' for their success (Go, 1996). Instead of addressing the structural inequality present in the Philippines, the example of the ethnic Chinese has been used to put the blame for the country's poverty squarely on the Fil ipinos themselves. As one writer puts it: So how does one explain an ethnic underclass that succeeds in hurdling prejudice, poverty, and cultural isolation to turn their ghettoes into today's prime real estate while the indigenous people bred chaos, mutual oppression, and decay? ... The bottom line is that the Chinese community in the 63 Philippines is a shining example of the precept that we, as a people, have not worked hard enough at overcoming obstacles to development. (Get Real Philippines, 2004) Despite appearances, the racialization of Chinese in the Philippines as 'economically privileged' becomes a 'tool of oppression' (Chang, 2000) by \"denying the existence of present-day discrimination ... and the present-day effects of past discrimination\" (p. 359). Worse, the racialization of Chinese Fil ipinos as 'al ien' strips them of their right to demand for protection against harassment and discrimination. Thus, like the Asian American experience, when they complain about discrimination and call for remedial action, these are seen as 'unwarranted and inappropriate' (Chang, 2000). In the United States, the model minority myth does not claim that Asian Americans have been culturally assimilated into White society. Instead, \"it posits their material success and attributes this to their ongoing cultural distinctiveness\" (K im, 1999, p. 118). Racial formation allows us to examine past and present forms of racialization and discrimination of the Chinese in the Philippines that contribute to the ongoing formation of their identity and status in mainstream Philippine society. This paper has mainly focused on the role of government policies in shaping the racialization processes of the Chinese in the Philippines. Admittedly, this is just one side of the story. The other side of the story is the role of agency, on the part of Chinese Fil ipinos and ethnic Fil ipinos, in contesting imposed racial meanings through movements and political struggle. This study can serve as a prelude for future research on the agency of Chinese Fil ipinos and ethnic Filipinos in resisting externally imposed racialization processes. The other limitation of this paper is the lack of discussion on the gendered construction of the 64 'Chinese race' in the Philippine context. The images of the old, drooling Chinaman and the successful taipan are masculine constructions of 'Chineseness.' This raises a lot of interesting research questions, such as exploring the agency of Chinese women in forming their own identities in the Philippine society, and the gender relations among Chinese Fil ipinos. This past century has seen Chinese Fil ipino identities evolve from the Chinese sojourner who was culturally and politically oriented to his native place in China, to the Philippine-born Chinese who was politically marginalized from the mainstream Philippine society, and finally, to the third-generation Chinese Fil ipino who has Philippine citizenship and who has now fully identified with the country of her birth. Changes in the country's political structure, its relations with China and Taiwan, among others, have lead to changes in policies toward the Chinese in the Philippines, and these in turn have affected the formation of their identities. Increased social interaction between ethnic Chinese and Fil ipinos has also contributed to the transformation of Chinese Fil ipino identities as well. So how are we to define the Chinese Fil ipino today? Do we still use McCarthy's definition of the ethnic Chinese as \"someone with a measure of Chinese immigrant parentage who is sufficiently influence by Chinese culture, can use a Chinese language, and observes Chinese customs enough to rightly call himself, and to be regarded by his neighbors, as Chinese\" (as cited by See, 1994, p. 141)? If this is the case, many of the members of the third generation are immediately excluded from this definition. Do we identify them with the modern Chinese diaspora, the 'imagined community' of huaren (Chinese) that binds all the Chinese in the world together as one people? This is also problematic since 'Chineseness' as a category does not have a fixed content; its meanings are constantly renegotiated and rearticulated in various sections of the Chinese diaspora. The imagining of the 'Chinese race' 65 also tends to suppress the differences which have been constructed by heterogeneous diasporic experiences (Ang, 2001). The full integration of the Chinese into the Philippine society is also problematic since \"even the Fil ipinos themselves do not as yet have a national identity that could embrace different ethnic identities, indigenous or alien, into its fo ld\" (See, 1988, p. 331). A n d as Hau (2003) points out, there is also a need to question the mainstream into which the Chinese Fil ipinos are supposed to be integrating: This Fi l ipino mainstream is, like Chineseness, a construct which belies a social reality defined by class, ethnic, religious, sexual, and educational differences. Being mainstream often means being middle-class, western-educated, Christian, heterosexual, and lowland. Which is to say that, as much as mainstream is inclusive, it can also be exclusive, (p. 279) These issues are complex and need to be carefully examined in order to allow for the integration, not just of Chinese Fil ipinos, but of other ethnic groups as well into Philippine society. Recognizing the entrenched processes of racialization and patterns of domination and subordination in the Philippines \"does not mean surrendering to it, but rather exposing it once and for all to meaningful and effective challenge\" (K im, 1999, p. 130). This paper hopes to challenge existing constructions of Chinese Fil ipino identities so that they can break down the barriers to their full integration into Philippine society. 66 Bibliography Anderson, K. J . (1991). Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial discourse in Canada, 1875-1980. Montreal: McGi l l -Queen's University Press. Ang , I. (2001). 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Tu (Ed.), The living tree: The changing meaning of being Chinese today (pp. 148-166). Stanford University Press. 71 "@en ; edm:hasType "Thesis/Dissertation"@en ; vivo:dateIssued "2004-11"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0091702"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:degreeDiscipline "Anthropology"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:publisher "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:rights "For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use."@en ; ns0:scholarLevel "Graduate"@en ; dcterms:title "From Chinese to Filipino : changing identities of the Chinese in the Philippines"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/15537"@en .