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by Fred C. Wilson III
May 16, 2013
“I am not a little bit of many things; but I am the sufficient representation of many things. I am not an incompletion of all these races; but I am a masterpiece of the prolific. I am an entirety, I am not a lack of anything; rather I am a whole of many things. God did not see it needful to make me generic. He thinks I am better than that.”
– C. JoyBell C.-
When I lived in San Francisco I had no problems blending in within the local citizenry. Once I moved to Chicago things changed. When I walked down streets, attended church, went to school, and shopped people would stop and stare; some hostile most curious as to my ethnicity. When some asked I’d reply “I’m an American” at other times “ET’s Uncle Fred.” I’ve had people approach me and ask questions/directions in ‘Chinese!’ If they were sincere I’d answer them. Sometimes situations get silly. I remember teaching at an overwhelmingly African-American elementary school on Chicago’s West Side. While grading some papers I overheard two of my students back of the classroom say, “We all know Mr. Wilson wants to be Black but he’s really Chinese.” A lot of folks ask me if I’m Asian. Being married to a wonderful Fil-Am lady for nearly 25 years I take these inquires as compliments. I rarely complain since their questions appear harmless, though at times I wonder.
My family tree is a complete mystery. Both sides of the family, save for my two brothers, are barely literate. Only our Mom kept historical records. I have little idea where my roots lie. With the renewed American interest in family genealogies I often wonder about the unknown branches of my relational tree. When I get enough loose ‘change’ I’ll invest it with one of those companies that specialize in DNA tracing. I want to find out exactly where my roots lie; who were my people? Where do they come from? Are they alive now?
Several years ago I wrote a series on my missionary adventures working/living among southern Mexico’s indigenous peoples. The trip and series were successful. I wanted to bring the Gospel Message to the mountain peoples in places so remote, accessible only by horse/mule back. I wanted to explore the source of where Latin, Black, and Asians met and merged in North America. I hoped these discoveries would shed light on my own racial origins. Had I known then I would have driven a few miles north instead of east into the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains.
Espinalillo is a barrio in the town of Coyuca hub of Mexico’s ‘Chino’ Filipino enclave. Coyuca’s ‘Manila Men’ are remnants of what once was a thriving Filipino community a carryover from the infamous yet lucrative Mexican-Manila galleon trade. During those dark times many Filipino men maintained two separate families replete with wives, children and extended families; one back home the other in Mexico since Manila Men were barred from bringing their families to the New World. Through the centuries those men branched out throughout Mexico. They were the descendants of the Manila Men who first arrived in Acapulco from the Philippines. They came to North America as sailors and force laborers under the ‘polo’ work system. A fortunate few immigrated to Mexico to work as merchants, ship builders and in other professions. Hundreds of years of intermarriage haven’t erased their Filipino features. Reader you can still recognize Filipino characteristics in many of contemporary ‘Chinese’ Mexicans. Filipinos were the first Asians to arrive in Mexico and Gulf coastal United States aforementioned in a previous article on southern Louisiana’s Filipino communities.
After our mission team left Acapulco we drove to our new home the 409 year old ‘Parroquia De San Miquel Arcangel’ in the village of Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero. This church is high in the Sierra Madres. Our cook had physical features commonly associated with Filipinos. Her ready smile, friendliness, and persuasive but strong no-nonsense personality reminded me of some of my Filipina relatives. This woman was kindhearted but a bit of a flirt. She nearly drove me crazy when I tried to borrow ‘her’ kitchen to cook a special dinner for the padres. Though I was her guest she made damn sure she was queen of her kitchen and brooked no argument from me or the two friars.
During the height of the colonial era the Spaniards used to collect peoples the way American kids collect baseball cards, stamps, and computer games. Manila was a terminus for indigenous peoples captured from India, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Muslim Mindanao. After their enslavement they would be transported to North America to fill the ranks of slave laborers who had deserted, were murdered, starved or beaten to death by their vicious Spanish overlords. Also aforementioned in an earlier article, ex-Filipino slaves who fled Spanish galleons made up the bulk of first non-native settlers in the Louisiana bayous. Before the French Acadians, there were the ‘Manila Men.’ According to author Carlos Quirino’s book ‘The Mexican Connection’ the backbone and heart of Acapulco’s present day multi-billion dollar tourist industry is comprised of Mexican-Filipinos. This brings to mind the Cathedral Mass I attended when I was in that city was presided over by a Filipino priest who spoke textbook Spanish. It’s also worth mentioning that many waiters, cabbies, sales clerks, and security guards in that resort city are Mexican-Filipinos. The only other parts of Mexico with sizable Mexican-Filipino communities are in Baja California, Sonora, and Mexico City. Elsewhere in Latin America Filipinos are scarce. To my knowledge there are very few if any Filipino communities of numerical significance in any other Latin country save for Mexico.
When I was in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles there was a popular Filipino restaurant in capitol city Willemstad that specialized in a fried variety of lumpia the popular Filipino side dish. Fried Lumpia was one of the most popular snack foods in Curacao.
After hours of searching Philippine embassies, consulates, and private industry sources I deduced that the number of Filipinos living in Latin America is abysmally low. According to some recent statistics there were exactly 35 Filipinos living Chile. Some are priests, business people, mining engineers, and other professionals. In 2008 there were 379 Filipinos in Brazil and a mere 136 in Venezuela. For some odd reason Filipinos appeared to have generally avoided the Southern American continent. This article didn’t answer my personal questions about my own mixed ancestry. However it did shed light on the origins of Filipinos coming to the New World.
An educated/activist populace can work economic wonders in the marketplace. They can boycott fast food restaurants that use meats of dubious quality, refuse to purchase tubes of expensive creams/salves injected with air bubbles to give it extra weight, sue health care providers for watering down life saving medicines, and learn organizational strategies to petition government/company officials to stop companies from using the legal system to skirt quality control and employ other dubious business practices to rob you. In ‘Buyer Beware’ Philippine Adventures will focus on how to fight for your consumer rights to quality, affordable and safe products. Peace and all things good.
(vamaxwell@yahoo.com)