Filipino Mestizo

Filipino mestizo

Notable Filipino mestizos: José Rizal • Andrés Bonifacio • Manuel L. Quezon • Datu Piang • Charlene Gonzales • Marian Rivera • Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala • Venus Raj • Vanessa Hudgens • Jaime Sin • Megan Young • Pia Wurtzbach
Regions with significant populations
Philippines, United States, Canada, Spain
Languages
Philippine languages, Spanish, English, other European languages, Japanese, Chinese, or other languages.
Religion
Christianity (Predominantly Roman Catholic, with a minority of Protestants) and Islam, or other religions.
Related ethnic groups
Other Filipino people and foreign ethnic groups of his/her own ancestry

Filipino mestizo is a term used in the Philippines to describe people of mixed Filipino and any foreign ancestry. The word mestizo is of Spanish origin; it was first used in the Americas to describe only people of mixed European and Native American ancestry.

The Spanish expedition in 1565, prompted a period of Spanish colonization over the Philippines which lasted for 333 years. The Roman Catholic Church played an important role in allowing Spanish settlements in the Philippines. The Spanish government and religious missionaries were quick to learn native Filipino languages and Roman Catholic rituals were interpreted in accordance with Filipino beliefs and values. As a result, a folk Roman Catholicism developed in the Philippines. European settlers from Spain and Mexico immigrated and their offspring (of either Spanish, or Spanish and Filipino) may have adopted the culture of their parents and grandparents. Most Filipinos of Spanish descent in the Philippines are of mixed ancestries or are of pure European ancestry. Some individuals still speak Spanish in the country, in addition, Chavacano (a creole language based largely on the Spanish vocabulary) is widely spoken in the Southern Philippines, including the Zamboanga Peninsula and its neighbouring regions. Spanish era periodicals record that as much as one third of the inhabitants of the island of Luzon possess varying degrees of Spanish and Latino admixture. In addition to Luzon, select cities such as Bacolod, Cebu, Iloilo or Zamboanga which are home to historical military fortifications or commercial ports during the Spanish era also holds sizable mestizo communities. This historical Spanish and Latino admixture is confirmed by a June 2015 genetic study done by the University of California's Institute of Genetics with a sample of 1700 Filipinos, that observed that "Among individuals reporting only an East Asian nationality, the large majority have only East Asian genetic ancestry; however, there are also individuals that appear to have mixed East Asian–European genetic ancestry that self-reported only their East Asian nationality. Of particular interest is the continuous nature of a modest amount of European genetic ancestry in self-identified Filipinos, consistent with older European admixture."

...
Wikipedia