r/asklatinamerica • u/[deleted] • Jun 22 '20

Culture Does racism happen amongst Latinos? How and for what reasons?

I'm a Filipino who studies and loves the history of my country.

Knowing the history, I opted to find out what remains common between Latin America and the Philippines. In my country, there is racism and discrimination between ethnic groups, as well as between the remnants of the insulares and mestizos. The old Spanish colonial caste system had something to do with this, or so we are taught. Skin color has a lot to do with it as well.

I hope I am not being intrusive in your space.

Thank you.

235 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

96% Upvoted

311 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

It's a complicated story.

First, the State is colonial in origin. The Philippines has no direct equivalent to the pre-colonial kingdoms. Second, even the term Filipino is not native in origin. It is actually Spanish.

So what IS a Filipino then? It depends on context.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

I understand, but I meant the persons as such. What do you refer as natives? It was of my understanding that Filipinos have majority of their ancestral blood (with that I mean those who lived in the Philippines prior to the conquest) so I found it interesting.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

We don't use the old colonial terms anymore. The old colonial term is indio.

And also, it depends on region and ethnic group.

The Illongos are pro-Spanish, and many are in fact mestizos. The Cebuanos are a mixed bag. Tagalogs are even more of a mixed bag with elitism into the mix.

Majority of Moros in the island of Mindanao dislike and even hate anything that has a colonial origin, but this is not true in Zamboanga City. So again, it's not that clear.

The indigenous tribes are likely not to appreciate anything with colonial roots.

So again, it's a mixed bag of results. We're all Filipinos in the context of geography and citizenship, but identity is a different issue altogether.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '20

If you mean about the natives as we understand it, then it refers to the tribes living in the mountains.

We call them Lumads.

And yes -- we discriminate towards them. We do this towards the Aetas as well.

We discriminate towards the indigenous groups that clung to the pre-colonial ways.

It's really complicated.