Subject: ilustrado / maginoo 'enlightened'
Culture: Mestizo de Sangley / Filipino-Chinese
Setting: late Spanish empire, Luzon 19thc
Evolution:
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
* Wickberg 2000 p25
"Unquestionably the most important social phenomenon of the century 1750-1850 was the rise of the Chinese mestizo to a position of economic and social prominence. The development of the two communities of Catholic Chinese at Binondo and Santa Cruz, and the pre-1750 scattering of Chinese in Luzon and parts of the Bisayas had left a mestizo residue. By 1810 there were perhaps 120,000 mestizos in a total Philippine population of about 2,500,000. Of more significance their numerical strength (they formed, after all, only 5 per cent of the total population) was the fact that the mestizos were concentrated in the most westernized, most economically advanced parts of the Philippines. Over 60 per cent of the mestizos in the Philippines resided in the three Central Luzon provinces of Tondo, Bulacan, and Pampanga. The province of Tondo alone accounted for almost 30 per cent of the mestizo population in the Philippines. And although these were heavily populated provinces, the number of mestizos relative to the total population was not insignificant. In Tondo, mestizos made up about 15 per cent of the population; in Bulacan and Pampanga they accounted for about 11 per cent each. In other, less populated provinces within the same general region of Central Luzon, the mestizos, although not numerous in absolute terms, were an important percentage of the provincial population. In Bataan 15 per cent of the population was mestizo. Twelve per cent of Cavite's population was mestizo."
Costume
* Wickberg 2000 p32
"The dress worn by the mestizos was a unique blend of Spanish, indio, and Chinese, a style also affected by the Spanish mestizos in the Philippines. The men wore a knee-length camisa de chino shirt, which was allowed to hang outside the trousers. By the middle of the nineteenth century it was common for mestizo males to wear top hats, supposedly the exclusive status mark of a gobernadorcillo."
