On the Cultural Politics of “Chinese Immigrants” in the Philippines : Focusing on the Socio-Cultural Process of Exclusion and Inclusion

宮原, 曉

Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies RCHSS, Academia Sinica, Taipei Taiwan

Chinese Immigrants

This paper aims to identify the cultural and identity politics of Chinese immigrants in the Philippines, with a focus on the representations and discourses of the Chinese population that function as part of the national identity discourse. Through the socio-cultural processes of exclusion and inclusion, the descendants of Chinese immigrants who came to the Philippines in the early years have leveraged anti-Chinese sentiment as a means to define themselves as Philippine citizens. Today, the anti-Chinese sentiment is not targeted at the ethnic Chinese who acquired Filipino citizenship in 1975, but at the newcomers who immigrated to the Philippines in the 1990s and afterward. The latter, through the representations and discourses on China and Chinese companies, have experienced a process of exclusion and inclusion similar to that encountered by the ethnic Chinese in the past. The national identity of the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries, as well as the U.S. and China, should be evaluated with reference to this socio-cultural process of exclusion and inclusion of immigrants. It is through this reconsideration that we will be able to gain a new cultural perspective on the hegemonic struggle between China and the U.S. and the responses of the Philippines.