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Mestizo is a Spanish colonial and post-colonial term for people of mixed European and Indigenous descent, as well as Indigenous people who are culturally European. Though originally created as part of the Spanish empire’s rigid caste system in South America, by the late 19th century mestizo had become a more ambiguous identity. In the Philippines mestizo remained a legal category but included all mixed Chinese-Filipinos and Catholic converts as well as those of mixed Spanish-Filipino ancestry.
Mestizo Quotes in El Filibusterismo
The El Filibusterismo quotes below are all either spoken by Mestizo or refer to Mestizo. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
1. On Deck
Quotes
If you are still not convinced of the metaphor of the ship of state, look at the mix of passengers. Brown faces and black heads congregate below decks, indios, Chinese, and mestizos crammed among parcels and trunks. While up there above decks, under a canopy that protects them from the sun and seated in comfortable armchairs, are several passengers dressed European-style, friars and bureaucrats smoking fat cigars and contemplating the countryside, taking no notice, it seems, of the captain and crew’s efforts to navigate the river’s shoals.
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
16. The Tribulations of a Chinaman
Quotes
The Chinaman respected the jeweler a great deal not only for his wealth but for the rumored influence he had over the captain-general. It was said that Simoun favored the Chinaman’s aspirations and was in favor of the consulate. A certain Sinophobic newspaper had made veiled references to him, though with a great deal of periphrasis, indirection, and sly suggestion, and in its well-known polemic enjoined the partisan newspaper of the people of the queue. Some of the more circumspect people added with nudges and winks that the Dark Eminence counseled the general to value the Chinese while depreciating the rigorous dignity of the natives.
“To subjugate a people,” he said, “there is nothing like humiliating them and debasing them in their own eyes.”
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Mestizo Term Timeline in El Filibusterismo
The timeline below shows where the term Mestizo appears in El Filibusterismo. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
1. On Deck
...boat’s passengers are divided up like Filipino society, with Europeans comfortably situated above deck while mestizo, indio, and Chinese travelers stay below with the luggage. The Europeans, sitting near the captain,...
(full context)
12. Plácido Penitente
...a comfortable family, but he feels alienated from his peers. Plácido’s classmate, a rich, untrustworthy mestizo named Juanito Peláez, joins Plácido on his walk to class. Juanito brags about his close...
(full context)
16. The Tribulations of a Chinaman
...and the colonial government in order to suppress native elites. The rivalry between indios and mestizos leaves both groups weaker than the Chinese, who use their wealth to influence the state.
(full context)
