Chinay
Chinese Filipinos (sometimes referred as Filipino Chinese or Chinoy/Tsinoy in the Philippines) are Filipinos of full or partial Chinese descent, although typically born and raised in the Philippines. A large proportion of Chinese Filipinos can trace their ancestry back to the Chinese province of Fujian.
Chinese immigration to the Philippines predates the Spanish colonization of the islands, but intensified between the 16th and 19th centuries, attracted by the lucrative trade of the Manila galleons. During this era, they were referred to as Sangley. These were mostly Hokkien-speaking people that later became the dominant group within the Filipino Chinese community. In the 19th century, migration was triggered by the corrupt and ineffective governance of the late Qing dynasty, combined with economic problems in China due to the Western and Japanese colonial wars as well as the Opium Wars. It subsequently continued during the 20th century, from American colonial times, through the post-independence era and the Cold War, to the present. In 2013, according to older records held by the Senate of the Philippines, there were approximately 1.35 million ethnic (or pure) Chinese within the Philippine population, while Filipinos with any Chinese descent comprised 22.8 million of the population. However, current figures are not known since the Philippine census usually does not take into account questions about ethnicity. The oldest Chinatown in the world is located in Binondo, Manila, founded on December 8, 1594.
Chinese Filipinos are a well-established middle class ethnic group and are represented in all of the levels of Filipino society. Chinese Filipinos also play a leading role in the Philippine business sector and dominate the Philippine economy today. Most in the current list of the Philippines' richest each year comprise Taipan billionaires of Chinese Filipino background. Some in the list of the political families in the Philippines are also of Chinese Filipino background, meanwhile the bulk are of Spanish colonial-era Chinese mestizo (mestizo de Sangley) descent, of which, many families of such background also compose a considerable part of the Philippine population especially its bourgeois, who during the late Spanish Colonial Era in the late 19th century, produced a major part of the ilustrado intelligentsia of the late Spanish Colonial Philippines, that were very influential in the creation of Filipino nationalism and the sparking of the Philippine Revolution as part of the foundation of the First Philippine Republic and subsequently sovereign independent Philippines.
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