The Hybrid Tsinoys

Book excerpt: The Hybrid Tsinoys is a study of hybridity and homogeneity as sociocultural constructs in the development of current ethnic identity/ies of Chinese Filipinos. This study employs a descriptive ethnographic research method to discover how they see or define themselves in terms of ethnicity (Chinese, Filipino, or both) and how their perspectives affect other aspects of their lives (language, marriage, and family). The research proposes that there are different kinds of Chinese Filipinos as evidenced in the six classifications in chapter 4. Further, most of them have constructed a hybrid culture exclusively and uniquely their own. On the one hand, they are still attached to their cultural roots; on the other hand, they cannot evade the fact that they are influenced by their host country and the present global and migratory age we live in. Second-, third-, and fourth-generation Chinese Filipinos demonstrate their hybridity in language and mindset. This dissertation also lays out some challenges in relation to doing mission among them.