The “Chinaman” Question: A Conundrum in US Imperial Policy in the Pacific

When the US took over the Philippines from Spain in 1898, it faced the dilemma of how to deal with the “Chinaman” question. While it applied the same Chinese exclusion law in the Philippines as it did in the mainland, the situation in the colony differed in a significant way—the Chinese had long been part of the Philippine economy and society. Faced with the task of constructing a “Filipino” nation in its own image, the US therefore had to find ways to separate the Chinese from the rest of the population. One of the ways by which it accomplished this was to curtail the long-standing and intimate unions between them and the local women of the Philippines, thereby helping create the “Chinese”-“Filipino” binary found in Philippine society today.