Caribbean vs. Filipino Latinos: Culture, Identity & History

Culture Is in the Details

An old expression holds that the devil is in the details, and this is as true in the field of human behavior as it is in any other arena. If one examines any area of human behavior as it presents itself across different groups, there will always be substantial similarities between members of those groups. All humans are more alike each other than they are different, and this fact means that the two groups compared here — Caribbean Latinos and Filipino Latinos — will share many traits.

Indeed, from the outside (and perhaps even from the inside) these two groups may appear very similar to each other. They certainly share a number of traits in terms of their history and the values that govern their everyday lives, as well as the deepest dimensions of who they are. Discussing the differences between Caribbean Latinos and Filipino Latinos is a way of delineating the things each group sees as distinctly its own. Writing about how these two groups see themselves is also a way of writing about the complex ways in which cultural identity is constructed at the intersections of past and present, of distant and near.

The scions of islands, the inheritors of post-imperial cartography, the skilled merchants conversing in a dozen creoles — these peoples inhabit their cultural identities in ways that are very different from other Latino groups, such as those living in Mexico or Peru. This paper looks briefly at the ways in which two different groups of Latinos can share so much of both recent and ancient history and yet remain so very different from each other.

However — and this is the devil in the details — there are at least as many important distinctions between these two groups as there are similarities, and it is those differences that are key. Indeed, one of the most important aspects of human culture that transcends both time and place is the fact that we are all, as humans, more likely to define ourselves by how we differ from each other than by how we are the same.

When we meet someone from another group, we examine them to see whether we can classify them as more like us or more different from us. It is a deeply held part of the human psyche to remain alert to ways in which we are different — and therefore potentially better — than others. Even without being aware of it, we are engaged in a continual process of adding to and subtracting from the sum of who we are.

Every Island Is a Melting Pot

An overview of Caribbean Latinos should begin with their literal definition. Caribbean Latinos are of mixed ancestry — their heritage a genetic combination of the native peoples of the islands (such as the Tainos, the people once called the Carib), along with genetic inheritance from African and European peoples. There is no single racial mixture that defines the Caribbean Latino quite like the Puerto Rican experience does.

This diversity can be seen in the different phenotypes that arise from different genotypes. Caribbean Latinos can look very different from one another: they range in skin color from near-Caucasian to as dark as African Americans whose genetics carry little chromosomal material from anywhere outside Africa. Caribbean Latinos are very different from what many Americans think of as typical Latinos — those whose primary cultural ties are to the Central and South American mainlands.

It is arguable that because Caribbean Latinos can look so different from each other in terms of skin color, bone structure, and other genetically based characteristics such as hair color and texture, they connect with one another on cultural axes such as religion and language. Citizens of Las Tres Hermanas — Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba — relate to each other in complex ways that constantly acknowledge and then disengage from shared biological heritage, a commonality reflected not only in physical appearance but also in the ways their cultures parallel one another.

The biological links among Caribbean Latinos are simply another way of acknowledging that they share a history that connects them culturally as well. People of both African and European ancestry made their way to the Caribbean along trade routes that carried goods as well as people to ever-more-distant markets. The islands had always been home to different peoples, but as empires rose and grew stronger on the exploitation of less powerful peoples, native ways, languages, and religions grew fainter. The islands became less and less the home of people who were born and expected to die where their grandparents had, and more and more a place where people came and went.

Islands are always way-stations. One of the most important bonds linking these peoples is a certain transience built into their lives. Caribbean Latinos wear their identities lightly in many ways: they live lives defined by the knowledge that everything can change in an instant and everything dependable can be swept away. Their ancestors were colonized by different empires in succession, and they are linked by this history too — by what it means to be first coveted and then discarded by the same overlords (Suarez-Orozco & Paez, 2008).

Hess-Fischl (2006) writes that Caribbean Latinos are also linked to each other on less fortuitous grounds. For example, this group is marked by a very high percentage of individuals with Type 2 diabetes, a medical trend that arises primarily from dietary habits focused on high levels of saturated fat and processed sugars. Such a high prevalence of Type 2 diabetes has potentially serious consequences for the population. It can also bind Caribbean Latinos together, as members of families seek support from across their communities to create better pathways to health.

Quatromoni et al. (1994) found that the more tightly knit Caribbean Latino communities are, the better their chances of reducing the risk of early death. These researchers found that focus group techniques could be used very effectively with low-income, urban minority populations as a mechanism to provide "information on lifestyle behaviors and beliefs regarding chronic diseases that impact on health and nutritional status." Caribbean Latinos are linked by a common biological past that mixes genetic heritage from across the world, creating a population that is simultaneously a source of difference (in terms of appearance) and similarity (in terms of shared susceptibility to the same physical conditions).

Caribbean Latino Identity in the United States

Caribbean Latinos are as culturally significant in parts of the United States as they are at home, and their presence shifts the balance of cultural power among Latino groups in American cities. When Caribbean Latinos come to New York, they can become interchangeable with one another in the eyes of Americans — a perception that may in turn affect how they relate to each other:

"But even as the proportion of Puerto Ricans shrank, many of their replacements came from the Dominican Republic. Inter-island rivalries make some people reluctant to admit it, but the two cultures have many similarities, from the food they eat to the music they make to the Spanish they speak to the baseball they play to the African blood in their veins." (Kugel, 2002)

Conclusion: Difference as Identity

The Caribbean islands have served as a sort of funnel, with the people of Africa and the Spanish empire being pulled in and then spilled out into the New World. The Philippines, on the other hand, pull people from Asia and from the Latin American mainland and mix them together, retaining more of them in this chain of islands than is true in the Caribbean — a more self-contained process. The Latinos in the Philippines remain Asian in a way that the Latinos in the Caribbean have long ago moved beyond their African roots.