![]() | Ambition and Identity: Chinese Merchant Elites in Colonial Manila, 1880–1916 Subjects: Chinese -- Philippines -- Manila -- History; Elite (Social science) -- Philippines -- Manila -- History; Manila (Philippines) -- History; What binds overseas Chinese communities together? Traditionally scholars have stressed the interplay of external factors (discrimination, local hostility) and internal forces (shared language, native-place ties, family) to account for the cohesion and "Chineseness" of these overseas groups. Andrew Wilson challenges this Manichean explanation of identity by introducing a third factor: the ambitions of the Chinese merchant elite, which played an equal, if not greater, role in the formation of ethnic identity among the Chinese in colonial Manila. |
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