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Friday, October 22, 2004
Velez: Chinaman
By Jun Velez
Tracks
I’ve never imagined myself to be of Chinese descent. I can’t even picture myself to be one. My skin is baked brown, my eyes used to be big but seem to get smaller as I grow older. But it never got chinky. My hair is black, no trace of blond there, but my irises are brown.
It’s a different case with my lolas on the father side. They’re obviously of Chinese, Spanish and native blood. They had blond hair, chinky brown eyes, and fair skin with freckles. So whether it’s apparent or not, I have Chinese ancestry. And I’ve figured out how. A little of Cebu’s history came in handy.
In the late sixteenth century, Cebu participated briefly in the Galleon trade with Mexico, drawing Chinese merchants into its shores.
While archaeological evidence show presence of pre-Spanish trade between the Chinese and native Cebuanos, this was interrupted when Legaspi came (after Magellan’s disastrous journey) and established Spanish presence in Cebu and the rest of the archipelago.
The galleon trade had the Chinese coming back to Cebu. The Parian creek was still navigable then and Chinese junks sailed through the inner portion of land on the outskirts of the Spanish ciudad.
Today nothing is left of that historical tributary but a muddy, dirty estero behind Gaisano Main and the old Rosita’s department stores. Imagine the Parian estero to be a river, clean, teeming with fish and vegetation on its banks, wide enough to allow Chinese junks to pass through it, and enabling Chinese merchants to bring in their wares and sell them.
The estuary served as boundary between the Spanish ciudad and what would later become the Chinese settlement of Parian. The Chinese founded Parian on the banks of the estuary and made it into a trading and market center.
However, In 1604, Cebu’s participation in the Galleon Trade ended. A big portion of the Spanish population left for Manila. And so did some of the Chinese traders. There were those who chose to stay behind and slowly turned Parian into a community of traders and artisans.
In 1614, the Parian parish was founded after then bishop of Cebu Fr. Pedro de Arce divided the port area into two parishes, the Spanish ciudad with its Cathedral and the Parian parish for the now Christianized Chinese. A third division would later be established in San Nicolas. (Mojares, 1983)
The Chinese who settled in Parian had native wives thereby raising generations of Mestizo Sangleyes for which Parian came to be known.
Among them was our ancestor Jacinto Velez de los Santos who married Simona Loyola, the first known ancestor in the reconstructed Velez genealogy made by American scholar, Dr. Michael Cullinane. His descendants are the Cebuano speaking Velezes of Cebu, Cagayan and Leyte.
I have a Chinese writer friend who‘s very cool and down to earth. Next time we see each other, it will be like staring at my face in the mirror. | will be searching for traces, if any, of my Chinese roots. (jdv@sunstar.com.ph)
(October 22, 2004 issue)
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