Are you speaking about Filipino-Americans or Filipinos in the Philippines? Most Filipino Americans have an identity crisis due to a lost history and confusion about their past. Many people, including Filipinos themselves, assume Filipinos are like Mexicans: heavily mixed with other races (especially Spanish) since the majority of their last names are all Spanish. Therefore, they conclude that they don't fit in with other Asians (however not entirely true, DNA results on YouTube show the majority are MOSTLY Southeast Asian with very little or no Spanish or European DNA, and pretty much no Oceanian and Papuan, AKA Pacific Islander). The Spanish last names of Filipinos are due to the fact that the Spanish occupiers at the time forced the Filipino people to change their last names to a Spanish last names because they couldn't pronounce their real last names. Some even go the length to identify as “Pacific Islander” which is actually incorrect. I grew up around a lot of Filipino people and also Pacific Islanders (Fijian and Tongan/Samoan, and very few indigenous and non-mixed Hawaiians). Many of them were my childhood friends or people I went to school with (probably one of the most diverse schools in the entire US). Fun fact, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is Samoan, was born in the very same city I went to school and grew up in (the city is known to have a big Pacific Islander community, and also a Filipino community). Many Filipino people I've known looked pretty much Chinese with light skin and East Asian features… while many others had darker brown skin with typical Southeast Asian features (looking very similar to Thai people for example). There were very few Filipinos that looked partly Spanish or European, the majority of Filipinos looked East Asian and/or Southeast Asian for the most part.
It was very easy to tell the difference between Filipino, Fijian, and Tongan/Samoan people. Filipino people looked way more Asian. Tongans and Samoans mostly have very big husky bodies with curly hair, and have more Aboriginal traits compared to Filipinos (sometimes they look Black and Asian). Indigenous Fijians have very dark skin and they actually look Black. Most Fijians are descendants of Africans who migrated to Fiji a long time ago from Madagascar, but though there are a lot of “Indian-Fijians” that immigrated to Fiji in recent history so they're pretty much South Asian Indian but have a mixed culture of Indian and Fijian (migration likely occurred when the Muslim Indians escaped the Hindu dominated country sometime in 1947). In regards to indigenous non-mixed Hawaiians (which whom are extremely rare nowadays since Hawaii has become mixed with Asian and White over the past century), they look very Aboriginal with dark skin, much more than Tongans and Samoans but not as much as Fijians. So Filipino people look just like other Southeast Asian people and often, many actually have a lot of Chinese ethnicities too since many Chinese migrated to the Philippines (most likely to escape the Mao Zedong great famine) and Taiwanese people also since the border is only 200 miles away (and China is 400 miles away from the Philippines, while the Pacific Island countries are between 3500 - 5000 miles away, so there is way more Chinese influence than Pacific Islander). I often mistake Thai, Malaysian, Cambodian, Indonesian, and Laos people as Filipinos because they look very similar (especially Thai and Malaysian). The Filipinos with light skin tones are more than likely descendants of East Asian Chinese since Chinese traders historically traded with the Philippines for thousands of years, and many Chinese immigrants more recently migrated to places like The Philippines or Vietnam, or other Southeast Asian countries. Fun fact: Chinese New Year is actually a national holiday (day off of work) in the Philippines, that's because there is a large population of Chinese Filipinos who are descendants of Chinese. The Filipinos with brown skin are likely descendants of Southeast Asian countries (with distant descendants from India and Madagascar, Africa). Some Filipinos even have Chinese or Taiwanese last names, though it's more common for them to have Spanish last names since many were FORCED to change their last names sometime during 1849 under Spanish colonial rule (so like I mentioned, the last names don't mean they have any Spanish ancestry in them, they were forced to change their last names because the Spanish had a hard time pronouncing the Filipino last names, though very few Filipinos may have Spanish DNA in them but it's a very small minority… just like how very very few Vietnamese people have French DNA in them, and Indian people from India have English/British DNA due to past colonial occupation).
There are indeed indigenous Black people living in the Philippines, they are known as “Aetas”. They are basically people who migrated from Africa a long time ago and lived in small communities, but they are in the small minority of the population as you can probably tell since very few Filipino people look Black, nor do they have Black features (like afro-textured hair)… though I've seen Filipinos with wavy hair, but most have straight hair (it's not totally uncommon for Asians to have wavy or curly hair, but most Asians have straight hair). And there are many Filipinos with very dark skin tones (which many of them dislike so they use skin-lightening products, just like in India which was made worse with Bollywood film directors preferring actors with light skin). Many of these indigenous Black people live in small communities across Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands (Fiji in particular). There are indigenous Black Vietnamese people that exist, though they are a very tiny minority of the population (and the Vietnamese government doesn't want people to know they exist, that's why you never even heard of them and they avoid showing dark-skinned actors on TV).
What Southeast Asian means is it's a mixture of people who originated from Madagascar/Africa and also China/Taiwan/Mongolia/Siberia… they met in the middle and became mixed, hence the brown color skin tone. Some will look more Aboriginal, others will look more Asian, it may depend on the region, colonial history, migration, etc. If you look at people in Indonesia, many have dark skin but also Asian facial features (those with darker skin have more Aboriginal traits, and those with light skin have more Chinese traits). Pacific Islanders basically are the same as Southeast Asians except they kept more of their Aboriginal traits since they lived more secluded on an island much longer with less Chinese influence or colonialism (especially Fiji) and have a little more African and Indigenous traits which explains the darker skin tone and afro-textured curly hair. You can even see many Pacific Islanders have some Asian-looking traits (especially Tongans) but also some Black traits (they kind of look Black and Asian, or “Blasian"). Fijians really look more Black than all the other Pacific Islanders, however. Indigenous Hawaiians actually have very dark skin, but many Hawaiians are now very mixed with White and Asian due to colonization/migration, so many people today aren't aware of what actually indigenous Hawaiians look like and they are becoming more rare as Hawaii is becoming more mixed and diverse (Jason Mamoa and Keanu Reeves are from Hawaii and are of mixed race, which is why they look slightly Asian… in Hawaii, they call mixed-race people “hapa"). It was originally thought that Pacific Islanders were descendants of Taiwan, but a more recent study shows they were actually descendants of Southeast Asians which makes more sense to me. So Pacific Islanders are descendants of Asians and Africans, they are basically more Aboriginal Southeast Asians.
So Filipinos are Southeast Asian, it's a mix of Aboriginal traits and Asian traits, some may have more Aboriginal traits and others may have more Asian traits. That's what it means to be Southeast Asian. Yes, Spain did invade the Philippines but very few Filipino people actually have European/Spanish DNA, some may have a tiny percentage of Spanish which is rare (just like how some Vietnamese people have French in them, and how some Indian people have British in them, it's in the very small minority). And a lot of Filipinos are more recent descendants of Chinese migrants, hence why they look very Chinese with light skin (the light skin is from East Asian ancestry rather than Spanish). As mentioned, Chinese New Year is a major national holiday in the Philippines, so that shows that the Philippines are more closely related to Asian culture and ancestry rather than Pacific Islanders. Plus, the Philippines is a much closer distance to China than any of the South Pacific islands… the border to border distance from the Philippines to China is about 400 miles (rough estimate)… while from the Philippines to Fiji is 4000 miles, and to the Solomon Islands is 2500 miles. So that means Filipinos are more closely related to Asians due to the closer distance to Asia and historical trading and migration of people from Asia to the Philippines, which was much easier to travel to by boat or ship (and during ancient times of the ice age, they had land bridges that went all the way across from the Philippines to the rest of Asia). See the link below for the ancient history of the Philippines.
Another thing to mention is that there ARE Filipino people who live in Hawaii.. but they did not come from Hawaii, they migrated there… people like Nicole Scherzinger and Bruno Mars are from Hawaii, but their families migrated to Hawaii from the Philippines (they are half Filipino, not full… both born in Hawaii). So technically, in regards to their race and DNA, they are still "Asian" but culturally, I guess you can say they have Pacific Islander culture since they grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. So this fact also further creates more confusion with Filipino people because they look at some Hawaiian people and then they see that they look just like them, therefore they conclude they are Pacific Islanders when in reality, Indigenous Hawaiians look completely different compared to Filipinos. Filipino people living in Hawaii don't claim to be “Indigenous Hawaiians” and know they have Filipino roots and are proud of it (and saying that they are Indigenous Hawaiian would be disrespectful). The culture between the two (The Philippines and Pacific Islanders) is pretty different, the food is very different, and the people look pretty different. Both Filipinos and Pacific Islanders are descendants of Southeast Asians, the only difference is Pacific Islanders have more Aboriginal traits due to having less Chinese influence since they lived secluded longer.
So as you can see, there's a ton of confusion which leads to an identity crisis in Filipino-Americans.. where they grew up being taught many Asian stereotypes and often hear people joke or bully Asians (often racist jokes).. It's even made worse with Hollywood and their lack of representation or misrepresentating Asians. So you can see, everyone is taught to see Asians in America as inferior and not to be taken seriously… People may not think about it, but in the back of their minds, they feel they are superior to Asians and they look down on them… this is where the self-hating with Filipino Americans come from. I know many Filipino friends who get extremely angry if you call them Asian. If you ask some of them if they consider themselves Asian, half of them may say yes, while the other half may say no, or they avoid being classified as Asian.
The Philippines is an ancient country, going back hundreds of thousands of years and the people have deep Asian roots. As I've mentioned, Southeast Asians are a mix of Aboriginal people from Africa/Madagascar and Mongolia/Taiwan, but in more recent modern times, there has been more Chinese influence in Southeast Asian countries (a migration of Chinese people). Many original inhabitants of Southeast Asian countries were from Africa, but they became mixed with Asians (from China/Mongolia/Taiwan) over thousands of years. And historically, Chinese traders traded with The Philippines, much long before the Spanish colonization, and so there have been very close ties with Chinese/East Asian culture, way more than Spanish. Pacific Islanders are the same as Southeast Asians, except they kept more of their Aboriginal traits as they didn't mix a lot with Chinese due to their more remote and secluded location (though some Pacific Islanders look very Asian, some even have light skin). There are Indigenous people called the Sentinelese and Jarawa people who live in extremely remote islands located in the Indian Ocean… they kept all of their Aboriginal traits which shows many people from Africa migrated across India, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Australia a long time ago… the influence of Chinese came shortly after, but communities that lived secluded kept more of their Aboriginal traits (like Fiji for example).
Being Asian in America is tough, especially with all the racist stereotypes and jokes associated with it so then some Filipinos don't want to categorize themselves as “Asian” and get upset when people refer to them as Asian. With your skin color being brown, having a Spanish last name, and coming from a country overseas with little to no knowledge of your ancestral history, it's really easy to lose your sense of identity. The self-hate comes from a lack of TRUE identity of one's self, and trying to “fit in” Western society's standards. In the Philippines, everybody is Filipino.. not much other mix of people, so less people to compare yourself to or even think about a hierarchy. In America, you now have a big culture clash and all kinds of different ethnic races of people from different backgrounds to compare yourself to, and more competition to rise to the top of the social ladder. That is where the self-hate comes from, comparing one's self to others. One has to truly accept who they are in order to overcome the self-hate, and be proud of their ancestral roots, and not succumb to society's standards and expectations.
Here is a link to read more about the ancient history of the Philippines and where the people came from:
Negritos (Aeta) in the Philippines
The Philippines were probably first occupied by people who arrived in small migrations from mainland Southeast Asia. The first of these were believed to be Negritos. The only survivors of the original hunter gathers that inhabited Southeast Asia are Semang Negritos of peninsular Malaysia and the Negritos of the mountains of Luzon and some islands of the Philippines.
Negritos — -or the Aeta as they are sometimes called in the Philippines— are very small people with a dark skin and curly brown hair. The Aeta are thought to have arrived in the Philippines between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago from the Asian continent, most likely from what is now the Malay Peninsula or Borneo (and perhaps even Australia). In earlier times they lived widespread throughout the Philippines. Today they are live only in the remote highland areas of Luzon, Palawan, Panay, Negros and Mindanao.
Arrival of Malay People in the Philippines
It is believed that around 3000 B.C. Malay people—or people that evolved into the Malay tribes that dominate Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines—arrived in the Philippines. About 2300 years ago Malay people from the Asian mainland or Indonesia arrived in the Philippines and brought a more advanced culture; iron melting and production of iron tools, pottery techniques and the system of sawah's (rice fields). Additional migrations took place over the next millennia.
Many believe the first Malays were seafaring, tool-wielding Indonesians who introduced formal farming and building techniques. According to Lonely Planet: “ It's fair to assume that this bunch was busily carving out the spectacular rice terraces of North Luzon some 2000 years ago. With the Iron Age came the Malays. Skilful sailors, potters and weavers, they built the first permanent settlements and prospered from around the A.D. 1st century until the 16th century, when the Spanish arrived. The wave migration theory holds that the Malays arrived in at least three ethnically diverse waves. The first wave provided the basis for the modern-day Bontoc and other tribes of North Luzon. The second laid the foundations for the most dominant of modern-day indigenous groups - the Bicolano, Bisayan and Tagalog.
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