The Castilian Struggle in the Philippines… 1930

"The Struggle of Castilian in the Philippines…"

includes a list of the largest Spanish-speaking cities in the world during the 1930s, with Manila at number 9 and the Philippines with 1.5 million Spanish speakers in total during the 1930s.

Source: ‘La Vanguardia’, October 6, 1934

NOTE: Regarding Spanish speakers, if the Spanish speaking numbers in the Vanguard article are close to the total population of Manila at the time (I don’t have that information at hand), then the numbers could be inaccurate because Rodao and other Spanish scholars mentioned that even for mestizo districts "insurance"the 1938 census shows that the Malate and Ermita areas had 30% Spanish speakers and Intramuros 20%, and not 100% Spanish speakers. If so, then another way to characterize these numbers would be "according to optimistic estimates" o "The upper estimates of Spanish speakers are…"

Originally published by Anton Paast in Descendants of American, Spanish and European settlers in the Philippines