The Filipino Heroes of Mexican Independence

September 16 is officially Mexico’s Independence Day—the anniversary of the 1810 Grito de Dolores that began the struggle. But the independence itself was consummated eleven years later, on September 27, 1821, when the Trigarante Army entered Mexico City. The Act of Independence was signed the following day, September 28.

Three years ago, I found myself at Jamul Casino’s Rooftop celebrating Mexican Independence Day. An all-Mexican women’s band was playing, and something happened that I didn’t expect.

The music awakened something in me. It didn’t sound foreign. It sounded familiar—as though it had already been somewhere inside me and I was only now hearing it from the outside.

Then there were the dances: Cha-cha, Cumbia, and now Bachata. The rhythms felt familiar too. Not just to my ears, but to my body. Somehow, the movements didn’t seem entirely new.

Even the language had familiar pieces. Uno, dos, tres, sien, la mesa, comprada.

Words that were simply part of everyday life when I was growing up in the Philippines. And, of course, Spanish survived in the places where language becomes most emotionally honest: the curse words like “Punyeta, Casta.” We didn’t have to study Spanish to know those words. We inherited them. And yet, here I am, still struggling to learn Mexican Spanish. 😂

The irony gets better. Some people even mistake me for Mexican.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s the music, the Latin beat and of course, the dance. Maybe it’s the Spanish woven into Filipino life. Better yet, maybe it’s being mestizo. Or maybe, after centuries of history crossing the Pacific, Mexico isn’t quite as foreign to a Filipino as we might think.

That night, I began wondering why the Philippines doesn’t celebrate a Philippine-Mexican Friendship Day in a more robust way back home.

I knew about the Manila–Acapulco galleon trade, of course. What I didn’t know—at least not intimately, was the human story behind it.

For roughly 250 years, the Philippines and New Spain—what we now call Mexico—were connected by that transpacific trade. Ships crossed the Pacific carrying silk, porcelain, spices and other goods.

Ships crossed the Pacific carrying silk, porcelain, spices and other goods. But cargo wasn’t the only thing crossing the ocean. People did too.

Filipinos arrived in New Spain as sailors, workers, artisans, cultivators and settlers. They didn’t simply pass through. They put down roots—in Colima, Veracruz, Guerrero and Acapulco, among other places. They cultivated, built, worked, traded, married and raised families.

They became part of the society that was becoming Mexico. The connection went both ways. And then I discovered something I found even more surprising.

Filipinos were not merely present in Mexico. Some became participants in Mexico’s struggle for independence.

Take Ramón Fabié. Well, not literally. He died in 1810.

Ramón was born in Paco, Manila in 1785 and came to New Spain as a young man to study mining at the Real Colegio de Minería. By 1810, he was in Guanajuato completing practical mining work.

Then Hidalgo’s revolution reached Guanajuato. It was there, after Hidalgo’s revolutionary forces took the city, that Ramón became part of the force that stayed behind to hold it.

He helped recruit miners and was given the rank of lieutenant colonel in a regiment formed largely from workers of the Valenciana mine. His mining knowledge also became useful in preparing defenses and artillery. Guanajuato had been Ramón’s opportunity. It, however, became his Waterloo.

He was captured in November 1810 and executed on November 28, alongside Casimiro Chowell, in front of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas. He was only twenty-five.

He had crossed the Pacific to become a mining professional. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a revolution—and paid for it with his life. But Ramón was not the end of the story.

Respected Mexican historian and researcher Ricardo Pinzón identifies two soldiers in the independence struggle as Filipino: Isidoro Montes de Oca and Francisco Mongoy.

Their stories take us beyond Ramón.

Montes de Oca was born in Guerrero and entered Morelos’s army in 1811 as an ordinary soldier. He rose through the ranks—captain, field commander and eventually one of Morelos’s trusted military men. Later, he became an important commander under Vicente Guerrero.

Unlike Ramón, he survived the long struggle. He lived to see Mexico become independent in 1821—and went on to serve the new country.

Francisco Mongoy was also part of the continuing struggle under Guerrero. That contrast matters.

One Filipino gave his life near the beginning of the revolution. Another lived long enough to see the country they fought for become independent.

There was, in other words, a sustained Filipino presence and participation throughout Mexico’s long struggle for independence.

Ramón may have given his life too soon, but he was not an isolated footnote. Montes de Oca, Mongoy and others continued the struggle through the long years of war.

And perhaps that is the part of the story that surprised me most. Filipinos didn’t just arrive in Mexico. They became part of Mexico.

Maybe that is what I was feeling on that rooftop three years ago. History doesn’t always survive in textbooks. Sometimes it survives in music. Sometimes in a dance. Sometimes in a word you have been saying your whole life without ever asking where it came from.

And sometimes it survives in a Filipino who gets mistaken for Mexican—but still can’t figure out Mexican Spanish. 😂

Looking back, I wonder if that night was less about discovering something Mexican than rediscovering something Filipino. Something shared. Something that had crossed the Pacific long before any of us were born.

So when the music starts and someone asks me to dance, I may still have trouble speaking Spanish. But I know the rhythm.

And now I know a little more about why. ¡Viva México!

And, just this once— ¡Mabuhay, home boys!