Well that’s what makes it confusing because most of us with larger amounts of Spanish have grandparents who spoke Spanish fluently. I know there are Hispanic people who grew up in the US and don’t know any Spanish and sometimes even their parents don’t know Spanish, but they’re classified as Hispanic anyway.

And Spanish-Filipinos identify as mestizo. Filipinos won’t stop using the term because its already very ingrained in our everyday vocabulary. We use the term in the Philippines too. It applies to anyone with any visible European ancestry even if it’s a little (like most of the individuals at the top of the original post). It also applies to half Filipinos with a white parent. And it also applies to Filipinos who are genetically full Spanish (there’s a few left in the Philippines). It basically means “you look like you’re mixed with at least some amount of white”

It also used to apply to Chinese-Filipinos. They were called Chinese mestizos. But Filipinos stopped saying that and started saying Chinoy or Chinito