What race do Filipinos belong to?

While the rest of the world classifies Filipinos as Asian, many of the people of the Philippines consider themselves Pacific Islanders. The Diplomat reports that the Philippines are considered geographically part of Southeast Asia, but that residents of the Philippines relate more to the culture of the West.

For many years, Filipinos were considered Pacific Islanders by the majority of outsiders. In fact, according to the Diplomat, the first Americans to arrive in the Philippines in the late 1800s referred to the islands' people as "orphans of the Pacific," in part owing to the islands' geographic distance from the mainland of Southeast Asia.