Final Results: 2024 Luso-Asian / Macanese Survey

(conducted on-line from June 30, 2024 through January 25, 2025)

Roy Eric Xavier, Ph.D
Director, Center for Luso-Asian Diaspora Studies [1]
Visiting Scholar, Asian American Research Center, ISSI
University of California, Berkeley
February 7, 2025

Introduction

The 2024 Survey, translated into English and Portuguese, was designed to study the descendants of Portuguese Eurasians (Luso-Asians), with cultural roots in Portugal, Macau, Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Timor, and other Portuguese settlements in Asia. The main purpose is to determine whether descendants who migrated to other countries maintain their family connections, are aware of their ancestorial histories, and assert cultural identities. Additional demographic questions were included to estimate the Luso-Asian population worldwide.

The final results provide a much needed profile of Luso-Asian and Macanese diaspora communities that often have been neglected by mainstream media and academic scholarship alike. [2] Despite the implicit assertion that these groups are widely dispersed and indistinct, many scholars in the field agree that Luso-Asians, including those originally from Macau, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, are not only racially diverse due to their 500 history in southeast Asia, but continue to be “homogeneous in their ethnic identification” … through “their use of Portuguese surnames … creole and their Roman Catholic faith.” [3] There are also many more Luso-Asians than most scholars realize.

Building upon new research by demographers, genealogists, anthropologists, and historians, we have attempted to provide a “snapshot” of the Luso-Asian / Macanese community and cultural identity in 2024. The respondents, for example, currently reside in fourteen (14) countries and in over 200 cities, often as members of Luso-Asian associations, and are fairly divided by gender, age, family size, and health status. They are also very knowledgeable about their origins. As members of modern societies, the respondents are frequent users of the internet and social media, which provide clues to how and why they are able to maintain cultural ties during a period of globalization. In a rare study of a modern diaspora, the results highlighted below offer an empirical basis for further research, as well as a window into modern China’s national cultural heritage.[4]

A more detailed article on the implications of these results will appear shortly.

A Summary of Survey Responses (all percentages are rounded)

Total Respondents: 327

Results from 5 Continents: North America, Australia, Europe, South America, Asia

Currently living in 14 Countries and 200 Cities in the USA, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Brazil, Hong Kong, Macau, Philippines, Britian, France, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Finland, and Sweden

Gender: 59 % Female, 40 % Male

Age: 47 % (under 18 – 64), 52 % (65 and older)

General Health: Excellent-Good (87 %), Fair-Poor (12 %)

Mental Health: Good Days p/mo.: (62 %), Not Good 5-15 days (26 %), Not Good 15-30 days (3 %)

Physical Health: (Frequency of Illness p/mo.): None (59 %), 5-10 days (23 %), 10-30 days (9 %)

Origin of Ancestors reported: 92 % from Portugal, Goa, Macau, Hong Kong, Shanghai

Average Number of Living Family Members: 15,579 (+/- 8 %)

Average Family Size reported: 48 family members

Social Media usage reported to connect with family: Facebook (81 %), WhatsApp (68 %), Instagram (41 %), LinkedIn (30 %), Twitter-X (13 %), WeChat (9 %), Snap (5 %), Viber (3 %)

Cultural Identity reported: 99 % identify as Macanese, Portuguese, Luso-Asian, or Eurasian

Willingness to send Digital Pictures or Documents for Research Archive: 50 %

Estimate of the Global Luso-Asian–Macanese Population: 1,947,375 [5]

Level of Confidence: 95 %

Margin of Error: 5.42 % (+ or –)

Range of Variance: 1,841,827 to 2,052,923 = Luso-Asian-Macanese World-wide

Unique Family Names: 500 (found in Macau, Goa, Portugal, Hong Kong, Timor)

[1] This is a newly created research group under the direction of Dr. Xavier at U.C. Berkeley. More information about the purpose of the Center and its research initiatives will be provided shortly.

[2] For example, see the academic sources used for population numbers on current Wikipedia pages under  “Macanese”, which apparently only apply to Macau and not to diaspora communities outside Asia. Few demographers have continued the work of John Byrne’s 2011 review of Luso-Asian and Eurasian groups, which estimated the global population to be about 500,000, based on census data from 2001-2010. “The Luso-Asians and other Eurasians: Their Domestic and Diasporic Identities”, in The Making of the Luso-Asian World, Laura Jarnagin, pgs. 131-154, ISEAS, Singapore, 2011.

[3] John Byrne, p. 137. Also, there has been little interest in the research of Jorge Forjaz on Macanese families, which identified more than 500 distinct surnames and provides historical background on individuals within each family. Jorge Forjaz, Familias Macaense, International Institute of Macau, 1996 and 2017 editions. Relatively little attention also has been focused on the historical work of Stefan Halikowski Smith (2010) or Sheyla S. Zandonai (2010) among others. 

[4] “Aspects of Macanese culture achieve national recognition”, Permanent Secretariat of the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao), June 15, 2021.

[5] The final calculations included controls for duplicate responses of family size among relatives who responded, and presumes the current number of Luso-Asian / Macanese families (500) found in numerous archives around the world by genealogists. The use of family names does not include name changes among women or men due to marriages outside the Luso-Asian community or other personal preferences. In other words, an unknown number of Luso-Asian women (matrilineal surnames) or men, who married non-Luso-Asians and adopted their surnames, may not have been among the survey respondents. This suggests the current estimate from the 2024 survey may be lower than the actual population size.