The First Asians in the Americas

A Transpacific History
Diego Javier Luis tells the story of transpacific Asian movement to and through the Spanish Americas. On arrival in Mexico, diverse Asian peoples became “chinos” subject to the colonial caste system. Tracing Asian resistance and adaptation to New Spanish ideas of race, Luis presents a Pacific-focused narrative of the colonial Americas.

“Essential reading.” —Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America

“A broadly thought-provoking book.” —Asian Review of Books

“Fascinating…[this book] indicates new avenues of research…[and] stands as a bellwether for shifting trajectories of analysis that invite micro-historical follow-up.” —H-Net Reviews

“[This book] offers an invaluable perspective… [it] not only intellectually satisfies the reader with a necessary and innovative view . but also makes us want to learn more about this essential and still insufficiently explored topic.will become a fundamental pillar within the discipline.” —Colonial Latin American Review

Between 1565 and 1815, the so-called Manila galleons monopolized trade between Spain’s Asian and American colonies. Sailing from the Philippines to Mexico and back, these Spanish ships also facilitated the earliest migrations and displacements of Asian peoples to the Americas. Hailing from Gujarat, Nagasaki, and many places in between, both free and enslaved Asians made the treacherous transpacific journey each year.

Diego Javier Luis chronicles this first sustained wave of Asian mobility to the Americas, shedding new light on the daily lives of those who disembarked at Acapulco. There, diverse ethnolinguistic populations officially became “chinos,” racialized as members of a single caste under colonial control. Luis shows how Asians resisted legal strictures, forging new connections across ethnic groups and continually adapting to adverse conditions.

Detailing an important era in the construction of race, The First Asians in the Americas vividly unfolds what it meant to be “chino” in the early modern Spanish empire and reveals the significance of colonial Latin America to Asian diasporic history.

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