A History of the First Asians in the Americas Became Personal
Tufts UniversityWhen most people in the U.S. think about Asian immigrants coming to the Americas, they often picture immigrants from China coming in the 1800s. The story, though, is much more complicated—and interesting. As Diego Javier Luis, assistant professor of history, describes in his new book The First Asians in the Americas, the full story starts with Spanish galleon ships traveling back and forth from Acapulco in Mexico to Manila in the Philippines in the mid-1500s, trading silver from the Americas for silks and other trade goods from Asia. But it wasn’t only goods. People from Asia, from as far afield as Gujarat in India to the Philippines, including some from China and Japan, came to colonial Mexico, many of them enslaved, some free. They were the first Asians in the Americas, and slowly fanned out across the continents. He delved deep into archives held in Spain, Mexico, the Philippines, and the U.S. to find the stories of those individuals and groups. He had learned Mandarin whil