The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History

“The First Asians in the Americas is essential reading for anybody interested in the histories of global migration, race, and colonization in the Americas. Through painstaking archival research in Spain, Mexico, the United States, and the Philippines, Diego Javier Luis offers a bold reconceptualization of Asian migration to the Americas and restores heretofore little-known people and communities to their rightful places in history.”―Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America: A History

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“No clue is too small for this modern-day detective-historian. Diego Javier Luis has pieced together the most comprehensive and fascinating history to date of Asians in colonial Mexico.”―Andrés Reséndez, author of Conquering the Pacific

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“A groundbreaking study of Asian diasporic experiences in the Spanish Empire. The decks of the Manila galleons, the coastal Acapulco-to-Colima corridor, and much of Pacific Mexico emerge here as spaces of Asian adaptability and social, cultural, and linguistic exchanges. Through the lens of global microhistory, Luis recovers and humanizes the history of colonial ‘chino’ populations in all their complexity.”―Pablo Miguel Sierra Silva, author of Urban Slavery in Colonial Mexico

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“Diego Javier Luis has given us the first of its kind: a study of the transpacific Asian migration to the Americas under Spanish imperial rule. This book radically revolutionizes our understanding of race-making and mestizaje in the Spanish Americas and the Spanish transpacific.”―Christina H. Lee, author of Saints of Resistance