LASA/EANLAS: Rethinking Trans-Pacific Ties: Asia and Latin America

“‘Parezco y me tienen por china’: Perception and Representation of Asian Immigrants in New Spanish Literature”

• In Event: “Imagining the Trans-Pacific, part 2: Creating Places, Institutions, and Cultural Legacies”

Abstract

For 250 years the American viceroyalty of New Spain received a steady flow of Asian influence through the famous transpacific trade route between Acapulco and Manila: the Manila Galleon. Throughout its existence, this transpacific trade route elicited interest and even fascination among the colonial elite whose members produced all manner of texts related to the lands across the Pacific. Over time these texts formed a corpus of works including poetry, relaciones, chronicles, sermons, theatre plays, proto-novels, and novels, which alluded to or owed their existence to the Manila Galleon. Among these texts, we find descriptions of members of the Trans-Pacific diaspora, most famously Catarina de San Juan, also known as “la china poblana”. Within this corpus, images about Asian immigrants emerge in different ways, sometimes reflecting positive views, more frequently deriding and reinforcing New Spain’s racially determined social hierarchy. This paper explores the transformations of the representation of Asians in Manila Galleon literature from the earliest news of travels in Asia penned in the 16th century to the earliest proto-national Mexican novel of the early 19th century.

Author

• Rubén Carrillo, Universitat Pompeu Fabra