The First Asians in the Americas

The First Asians in the Americas

Asian Studies Series | Steny H. Hoyer Center for the Study of Democracy

How did Asians first arrive in the Americas—and what communities did they create once they got there?

From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, Spanish galleons crossing the Pacific transported thousands of Asian people—both free and enslaved—to the Americas, along with goods and commodities. This talk explores why Asian colonial subjects undertook these transpacific journeys and traces the new social, cultural, and economic communities they forged after arriving in the Americas.

About the Speaker

Diego Javier Luis is the Rohrbaugh Family Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History (Harvard University Press, 2024), which has been recognized with five book prizes.

Join the Center for the Study of Democracy for a compelling exploration of an often-overlooked chapter in the history of the Americas—and of the Asian communities whose stories help reshape our understanding of the region’s past.