Asia in Mexico City: Filipino Footprints in Mexican Art and Architecture

As a first-year Ph.D. student in the History of Art Department, my research focuses on the interchange of visual and material culture between Latin America and Southeast Asia in the Early Modern period (1450-1650 CE). Within this context, my work focuses on the reciprocal flow, exchange, and influence of the Philippines on Mexico, and vice versa, through an examination of the visual and material culture between the two countries. During the colonial period, the Philippines were administered by Spain from Mexico City with the primary Asian flow of contact being the Manila Galleons that brought trade and people between Manila and Mexico. Manila served as an entry point to the greater regions of South and Southeast Asia connecting Mexico City to India, China, and Japan, and beyond. And in turn, Mexico City served as a center for relaying people and objects from Latin America and Europe to Asia along the conduit of trade across the Pacific. This Pacific trade route thus connected the Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific, South China Sea, and the Indian Ocean in the early moments of global connection that enabled the dissemination of art, language, and culture.