Review Essay of the following volumes: S. Bernabeu Albert and C. Martinez Shaw coord., Un oceano de seda y plata. El universe economico del Galeon de Manila; S. Bernabeu Albert coord., La Nao de China, 1565-1815. Navegacion, comercio e intercambios culturales; S. Bernabeu Albert, C. Mena Garcia and E.J. Luque Azcona coord., Conocer el Pacifico. Exploraciones, imagenes y formacion de sociedades oceanicas; M.A. Bonialian, El Pacifico Hispanoamericano. Politica y comercio asiatico en el imperio espanol (1680-1784); B. Tremml-Werner, Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571-1644. Local Comparisons and Global Connections; T. Seijas, Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico. From Chinos to Indians; E.M. Mehl, Forced Migration in the Spanish Pacific World: From Mexico to the Philippines, 1765-1811; R.F. Buschmann, E.R. Slack Jr. and J.B. Tueller eds., Navigating the Spanish Lake. The Pacific in the Iberian World, 1521-1898; R.F. Buschmann, Iberian Visions of the Pacific Ocean, 1507-1899.

The Spanish colonial designs in the Philippines could perhaps be summarized into three key terms, namely: Unification, Christianization, and Hispanization. This book summary delves into the work of John Leddy Phelan entitled The Hispanization of the Philippines. The book “concerns itself with the meeting of indigenous Filipino society with Spanish culture.” The author explored the successes and failures of the Spanish project in the Philippines.

This series is devoted to the diversity of encounters between Latin America and Asia through multiple points of contact across time and space. It welcomes different theoretical and disciplinary approaches to define, describe, and explore the histories and cultural production of people of Asian descent in Latin America and the Caribbean. It also welcomes research on Hispano-Filipino history and cultural production. Themes may include Asian immigration and geopolitics, the influence and/or representation of the Hispanic world in Asian cultures, Orientalism and Occidentalism in the Hispanic world and Asia, and other transpacific and southsouth exchanges that disrupt the boundaries of traditional academic fields and singular notions of identity. The geographical scope of the series incorporates the linguistic and ethnic diversity of the Pacific Rim and the Caribbean region. We welcome single-author monographs and volumes of essays from experts in the field from different academic backgrounds.

This article explores several notions of location in relation to the Philippines. Contrasting Filipino studies which problematise conceptions of the Philippines as Asian, this essay focuses on Spanish perceptions of the archipelago in official political and economic plans regarding Spain’s presence in Asia in the 21st century. The Philippines plays an important role in these plans, as it is listed as a priority country for Spanish actions in this region, mostly due to the shared colonial links. Despite this shared history, there are several Spanish ambivalent perceptions that locate the Philippines as a country connected to Spain and, at the same time, in the periphery of countries with a Hispanic heritage, which is evident in the location of Fil-Hispanic studies within Hispanic scholarship. Furthermore, Spanish official perceptions are often politically motivated, in relation to the practical uses that the location of the Philippines can have for Spain as a gateway to Asia, in part...