CATARINA

• Born in South Asia during the early 17th century, she was captured by the Portuguese at age 8 and sold to Spaniards in the Philippines.
• Catarina was one of the first Asians in the Americas – a focus of my historical research – and arrived through a little-known slave trade that crossed the Pacific Ocean.
• In colonial Mexico, she lived in the “nideaquínideallá,” the “neither-from-here-nor-from-there”: a valley between acceptance and foreignness, an in-between state familiar to many migrants today.

The Life of Catarina

• The particulars of Catarina’s journey are quite unfamiliar, even for those who study the history of slavery.
• Most people have heard of the transatlantic slave trade, which lasted from the early 16th century to the mid- to late 19th century.
• It was responsible for the violent displacement of some 12.5 million Africans to the Americas.

• Later, in Manila, a young Spaniard stabbed and beat her within an inch of her life when she refused his advances.
• Yet he quickly realized that Catarina had uncommon virtues when she showed little regard for money or objects of material value.

• For the next six decades, she led a life of social isolation, abstinence, humility and rejection of material pleasures – what her admirers saw as an exemplary life of holy Catholic suffering.
• Even as Catarina gained renown, some Spaniards questioned the sincerity of her devotion.
• After Catarina died, he authored an enormous three-volume biography of her life, the longest text ever published in colonial Mexico.

Historical amnesia

• First, Ramos’ text was considered controversial outside of Puebla because it depicted Catarina with powers reserved only for God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
• He describes her announcing prophecies, performing miracles, traveling in her dreams and regularly conversing with Jesus, whom she considered her celestial husband.
• In fact, it connotes sexual confidence and national pride, two concepts that Catarina would have likely rejected.

• Asians had been coming and going from the Americas for over 200 years by the time the U.S.
• Today, significant Asian populations inhabit nearly all Latin American and Caribbean nations, mostly due to later waves of immigration and indentured servitude.
• Catarina de San Juan and the first Asians in the Americas challenge the traditional timeline and geography of Asian American history.
• Their stories also capture what many people who end up in the Americas have faced: the trauma of displacement.

Diego Luis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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