Upcoming book claims Asian arrival in America in 16th century

MEDFORD, Massachusetts – History books state that Asians did not arrive in America until the 19th century.

However, new research has found that they reached the state of Oregon in the Pacific Northwest as early as 1587 along with Europeans. 

According to Diego Javier Luisis, assistant professor of history at Tufts University in Massachusetts, Spanish navigator Sebastián Vizcaíno had at least seven people from Asia with him.

Writing an essay in https://aeon.co, the scholar said their descendants have remained in America ever since.

One of the seven names, Antón Tomás, was from Malabar in India.

The region is part of the southernmost Indian state of Kerala on the coast of the Arabian Sea.

This region had historical ties with the Arab world before the advent of Islam and has one of the earliest mosques built during the Prophet’s lifetime.

Tomas is said to have worked as a diver, risking life and limb to plug underwater leaks.

Luisis, author of the forthcoming book “The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History,” has located another sailor, Antonio Bengala.

His origins are stated from areas along the coast of the Bay of Bengal.

The book will be on sale in 2024.

The Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal lie on two sides of the Indian mainland.

Bangladesh and the Indian city of West Bengal are home to Bengali origin ethnic population.

Bengali worked as a ‘cabin boy’ alongside Francisco Miguel from Japan.

According to the author, some scholars have estimated that at least 30,000 Filipino men of the Tagalog and Kapampangan ethnolinguistic groups served Spanish sailors.

They worked as cabin boys between the 16th and mid-17th centuries on the ships headed to the American shores.

Other seamen such as Cristóbal Catoya, Agustín Longalo, Lucas Cate, and Agustín Sao were classified as ‘chinos,’ which can also be translated as ‘Asian.”

They all served on Vizcaíno’s flagship, the San Diego.