Eagle & Lion: A Persian Love Story & Revolution

An exhibition in Mexico City charts the historical and cultural ties between East Asia and Latin America, spanning from the colonial era to the present day, and reflecting a shifting global order.

Manila Galleon Trade and Cultural Exchange

In July 1595, the San Agustín departed Spanish Manila bound for Acapulco, Mexico. After nearly five months at sea, the 200-ton vessel was lost in a storm off the coast of California. Legend recounts the surviving crew floating southward on a makeshift raft, resorting to desperate measures for survival.

Archaeological discoveries in 1940 uncovered shards of Chinese porcelain near the wreck site. Had the San Agustín reached its destination, the porcelain would have been sold in Mexico City or shipped to European ports, with silver dollars from Mexico serving as currency for trade with China.

This 15,000-mile trade route represented the first truly global mercantile network, connecting Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Its legacy is explored in the exhibition Somos Pacífico. El mundo que emergió del trópico (“We Are the Pacific: The World That Emerged from the Tropics”) at the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City. The exhibit features art and artifacts from Singapore and traces cultural and commercial connections between East Asia and Latin America from the Spanish conquests to decolonization.

A Political Project of National and International Import

The exhibition, like the murals within the Colegio de San Ildefonso, serves as a political statement. It coincides with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Singapore, and Singapore’s plans to open a resident embassy in Mexico City in 2026, framing the current relationship within a broader historical context.

Somos Pacífico combines two exhibits previously shown in Singapore: Manila Galleon: From Asia to the Americas and Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America. The former examined the history and impact of the galleon trade, while the latter juxtaposed modernist artists from Southeast Asia with their contemporaries in Mexico and Brazil.

The Logistics and Impact of the Galleon Trade

The Manila galleon trade route was the longest regular maritime passage in the world, requiring advanced naval engineering financed by the Spanish Crown. A scale model of a galleon on display highlights its size and durability.

The cargo transported included Chinese porcelain, such as “tibors” and “temblorosas,” and a Japanese-style folding screen depicting the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan. The exchange also led to the integration of foods like corn, chilis, mangoes, and coconuts into the diets of both regions, and the adoption of Chinese porcelain’s color scheme by Mexican pottery workshops.

Shared Artistic Concerns and Nationalist Movements

The exhibition highlights parallels between 20th-century artists in East and Southeast Asia and those in Mexico and Brazil. Artists on both sides of the Pacific sought to construct new national identities, blending abstraction with Indigenous imagery and appealing to the masses through bold colors and familiar subjects.

Artists like Victorio Edades (Philippines) and Sindoedarsono Soedjojono (Indonesia) shared similar sentiments with Mexican muralists, reclaiming stereotypes and emphasizing the physicality of labor. Both groups saw a didactic value in art, rejecting elitism in favor of direct engagement with the public.

Historical Erasure and New Perspectives

Scholarship, such as Diego Javier Luis’s The First Asians in the Americas, is beginning to reconstruct the history of the approximately 100,000 Asians who arrived in Latin America through the galleon trade, often as slaves or laborers. Many “chinos” assimilated into existing social categories, and their stories were often suppressed or censored.

The exhibition and accompanying scholarship aim to revise understandings of colonial power dynamics by reconstructing networks of exchange. For political elites, the exhibition reflects aspirations for a reimagined global order as the influence of the United States and China evolves.

Bilateral trade between Mexico and Singapore reached $4.7 billion in 2024, a 60 percent increase from the previous year. Mexico is positioning itself as a gateway to the Americas for Singapore, while Singapore offers Mexico an alternative to reliance on the United States.

Installation view, Somos Pacífico, 2025–26. Colegio de San Ildefonso. Courtesy Asian Civilisations Museum.