Legacies of Latinidad: Latin America, Colonial Culture and Connectivity in Manila Museums

Abstract

ABSTRACT Public histories that explore connections between the Philippines and Latin America have rarely been analysed in Manila's museums. Yet, they provide a key space to reflect on changing understanding of coloniality and the importance of transpacific mobility for contemporary Philippine national identity. While museums have previously tended to minimise the presence of Latin American individuals, multiple museum exhibitions have nonetheless pivoted implicitly on the transpacific connection through discussion of trading galleons, religious practices and agents of Spanish empire. The article explores the emergence of conversations that recognise the historical connectivity between the Philippines and Latin America. This connectivity has often been silenced in Philippine museum practices, as the nation seeks to affirm an identity, distinct from its Spanish colonial occupier. The new emergence of transpacific connections in museum narratives provides significant potential to explore the emergence of Philippine identity however. Recentring attention on the era of the galleon trade between Manila and Latin America reveals new sites of emergence and potential meaning-making across Spain’s Pacific colonies.