
Yangyou Fang and Christina Lee holding the book upon its arrival from the press. (Photo Credit: Patrizia D’Adamo)
Graduate student Yangyou Fang's article, "’Indescribable Misery’ (Mis)Translated: A Letter from Manila’s Chinese Merchants to the Spanish King (1598)," was recently published in The Spanish Pacific, 1521–1815, A Reader of Primary Sources, vol. 2, edited by Christina Lee, Amsterdam University Press, 2024. In the article, she offers a critical translation and analysis of the 1598 letter from Chinese merchants in Manila to the Spanish King Phillip II. The article highlights the community’s often overlooked and misrepresentated literary, religious and political agency under Spanish colonialism in Asia. The publication is the first complete English translation of the dossier, housed in the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain. Yangyou found the document in her SPO-funded archival research during Summer 2019. The article began as a final project for the seminar “The Spanish Pacific, 1521-1815, A Survey” (SPA 506) taught by Professor Christina Lee. Yangyou also served as the Assistant Editor for the first volume of the Spanish Pacific Reader.