Congratulations to History Department alum Dr. Diego Javier Luis on receiving the American Historical Association’s Jerry Bentley Prize in World History for his first book, The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History (Harvard University Press, 2024). This is the fourth prize for Luis’s work, following the 2024 Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize from Harvard UP, the 2025 Howard F. Cline Prize in Mexican History from the Latin American Studies Association, and the 2025 Forum on Early-Modern Empires and Global Interactions Book Prize.

Luis’s acclaimed work offers “The definitive account of transpacific Asian movement through the Spanish empire—from Manila to Acapulco and beyond—and its implications for the history of race and colonization in the Americas.” In his review in the Hispanic American Historical Review, Rubén Carillo Martín describes the book as “a brilliant exercise of global microhistory and essential reading for anyone hoping to get a full picture of colonial Spanish America, Asian diaspora studies, or protoglobalization.”

Luis is Rohrbaugh Family Assistant Professor at The Johns Hopkins University. He graduated from Emory in 2014 with a double major in History with highest honors and English and Creative Writing, before pursuing his PhD at Brown University.