Shared History We Forgot

When I started this journey, I never thought the Philippines would be closely tied to a country that was over 8,500 miles from its shores and separated by the Pacific Ocean.

Yeah, NEVER.

But the more I learned about our history, the more I realized that Spain didn’t just colonize us. They colonized all of Mexico, too. And at the same exact time in history.

In fact, for 250 years, we were governed not directly by Spain, but by the Viceroyalty of New Spain based out of Mexico City.

That means, at one point, we were no longer being ruled and influenced by pure Spanish culture (which is what most Filipinos believe), but instead, our way of life was being directly shaped by Spanish-infused MEXICAN culture.

Yeah, FOR REAL.

Before my recent trip to Mexico City, I discovered Doctora Paulina Machuca’s research about the forgotten history that closely ties together the culture and traditions of the Philippines with Mexico.

Her work is actually what inspired me to visit Mexico in the first place.

According to Dr. Paulina, Mexico has many Philippine influences, which you’ll hear about in this episode.

One of the biggest connections is how the Filipinos brought over a distillation technique for making Lambanog (Philippine Vodka) that led to the creation of Mexico’s first Mezcals.

Yeah, WHAT?

A lot of this shared history has been forgotten. And because of that, we also often overlook this important truth…

We’re all way more connected than we think.

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