Tatiana Seijas’ Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico looks at Southeast Asian enslavement in the area of modern-day Mexico. Chinos, as enslaved Asians were labelled, are examined in the broad framework of the Spanish Colonies. The main focus of Seijas is coerced labour and forced migration, and how that connects to colonial expansion. This work challenges some of the uniform assumptions about “the uniformity of the slave experience in the Americas.”  
While Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico is laid out very systematically, Seijas’ writing style is captivating. Based on her dictatorial dissertation, Seijas creates a palatable monograph that includes great information in the footnotes and clear directed thoughts in each chapter. There were a lot of examples throughout the text and Seijas could have culled some of them as example after example to prove small points started to overwhelm the reader. I admire the obvious amount of research that went into the text as in footnote 10 Seijas says she had to cast a wide net for sources and documents related to Chinos. She even read through an entire collection for the seventeenth century because she didn’t want to sample a decade for a century.  
I wish there had been more clarity on the lack of diversity in groups looked at, as at one point it seems like Seijas only talked about Filipinos for two chapters. I know lack of sources was probably the issue here, but I would have liked for her to clearly state that she would only be addressing this people group for most of the text. Lack of available sources was probably Seijas' weakness throughout the text. She does a wonderful job of finding what was available. The upward mobility of Chinos and free Filipinos by associating themselves as Indians was the most fascinating point of the text. The examples Seijas brings throughout the text, especially as it relates to legal aspects of being Indian prove that the association of being Indian led to abolition.