I CAUGHT up with the Prado Museum’s Treasures of the Hispanic Society in America (Tesoros del Hispanic Society de America). It is a blockbuster. Two floors of a multitude of artifacts, from Celtiberian ceramics, metal jewelry (alloys of copper and gold), to paintings, books, documents, maps, textiles. Everything that is Spain through the ages is there and seeing it all in one visit was mind-blowing. It includes a film on the Hispanic Society of America and its founder Archer Huntington which depicts his interest, acquisition philosophy, scholarship and vision for a museum of the Hispanic world. In Huntington’s vision, this world included all colonies of Spain or countries influenced by Spain. And the Philippines is included. It makes for an interesting experience for a Filipino to compare the ways and the influences of Spanish colonization in the Philippines vis-a-vis other colonies like Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Chile, the gamut of Spanish South America. Uncannily, Huntington can now be credited for having foreseen the vestiges, maybe more—the real presence of Hispanism in the New World which is America. He started his collection in the 19th century and the Hispanic Society Museum is more than 100 years old.