Because the Spanish and Portuguese were the prominent conquerors of South America, the Spanish took it to their colonies like Philipines in the 15th (century) whereas Brazil took it to Tionghoa because Brazil belonged to Portugal (*Tionghoa refers to Chinese immigrants living in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and most of the SEA regions). It was transferred from there to Malaysia. See … from here I can tell you … the earliest record in Asia was in 1786, when it went to Ceylon 1st … Ceylon is Sri Lanka lah, OK, via Mauritius. Then there were two routes of introduction: one by the Portuguese which is to Indian via Africa from Brazil. And then the Spanish brought it to Philippines directly from Mexico. And then from Philippines … actually from India it came to Penang. And then from Penang it came to the rest of Malaya and it was planted in Malacca … they called in commercial garden in 1881 … before Tapioca came, the starch was based on Sago palm but Sago palm take 15 years to grow (back then).