Colonial Articulations: English Instruction and the ‘Benevolence’ of U.S. Overseas Expansion in the Philippines, 1898-1916 By Funie Hsu A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Education and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Daniel Perlstein, Chair Professor Zeus Leonardo Professor Beth Piatote Spring 2013 Colonial Articulations: English Instruction and the ‘Benevolence’ of U.S. Overseas Expansion in the Philippines, 1898-1916 © 2013 By Funie Hsu Abstract Colonial Articulations: English Instruction and the ‘Benevolence’ of U.S. Overseas Expansion in the Philippines, 1898-1916 By Funie Hsu Doctor of Philosophy in Education Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Daniel Perlstein, Chair Even though historians are increasingly pointing to the importance of colonialism in U.S. history, an investigation of the role of colonialism in the shaping of American public schooling has been largely unexamined in education. This dissertation focuses on the colonial legacy as it pertains to English instruction, highlighting the case of the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century. This project provides a close examination of Philippine Public Law 74, the colonial education policy that mandated English as the language of instruction, and investigates the social and political conditions that motivated the policy. Employing a historical methods approach, this study examines how the U.S. education policy of English instruction organized both the school system and the broader project of American colonialism. Moreover, this dissertation examines the process by which the history of U.S. overseas conquest in the Philippines has been forgotten. This dissertation demonstrates that a gendered and racialized discourse of education was central to efforts in reconciling the contradiction that U.S. colonialism posed to American democracy. It illuminates the manner in which gendered constructions of the American English teachers as feminine and nurturing-- as juxtaposed with the image of the aggressive male soldier—enabled the institution of American colonial education in to create a domesticating illusion of peace. Through the mechanism of English instruction, American officials were able to articulate their presence as “benevolent tutelage” rather than imperial expansion, thereby erasing the violence of colonialism and instructing the forgetting of U.S. overseas conquest. In other words, English instruction provided an ideological justification and institutional method to literally rewrite the history of U.S. empire. This study highlights the political role of English instruction in U.S. colonial expansion; and it examines the manner in which notions of gender, domesticity, and race were embedded in the ideology and implementation of U.S. colonial English instruction. 1 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to 溫 細 琴/Wendy Hsu & 徐 正 陽/Cheng Yang Hsu. The poetry of your lives exceeds the limits of our society. I am always listening and learning. This dissertation is also dedicated to my former students at Carson St. Elementary School, my rambunctious and brilliant teachers. You are connected to a history and a world beyond that which you are taught. It transforms with your every intention. i Table of Contents Dedication………………………………………………………………………………….i Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………….ii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………iii Preface…………………………………………………………………………………....vi Chapter 1-Introduction: Instructions for Nationhood……………………………………..1 Chapter 2- Schooling Hearts and Minds: The Tender Violence of Colonial Education in the Philippines……………………………………………………………………………10 Chapter 3- Grammar of Empire: English Instruction and (Curricular) Narratives of Benevolence……………………………………………………………………………...35 Chapter 4- Maternal Soldiers of Conquest: Domesticity, English Instruction, and the American Teachers in the Philippines …………………………………………………..68 Chapter 5- Colonial Rearticulations: The Impossibilities and Possibilities of English Instruction………………………………………………………………………………..95 ii Acknowledgements The Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh points out that “if you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.” He reminds us that paper is made up of non-paper parts, like rain, trees, sun, loggers, fathers and mothers. Many non-paper beings and elements have contributed to the growth of these many pages, all of who were crucial to its existence. They have nurtured every word and lived with me in the blank spaces. My deepest gratitude to my dissertation committee: Daniel Perlstein, Zeus Leonardo, and Beth Piatote. Your comments were always insightful and opened up new directions for exploration. Thank you for your ongoing support. I could not have asked for a more meaningful doctoral experience. I have also received tremendous support from the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Mel Chen, Minoo Moallem, and Juana María Rodríguez provided rigorous feedback on versions of my chapter as well as general doctoral guidance. They strengthened my understanding of the world in relation to the place of women, and vice versa. These pages have also been benefited from the care of classmates in the Spring 2011 DE Dissertation Writing Seminar as well as the Fall 2010 Writing Across Genre Seminar. Chance meetings at conferences and time shared in office hours have done much to push my thinking. Thank you to Gray Brechin, Eileen Tamura, Catherine Ceniza Choy, and Roland Sintos Coloma for the little comments and brief discussions that I then took home and grew into bigger thoughts. Your generosity of spirit and time will be remembered. I am grateful for the financial support from the American Educational Research Association Minority Dissertation Fellowship, the UC Dissertation Year Fellowship, and the Bancroft Library Study Award. Additionally, I would like to thank the librarians and archivist at the Bancroft Library, the American Historical Collection of the José Rizal Library, the Library of Congress, and the National Archive. Your efforts in preserving our history are heroic and very much appreciated. For the people who understood that a dissertation is never just about a dissertation, thank you for keeping my eyes and heart open to the world. Jack Boas, Norma Smith, Helen Mao, Sam Wu, David Lai, Felix Cheng, Petrina Chi, Linda Huynh, Ai Lin Chua, Grace Quaker, I am grateful for all the cat sitting, meal sharing, and friendship building. Erica Boas and Kenzo Sung…we did it! I can never thank you enough for being my comrades, and I will never stop trying. Finally, Dad, Mom, Connie, B.B, and Hondo Lobley, words escape me, but I hope that you understand the depth of my gratitude. Thank you for helping me balance intellectual growth with wisdom. You are my home. iii Preface As an elementary school teacher, I came across an educational conundrum that has served as the motivation for this study. Quite a few of my students of color were mislabeled as English Language Learners. Many spoke English as fluently as their “English Only” counterparts, yet they were still categorized as English Language Learners. Many of these students were Filipino American and came from a history of English language familiarity due to the legacy of American conquest. This illuminated the complex historical context embedded within this contemporary educational concern. Yet our language classification system did not account for this legacy. It was clear to me that my students’ language misclassification could only be partially explained by faulty assessment tools and inefficient policies. Rather, I had a haunting sense that there were much larger historical forces at play, and that they continue to shape the lives of today’s students. This study is an examination of some of these historical forces and the ways that they have emerged through English instruction. In doing so, it highlights an important manner by which we as a society have learned to forget our history. vi Chapter 1: Introduction Instructions for Nationhood “The White Man’s Burden.” The Journal (Detroit), also published in The Literary Digest, Vol. XVIII,No. 7, 1 February 18, 1899 [artist: Thomas May] The United States entered into the 20th century amidst gunshots and battle cries. It was the sound of a nation bursting at its seams. Geographically, the U.S. was asserting its expansion beyond continental boundaries. Politically, tensions were surmounting on the issue of overseas conquest and its threat to the very foundations of American republicanism. Opposing the expansionists, anti-imperialists adamantly decried the U.S.’s role in overseas territorial acquisition, finding it contrary to the American pillars of democratic self-rule. Indeed, the United States was facing a crisis of self. The issue of the Philippines, that is, the U.S. colonization of the islands, was at the center of the most heated political debates of its time. It played a central role in the presidential campaign of 1900, which gave incumbent McKinley reign to pursue an imperialist agenda in the Pacific archipelago. Leading American figures, from politicians 1 As cited in Abe Ignacio et al., The Forbidden Book (San Francisco, CA: T’Boli, 2004), 30. 1 and business elites to literary titans such as Mark Twain, were involved in catapulting the conversation