Imperial Hearts: Filipino Education and the Legacies of American Colonial Rule
Lakan Umali
In the online archives of the US Library of Congress, there is a Puck Magazine cartoon from the beginning of the Philippine-American war. The cartoon, entitled “If only they’ll be good,” shows a towering Uncle Sam ushering a herd of elegant women to the wide-eyed, bare-chested natives on the beach. The caption reads: “You have seen what my sons can do in war — now see what my daughters can do in peace.” The American colonial authority saw education not as a solution to, but an extension of warfare. Rather than out-and-out fighting, they used education as another means to conquer the minds and hearts of Filipinos, cementing American dominance on every aspect of Filipino life. As Jennifer McMahon says, “What better way to teach the new colony how to be American than to teach them American language and letters?”
In McMahon’s Dead Stars: American and Philippine Literary Perspectives on the American Colonization in the Philippines, she discusses the American-era educational curriculum and the various Filipino responses to it. A curriculum, in the words of Raymond Williams, is “a particular selection, a particular set of emphases and omissions.” The Americans are often credited with being the first people to establish a mass educational system in the Philippines. But they did not establish this system out of the goodness of their hearts. President William McKinley had tasked his educational department with the chief objective of benevolent assimilation, of the total Americanization of the Filipino peoples. What was emphasized, and what was omitted? Filipinos were taught basic literacy and mathematical skills. But they were also taught to be subordinate and subservient to America. In the colonial curriculum, America was presented as the ideal civilization, a driving force for good in the world, a caring big brother whose presence in the Philippines meant the upliftment of Filipinos from the dregs of savagery. This educational system masked the racist, ravenous intentions of American imperialism. Albert Beveridge argued to the U.S. Senate the necessity of annexing the Philippines: “The Pacific is our ocean. More and more Europe will manufacture the most it needs, secure from its colonies the most it consumes. Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus?…The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East.”
We still confront the legacies of American colonial education today. Instead of teaching students to think critically, schools teach them to be obedient workers equipped with marketable skills. Instead of learning about the injustices of colonialism and the histories of Filipino resistance, students learn a sanitized version of history that distorts the root causes of poverty and global inequality. How can education offer effective solutions for national problems if it mystifies their root causes? Our educational system is rooted in imperialism. But it doesn’t have to remain that way. Our collective struggle in education must focus on unmasking these imperialist roots and dismantling their legacies, so we can build something better.
Lakan Umali is a writer and teaching assistant based in Metro Manila.
