Assimilation as Expansion: U.S. Schooling of American Indians, Filipinos, and Chinese around the Century’s Turn

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 11:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Education in an International Context

Abstract

This article analyzes four U.S.-implemented educational programs—the American Indian boarding school system, the Philippine colonial education system, the elite exchange program under the 1903 Pensionado Act, and the 1908 U.S.-China Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program—as racial projects central to American imperial expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each targeted specific regions and populations, using education to enforce assimilation, colonial control, and racial hierarchies. The study explores the connections among these initiatives and their enduring legacies, situating them within broader imperial strategies. Arguing that education was a key instrument of U.S. imperialism, the article reveals its complex role in shaping global politics and transnational networks during a formative period of American global influence.

Author

• Yu Wang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign