American Influence
When Spain lost the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Philippines was ceded to the United States of America. America introduced a new public education system which retained opportunity to every child regardless of gender.
Through the American-patterned school system, Filipino women became professionals, although most of them and their male counterparts opted for making use of their former education roots and expressed themselves in Spanish or Tagalog. According to the Monroe Commission on Philippine Education: “Upon leaving school, more than 99% of Filipinos will not speak English in their homes. Possibly, only 10% to 15% of the next generation will be able to use this language in their occupations. In fact, it will only be the government employees, and the professionals, who might make use of English.”
Read more about this topic: Filipino Women
Famous quotes containing the words american and/or influence:
“Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.”
—Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)
“I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country’s God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)