Literature Under

the US Colonialism
(1898–1945)
SEEN30113
Survey of Philippine Literature in English
Ms. Anna Ramos
 Objectives

By the end of this lesson, the students should be able to:

● Analyze texts from the early occupation of Americans in the Philippines
● Critic formalistic features of texts
 Philippines at the Beginning of US colonialism
The taga-bukid-taga-bayan Taga-bukid, taga-bayan, and
1896~
polarization ilustrados

The Ilustrados 1900 Partido Federal was founded

Counteraction of Guerilla 1901– Sedition Law; Brindage Act;

Activity 1907 Reconcentration Act; Flag Law

Filipinization of Colonial Philippine independence within

1907 the limits set by the colonial
Bureaucracy system put up by the US
 Literature under US Colonialism (1898-1945)

● Against the background of war and efforts by the colonial government to subdue resistance
to US rule, Philippine literature burst forth with vitality and variety indicative of creative
energy unleashed by the Revolution and propelled by the Philippine-American war.
● Newspapers and magazines in Spanish, English, and the vernacular languages proliferated
in spite of threatening provisions of the Sedition Law, providing many venues for creative
writing and socio-political commentary.
● Literary forms that had their beginning in the Spanish period—the essay, the novel,
allegorical drama, narrative poetry, and patriotic verse—were firmly grasped by young
writers who harked back to the immediate revolutionary past and trained their sights on the
changing society of the first decades of a new colonial regime.
● The abundance in input and the quality of the passion that went into it testified to the
welling out of creativity where writers and audience share common concerns brought to
force by a common historical experience.
 Literature under US Colonialism (1898-1945)

● Previous accounts of the growth of Philippine Literature tended, through

sheer lack of consolidated data on writing outside the capital, to focus solely
on the achievement of authors writing in Spanish, English, and Tagalog. A
change in literary historiography has been underway since the late 1960s.
And after thirty years, it has become possible to view literary development
as a nationwide phenomenon, embracing authors and works that colonial
education and its bias against Philippine languages had marginalized.
 Literature under US Colonialism (1898-1945)

● The downfall of Spanish colonialism freed the printing press from the
stranglehold of religious censorship. Soon enough, entrepreneurs took
advantage of the opportunities for profit offered by the printing business.
Where publishing was in the hands of patriotic investors, the printing press
was also used to counter the inroads of American culture into Philippine life.
 Literature under US Colonialism (1898-1945)
Hiligaynon writers
● Magdalena Jalandoni
(novelist and poet)
● Angel Magahum
(novelist and dramatist)
● Ramon Muzones
(novelist)
Cebuano writers Iloko writers
● Sulpicio Ossorio ● Mena Pecson Crisologo
(novelist) (novelist and dramatist)
● Tomas Hermosisima ● Leon Pichay (poet)
(novelist)
● Vicente Ranudo (poet)
● Marcel Navarra (short
story writer)
● Piux Kabahar
(dramatist)
 The Euro-Hispanic Tradition

● The “Euro-Hispanic” tradition refers to the literary part of the cultural heritage of
Spanish colonialism which brought over into Philippine writing forms, critical
theory and subject matter/themes in Spanish literature and other West European
literatures, particularly French.
● It was this tradition that informed literary development during the first half of the
entire period of American Occupation.
● Principally, writers drew from the works and thought of the Propaganda
Movement and the Revolution to press their call to Filipinos to continue to armed
struggle against US colonialism and their demand from the US for recognition of
the Filipinos’ right to self-determination.
● The demand for independence was supported by a campaign to make
Americans aware of the cultural legacy of the Filipino people, as this was
concretized in the folklore, history, and literature of the Philippines.
 American Imposition, Filipino Response

● Although there was some debate as to whether or not a language native to the Filipinos
ought to be the language of education, the architects of the colonial educational system
quickly decided it would be to the advantage of the US to make English the medium of
instruction in all Philippine schools.
● True enough, through English, the flow of cultural influence was facilitated and an
immediate gain for the colonizers was the progressive deterioration of resistance to
American colonial control. English opened the floodgates of colonial values through the
conduit of textbooks originally intended for American children; books and magazines
beamed at an American audience that familiarized Filipinos with the blessings of economic
affluence in a capitalist country; phonograph records that infected young Filipinos with the
same concerns and priorities as American teenagers; and films that vividly recreated for
Filipino audiences life in the US, feeding the minds of the young with bogus images of a just
and altruistic government and its wondrously happy and contented citizens.
 Intensification of Social Consciousness

● The only change that occurred with the coming of the Americans was a
change in the occupancy of the tip of the social pyramid. Americans now
occupied the seat of colonial power, with the Filipino economic elite still
functioning as the colonizers' agents in the pacification of the masses at the
base of the pyramid.
● On the part of the new colonial master, there was a determined campaign to
win over the elite, giving them greater participation in administering affairs
of the colony and in the enjoyment of economic rewards of leadership.
There was, too, a parallel campaign to dissipate the cohesiveness of the
oppressed masses, plying them with illusions of mobility through mass
education, dividing them by denigrating nationalism on the one hand and
implanting a universalist outlook in the young, on the other.
● Philippine literature, at the end of the period of U.S. colonialism, had attained
identity as national literature, largely as a result of the patriotic and
resistance literature produced during the early years of American rule.
● The growth of English writing signaled the assertiveness of the
Americanized intellectuals being turned out by the universities. For a while, it
seemed that English might lead writers away from the Philippine literary
heritage as this had come down to the twentieth century through Spain and
the vernacular literatures.
● However, realities in Philippine society and outside pressed hard on the
writers' consciousness, and some of the best writing they turned out came
to grips with those realities.
 Thanks!
Do you have any questions?
amdramos@pup.edu.ph
m.me/annamarielle1359

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