Words: 2571
Thus, in 1917 the acceptance of the Barbour Scholarship for Oriental Women at the University of Michigan was a drastic counter- cultural venture; through it, Asian women were given an invaluable opportunity to obtain a fully funded education at the university so they could return to their home countries with new knowledge and professional skills that would allow them to escape the oppression of their native countries. For centuries, women have been considered subordinate to men, treated as lesser human beings, born only to serve their sexual counterpart.
Even in the united States, women did not earn the right to vote until 1 920, and were still treated unequally in the work force and in the society as a whole. In Asia, the perception and treatment of women was no different. From birth, women in Asia were seen as inferior to men. As Katie Curtain describes in Women in China, if a woman gave birth to a daughter and, thus, failed in the task of producing a son to carry on the family name and help support the family financially, “she could be cast out of her husband’s home, disgraced, and socially ostracizes.
It was only her function as a breeder that she attained a tutus in society. ” In China, women were treated as slaves, forced to have their feet bound in order to restrain them from leaving the home. As Curtain describes, women went through three stages of life: “In the first she was under the authority of the father, then under her husband, and finally, if he died, she was subject to her son. ” Even the symbols of men and women emphasized their social standing. Yin describing women meant dark, evil, and passive, whereas Yang which meant men stood for strong, active, and brave.
In Japan, some school-aged girls were taken from their families as in a lave raid, for the purpose of becoming military prostitutes, or “comfort women. ” The schools were used as a source for recruitment, thus dissuading many never to attend school for fear of being taken against their will. Many victims were so young that they had never previously engaged in sexual relations: “Like other virgins, Book Sill resisted with all her strength, but was violently deflowered.
She ended up covered in blood while screams sounded from the adjoining rooms. ” As a result Of Confucian ideology, women were excluded from the educational system, and taught how to behave as women ND respectable wives, rather than as self-reliant and independent-thinking individuals. With the collapse of the feudal dynasty, women were eventually permitted to receive an education but only up to the senior level comparable to our high school system today, in which they were taught four subjects: history, geography, arts and natural science.
As expressed in Jeanne Visibility and Michele Fielder’s book Women of the Third World: “Imprisoned as they are by their own culture and ignorant of other cultures, the oppression to which women are subjected takes place at every level: their work, their indentation and their redemption. ” Through the Barbour Scholarship for Oriental Women at the University of Michigan, women who were oppressed in their native countries were given the ability to overcome their former social standing and receive an unprecedented education.
The Barbour Scholarship was established by a University of Michigan alumnus from the class of 1 863, Mr.. Levi Barbour, after observing the lack of educational opportunities for women in Asian countries. In his explanation for creating the scholarship, Mr.. Barbour states: “The idea of the Oriental girl’s scholarship was to bring girls room the Orient, give them Occidental education, and let them take back whatever they find good and assimilate the blessings among the peoples from which they come. These goals promote speculation as to what underlying aims the University had by encouraging the scholars to return home and essentially stimulate Westernizes. In their home countries, as described above, the Barbour Scholars were unable to obtain a high degree of education, much less allowed to become physicians, teachers or other respected professionals. Two Barbour Scholars were previously forced to rues as boys to attend school as there were only boys’ institutes established in their native countries.
To emphasize these women’s social standing in Asia, in one instance a woman accepted as a Barbour Scholar came to the University with her feet bound. These drastic instances of inequality occurred more frequently during the early years of the Scholarship, as women from China and Japan were primarily chosen. Bringing these students to the United States in itself was a huge feat for the University of Michigan as anti- minority feelings flourished throughout the nation. Immigrants supplied cheap labor for the work force, thus replacing many higher paid white workers.
As whites’ anger towards immigrants increased, Congress responded with a variety of immigration regulation acts, ensuring whites’ supremacy and power. In May of 1882, with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigrants were no longer permitted to enter the united States for up to ten years. The Act further emphasized the anti- immigrant feeling of the citizens by stating that: “The master of any vessel who shall knowingly bring within the United States on such vessel, and land r permit to be landed, any Chinese laborer, from any foreign port of place, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanors, and or conviction. In 1924, the Johnson-Reed Act further excluded Japanese, Indians and other Asians claiming that they were ineligible for citizenship due to their race and unassailable culture. As Mae M. Angina states in her book Impossible Subjects: “The nativity of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century comprised a cultural nationalism in which cultural homogeneity more than race superiority was the principle concern. ” Whites wanted an all-white society, en with white ideas, beliefs and culture. Immigrants brought diversity and change to the United States, and were thus shunned and unwelcome.
This national feeling of resentment towards minorities inevitably presented problems for the Universe??y’ in their attempts to bring the Barbour Scholarship students into the country and to enter them in the school. Uniform neatly, the venture continued to have difficulty during the World War II as Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps. Over 1 20,000 Japanese Americans, the majority of whom were born in America, were placed in incarceration camps, accused of being disloyal to the United States. General John L. DeWitt of the Western Defense Command in 1943 expressed the national sentiment: “A Sap’s a Jape.
There is no way to determine their loyalty. It makes no difference whether he is an American; theoretically he is still a Japanese and you can’t change him. ” The Japanese Women during this time were thus especially susceptible to discrimination at the University as they had come directly from Japan. The national feeling towards minorities throughout the years of the Barbour Scholarship caused unavoidable robbers for the women as they were faced with not only a new culture, but one in which they were not wanted nor accepted.
Although facing continual discrimination, the Scholarship continued to flourish, opening up to countries such as India, the Philippines, Korea, and Turkey in the sass’s, and Ceylon, Bulgaria, Syria, and Siam (now Thailand) in future decades. As in Japan and China, the women were equally oppressed in these countries. Thus the Scholarship program at the University enabled them to enter fields of study that were previously closed to them. Over the course of thirty-eight years, veer two-hundred-and-eighty-two women from thirteen countries were given scholarships.
Many majored in the fields of medicine, education, English and sociology, with women from certain countries favoring specific majors. Of the scholars from India, 42% chose education, as did 33% from Korea; 53% of those from China showed a preference for medicine, and about 38% from Japan enrolled in English. The vast variety of countries represented and the variety of degrees sought by the Barbour Scholarship recipients gave the University an incomparable diversity and advantage over other schools composed of only a few races.
Other University students were surrounded with world representatives, allowing them to learn from each other about the rest of the globe and its many cultures. However, competition between the women also became inevitable, as only a limited amount of scholarships were available to the increasing number of applicants. As more and more countries learned about the Scholarship, tension among the girls naturally fluctuated. The women predictably hoped for girls from their native countries to be accepted over women from other countries, thus instituting unavoidable rivalry.
In the later years of the Scholarship, those admitted ere mainly graduate students, expected to have received prior undergraduate education. These women came from mainly Christian schools, open only to the select wealthy few, demonstrating the increase of Western influence in their countries. Many of the previous Barbour Scholars were faculty at these newly developed schools. As Carl Rufus declared in The Quarterly Review, this showed how well the Barbour scholars were able to “assimilate the benefits made possible by the vision and idealism of the founder of the scholarships. Whereas in their native countries women had been treated as subordinate human beings and their social standing was equivalent to that of a slave, the Barbour Scholarship opened up the world for these women emphasizing a way of life other than just living to serve their husbands and give birth to sons. Exposed to both academic knowledge as well as American culture on a daily basis, Barbour Scholars were able to realize that they were, in fact, equal to men and thus should not be treated as inferiors to their sexual counterparts.
This exposure, however, as previously mentioned, might also be construed as a “tool for assimilation” as these women were expected to return to their native countries upon completing heir educational experience preaching Westernizes. As a goal of the Scholarship, women were more apt to be chosen if they were thought most likely to return to their native land. Thus, upon the completion of their education, the Barbour Scholars ventured home with a M. A, Ph. D. , or M. D. And were requested in many cases to enter as leaders in their specialized fields of study. During his sabbatical, Rufus visited previous Barbour Scholars throughout Asia, documenting each woman’s contributions. Rufus noted his visit to DRP. Ting, the “superintendent to the Penning Hospital for omen and children, built largely through her own effort,” who was also in charge of the local city orphanage, and the founder of two schools, and a network that took health care directly to the homes of children.
In Tension, Rufus also noted that out of six city commissioners, three were previous Barbour Scholars. Like these women, upon returning to their native countries many of the Barbour Scholars worked at a variety of levels and in committees which bettered the lives of women and children, and their societies as a whole. Professor Rufus in The Quarterly Review continued to document mom of the Barbour Scholars’ accomplishments, emphasizing the extent to which the Scholarship acted as the nourishing water to a seed in spring enabling these women to bloom and flourish.
Miss Shareware Gaga served on a number of national committees as secretary of the All-India Women’s Conference for Education and Social Reform; Miss Hi-fang Www who obtained a Ph. D. , was elected President of the Ginning College, became a member of the United Foreign Missionary Conference team, and helped develop the New Life Movement in the organization of women for war relief; and Miss Me-inning Ting received her M. D. ND returned to China as head surgeon, supervising nurse, and director of Penning Women’s Hospital and headed the Chinese delegates to the Pan-Pacific Conference in Honolulu.
Professor Rufus sums up the importance of the Barbour Scholarship in the University Record stating: “The Barbour Scholarships had helped bring Oriental women from suppression to the Chairmanship of a nation’s political council, from inferiority to recognition in medical and other learned societies. ” Throughout history, the Lignite States has expressed the ideal of exceptionalness, feeling superior to all other countries, and essentially leveling that the American way is the right and only way.
Beginning with Native Americans, and later immigrants, Christian missionaries specifically felt it their duty to educate and bring these inferior, “savage” people “into the light” by converting them to Christianity. The Dates Act of 1862 is just one example through which whites encouraged assimilation, by dividing the Native Americans’ reservations into plots of land, forcing them to farm, and placing their children in Christian schools. Immigrants faced equal pressure to assimilate, especially during the early twentieth century, as Progressives encouraged Western ideology and Christianity’ to be taught in the schools.
Paula Fast notes in her book Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education: “The school was, of course, the great institution of assimilation. ” Similarly, although the Barbour Scholarships were tremendously successful in educating women from Asian countries, allowing them to overcome the oppression many women still face today, the way in which women were encouraged and, in a sense, required to return home after four years presents the question, “Was there an underlying reason the
University encouraged this Scholarship, possibly in the hopes of assimilating western ideas and culture across the globe? ” As previously mentioned, many of the women accepted to receive the Barbour Scholarship in the latter years of its availability came from Christian mission schools and colleges, especially in Japan, reflecting the continuation of the missionaries’ work to instill Christianity and Western ideology throughout the world. This objective can not be underestimated, nor ignored.
In an article entitled “Training Chinese Nurses in Western Ways: Among College’s Great Contributions,” the question s further emphasized as it presents the viewpoint that the Western teachings are the best and that essentially it is so “nice” of the colleges to teach this method rather than any other. Ata meeting in Peeping Rufus noted that it was called to order with songs from the University of Michigan and stories from the committee members’ experiences while in the States.
This transfer of a Western tradition to Asia emphasizes the way in which Westernizes spread in part because of the Barbour Scholarship. Additionally, at the university itself, Barbour Scholars were placed in: “women’s dormitories, so hat they could benefit by associating with American girls. ” As expressed above, Barbarous main purpose of the scholarship was to give the women an opportunity to learn, with the expectation that they would return to their native countries, and “assimilate the blessings among the peoples from which they come,” thus spreading Western knowledge.
From this, it is fair to assume that Western exceptionalness was evident in the reasoning for establishing the scholarship, as the terminology “assimilate the blessings” describes the university and thus the United States as a great benefactor, rather reflecting the view of superiority. This does not take away from the fact that these women were given an invaluable opportunity to receive higher education and a way out of oppression, but it does raise questions about a possible underlying reason the Scholarship was implemented.