Vol. 5, No. 9 (Summer 2024)
Brian Hotson, Editor, CWCR/RCCR
Neo-colonialism, and the US leadership of it, do not evoke the same sense of horror as the old colonialism and the oppressor nations of Europe used to evoke in the general imagination and in political practice. In some quarters the USA is not even seen as an imperialist power.
— Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedom
This May, the French government sent a force of 3,000 police and military personnel to New Caledonia (Lukiv, 2024), an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean and a territory of France, to put down a protest by the Indigenous Kanak people. Their protests are for voting to be representative of the people of their islands; France recently changed the rules of who can vote, allowing “more recent arrivals to vote in provincial elections” (Macron heading to New Caledonia…, 2024, May 21). In a Guardian article, a member of the Indigenous Kanak people of the island chain, said, “I don’t know why our fate is being discussed by people who don’t even live here.” The official language of the islands is French, even though the peoples of New Caledonia speak “28 indigenous languages” (Bissoonauth & Parish, 2017, p. 39), and New Caledonia 17,000 kilometres from France.
Why French?
France is an imperial power. The New Caledonia archipelago, or Kanaky to the Indigenous peoples, was invaded and colonized by the French in 1853, who took the land of the Kanak people, put them into concentration camps, suppressed their languages and culture, implemented forced conversions to Catholicism, and used their labour through indentureship and slavery. France declared the island “a penal colony in 1864 and sent more than 20,000 prisoners to Kanaky in the ensuing three decades” (New Caledonia, 2024). The Kanak people were only granted French citizenship in 1953, and, while “41.2% of the archipelago’s inhabitants identify as Kanak,” the Kanak “account for approximately 80% of the inmates of the country’s only prison” (Indigenous peoples in Kanaky, 2022). Further, “only 3% of Kanaks go on to receive a post-secondary education”; for the rest of the population it is 23% (Poverty in New Caledonia, 2020).
Colonization is driven, in large part, by economics, and the 1864 discovery of rich nickel deposits in Kanaky is a key reason for France’s one hundred and fifty year investment in its colonial project. New Caledonia has significant deposits of nickel. These deposits represent 6%-7% of the world’s nickel production (Nickel facts, 2024; Nickel production in New Caledonia…, 2023) from 33 mines (MacDonald, 2020). Nickel is used in armour plating in naval ships (Cimpoeru, 2016, p. 18); is a main component in EV batteries; and is a component in stainless steel (Nickel facts, 2024), for example. In 2023, the island produced 193,800 tonnes of nickel, with a value of 3.3 billion USD$ (Nickel production in New Caledonia…, 2023; Top 10 nickel-producing countries in 2023, 2023). And, while New Caledonia ranks among the 20 wealthiest places in the world, “poverty in New Caledonia still weighs heavily on the Kanak people” (Poverty in New Caledonia, 2020). The vast majority of the profits from this mining activity do not go to the Kanak people (New Caledonia, 2024).
New Caledonia is also a military base for the French government, “the main air-land support point for the Pacific theater” (Armed forces in New Caledonia, 2024). France uses this base to protect its colonial interests in French Polynesia, as well as to maintain its influence in the Pacific through agreements, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, with Australia, India, and the US.
Increased colonization in the 1960s and 1970s by France, enacting “a deliberate program by the French state to outnumber New Caledonia’s Indigenous people” (Bissoonauth & Parish, 2017, p. 41), “resulted in the Kanak people being made…a minority on their own land and prompted the first demands for independence for New Caledonia” (Neilson, 2023, p. 343), though the Kanak’s struggle against French rule, armed or otherwise, has been continuous since colonization (See Bissoonauth & Parish, 2017; France is sending…, 1985; MacDonald, 2020; Neilson, 2023).
The purposeful destruction of the Kanak languages was a result of French colonial education and Christianization. It was only in 2006, 153 years after the French invaded, that “the first school curricula adapted to Kanaky were introduced that included Kanak languages” (Bissoonauth & Parish, 2017, p. 50).
Why American English?
US language and knowledge colonization across the Pacific is now encroaching into Kanaky. As the Kanak people look to restore the strength of their languages, the same Indigenous people ask, “On se sent un peu seuls quand même car dans tout le Pacifique tout le monde parle anglais. On n’est pas nombreux à parler français, on a Tahiti, Wallis et Nouvelle-Calédonie” (1) (Bissoonauth & Parish, 2017, p. 40). American English is the lingua franca in the Pacific, which leads to the question posed by the Indigenous people of New Caledonia,
Which languages, then, will be used in New Caledonia after New Caledonians decide on their future? Indeed, what role does the question of languages play in the discussions, debates and decisions leading to the definition of the future status of the territory? Will ancestral languages and customs be lost? Will English become the lingua franca? (p. 40)
The U.S., like France, is an imperial power. Like France, the US government imposed linguistic, cultural, and settler colonization on the Indigenous people of what is now North America. The US, like France, created a physical as well as a cognitive empire (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2023, p. 39), forcing Indigenous peoples onto reservations, suppressing their languages and cultures through education, imposing religious conversions through support of Christian missions to US colonies and territories. Through a planned and dedicated colonial and cultural genocidal education system,
schools, similar institutions, and related [Indigenous] assimilation programs were funded by $23.3bn in inflation-adjusted federal spending…Religious and private institutions that ran many of the institutions received [US] federal money as partners in the campaign to “civilize” Indigenous students. (At least 973 Native American children died…, 2024)
In July, Al Jazeera and the Guardian articles on a report commissioned by the US Secretary of the Interior, reporting on nearly 1000 graves of Indigenous children found at specifically designed boarding schools. In the US, hundreds of thousands of children were forcibly placed in specially constructed boarding schools between 1869 and the 1960s, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. According to Al Jazeera, “by 1926, nearly 83 percent of school-aged Indigenous children were attending the institutions” (Nearly 1,000 Indigenous children died…, 2024).
U.S. Department of the Interior’s report says that the purpose of these schools were to “forcibly assimilate Indigenous children into white society, and survivors have described the intergenerational trauma their families and communities continue to experience as a result of the institutions” (Nearly 1,000 Indigenous children died…, 2024). The US Secretary of the Interior, Deb “Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico and the country’s first Native American cabinet secretary” told reporters, ‘Make no mistake…this was a concerted attempt to eradicate the, quote, ‘Indian problem,’ to either assimilate or destroy native peoples all together’” (At least 973 Native American children died…, 2024).
Once the western territories of what is now defined geographically as the United States were colonized, the US government continued invasions, occupations, and colonization in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Hawaii, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Philippines, for example.
Paradigm of difference and the cognitive empire
After World War II, the collapse of the Soviet Union empire, and again after 9/11, the US turned, in part, to a soft power (e.g., Brazil, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Uganda) approach to colonization, while still maintaining the threat and use of hard power (e.g., Vietnam, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq). This soft power includes the use of education as a means for knowledge and language colonization that creates, what Ndlovu-Gatsheni calls, in The cognitive empire: Epistemic injustices and resurgent decolonization (2023), a paradigm of difference. This paradigm
enabled the colonization of being human itself through techniques of social classification and racial hierarchization in accordance with invented differential ontological densities. Those human beings who found themselves pushed into the subhuman category had their knowledge, history, culture and language questioned, devalued and erased. It marked the birth of a biocentric and teleological European account of humanity, with the European “Man” at the center as the master and owner of the world. (p 40)
Language and knowledge colonization of the body—the creation of a “cognitive empire”—begins with what Ndlovu-Gatsheni describes as “the removal of the hard disk with previous memory and the downloading of a new software results in total change” (p. 42).
This means that using church, school and university, the cognitive empire is actively involved in the process of removing the hard disk of indigenous people’s previous knowledge and memory, and is constantly downloading the software of European knowledge and memory onto their minds. (p. 42)
This empire, once strictly European, and now American,
operates at a planetary scale in its routinization and naturalization of what it has imposed…Like the current troublesome coronavirus, it survives through camouflage, disguise, invisibility and indeed mutation. (p. 39)
The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau (DOS) of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ (ECA) use of cultural and educational exchanges is significant in the implementation of soft power:
Their exchanges are usually pre-determined by the official definitions of culture and operationalized by the governmental institution and agents, which shape and promote a group of artistic and cultural goods and activities that identify with official cultural policy and national identity. This combination of government policies of international cultural promotion, framed as a general strategy, could be considered cultural diplomacy. (Zamorano, 2016, p. 169)
It is no accident that writing centres and American English language centres founded and/or funded by the ECA through US embassies appear across the globe following the foreign policies of the DOS, planned and determined by the US President and their Cabinet. These policies are determined for global projection of military power, access to and extraction of resources, and for export of US goods and services. The DOS goals are to “deliver for the American people by promoting our interests and values around the world” and to “shape an international environment in which the United States can thrive” (Modernizing Diplomacy…, 2024, p. 4). More specifically, the ECA’s goal, through its programs, is to
…expose foreign participants to a plethora of American culture, knowledge, skills, and expertise. Through their participation, individuals are exposed to American values in communities and workplaces, and experience how these values influence decision-making processes. (U.S. Department of State, 2022)
Shaping at the human cognitive level through education and language transforms not only individuals, but also institutions, societies, and cultures.
Soft power and public diplomacy
Since 1948, the U.S. Department of State, which is responsible for US foreign affairs, has developed and continues to develop its cognitive empire through language and cultural colonization. To find where writing centres have been established with US funding, look to the DOS’ foreign policy. Current US foreign policy is to strengthen American influence into Asia and specifically the Indo-Pacific region: “We are expanding our diplomatic presence in the Indo-Pacific region and leveraging public investments to help secure and diversify critical supply chains, expand digital connectivity…” (Modernizing Diplomacy…, 2024, p. 4). Why specifically this region? Back to US foreign policy:
We also are driving forward an ambitious modernization agenda that, at its core, is about equipping the Department [of State] for its evolving mission by providing the tools, resources, and expertise we need to advance U.S. interests in areas from cyberspace and emerging technology to the global energy transition and strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that will be increasingly important to our foreign policy in the years ahead. (p. 4)
China, whose influence and expansion has increased significantly, the US sees as a threat to its own global hegemony.
Language colonization
As a means to meet these goals, the DOS instructs its Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to create educational and language-learning activities to influence foreign citizens, institutions, and governments, and to inject US culture directly into the foundation of societies. The ECA employs various activities for this purpose, including its Fulbright programs, American English programs, and English Language Specialist and English Language Fellowship programs. Here is ECA’s description of their activities:
We promote English language learning as a gateway to educational and economic advancement…We work with communities to preserve their cultural heritage, as well as program dynamic American expert speakers to engage foreign audiences on topics of strategic importance to the United States. ECA seeks to increase the number of inbound and outbound international exchanges to develop cultural, social, and economic ties between nations. Through expanded engagement with our alumni, we amplify the impact and reach of ECA’s programs. (Functional Bureau Strategy, 2022, p. 1)
As current U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said recently at a DOS-sponsored American English language event in Uzbekistan State World Languages University,
…it’s a wonderful ability to have to speak English, to understand English, and it’s something that we [the United States] are very, very happy to share. We’re [the United States] working here in Uzbekistan not only to help instruct English, but also, especially, to help train teachers in English. And I think to date we’ve trained almost 10,000, and now there are English-language school books in about 10,000 schools here in Uzbekistan. In many ways, English is the most important export from the United States to other countries. (Secretary Antony J. Blinken…, 2023, March 1)
Kazakhstan
In 2023, in neighbouring Kazakhstan, which, like Uzbekistan, has significant deposits of rare earth elements (Imamova, 2024, January 25) as well as nickel deposits (Wakabayashi, 2024), and $5 billion USD$ US-direct investment (Imamova, 2024, January 15), the DOS announced a funding opportunity for US citizens to establish American English writing centres in “Kazakh Higher Education Institutions” (HEIs) (Notice of Funding Opportunity…, 2023). The mission of these writing centres is to
…offer targeted English language support to Kazakh HEIs through the creation of academic writing centers. Through mentoring and skills transfer, the program will create a vehicle for Kazakh HEIs to adopt improved research publication practices based on U.S. models. (Notice of Funding Opportunity…, 2023) (2)
This is the direct application of US-design and control into Kazakh teaching, learning, and academic publication using a bait-and-switch of “improvement.” It’s the DOS’ goal to help Kazakhs speak and think like Americans. As former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in 2001, “I can think of no more valuable asset to our country than the friendship of future world leaders who have been educated” in the American education system (Nye, 2005, pp. 12-13).
Writing centre industrial complex
For 2024, DOS budget for ECA’s educational exchanges and cultural programs was over 850 million USD$ (Fiscal Year 2024…, 2024). This funding, which increases year-over-year whether Republican or Democrat administrations (Modernizing Diplomacy…, 2024, p. 31), provides for a multidimensional approach to knowledge and language colonization, including writing centre creation. This colonization effort is, in part, about the domination of American English over other languages, especially for scientific research and publication purposes:
Many qualified researchers lack the English language skills to publish their research in international journals. This skills gap may include basic writing skills, but more commonly reflects a challenge with presenting their research processes, outcomes, and conclusions clearly. While there is a peer review process in place, many of the senior faculty are less experienced in the international publishing process and standards. Unlike in the United States, Kazakh researchers have few additional resources to rely on when their research is rejected. (Notice of Funding Opportunity…, 2023)
Philippines
Also in the Indo-Pacific region is the 2023 Academic Writing Center Support Funds Program, part of the DOS’ “U.S. Mission to the Philippines,” a $75,000 (View Grant Opportunity, 2023), one-year “a grant or cooperative agreement” through the US embassy in Manilla (Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), 2023, p. 3). The writing centre services described in the notice are to be
…a form but not limited to individual tutoring and feedback, peer writing groups, writing boot camps, seminars and workshops, academic writing courses, online resources, etc. Please note translation services will not be eligible for funding under this award. (p. 5)
What is not directed by the DOS for this writing centre to take into account local pedagogies, cultures of learning, or local languages. No period of study of local conditions or collaborations are described. The writing centre established using this DOS funding is the Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio (4) at Central Luzon State University, a university founded in 1907 by the US colonial government.
The writing centre opened on April 18, 2024 (AB explores partnerships…, 2022).
Established through the 2023 Academic Writing Center Support Funds Program…by the [ECA’s] Regional English Language Office – Manila at the US Embassy Manila under the leadership of its former RELO, Dr. Carleen Curley Velez, the Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio exemplifies the enduring alliance between the Philippines and the United States. This initiative underscores our shared commitment to educational development and cultural exchange between the two nations. (The Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio…, 2024)
It is no surprise that the Philippines, a former US colony, is a focus of the DOS, especially considering the Philippines’ territorial disputes with China (See US hands $500m military aid boost to Philippines amid China tensions). By June 2024, the centre was promoting a DOS Fulbright exchange programming:
The Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio had the pleasure of welcoming Mr. Julio S. Amador III, Executive Director of the Philippine-American Educational Foundation (PAEF), also known as Fulbright Philippines…During his brief visit to the Writers’ Studio, Executive Director Amador met with Dr. Emil F. Ubaldo, a Fulbright scholar and the project leader of the Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio…
Dr. Ubaldo shared how his Fulbright experience at the University of Memphis inspired the concept of an Academic Writing Center, which he successfully adapted to the Philippine context, culminating in its establishment at CLSU.
Additionally, Mr. Amador received a briefing on how the Writers’ Studio could assist clients in preparing their applications and other documents for external scholarships, such as the Fulbright scholarships. (Fulbright Philippines’ executive director visits Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio, 2024).
In July, the writing centre celebrated the 78th Philippine-American Friendship Day,
The Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio joins the celebration of the 78th Philippine-American Friendship Day and congratulates the people of the United States of America on their Independence Day Celebration
Established through the 2023 Academic Writing Center Support Funds Program (SRP38023GR0060) by the Regional English Language Office – Manila at the US Embassy Manila under the leadership of its former RELO, Dr. Carleen Curley Velez, the Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio exemplifies the enduring alliance between the Philippines and the United States. This initiative underscores our shared commitment to educational development and cultural exchange between the two nations. (The Hannah W. Tibbs Writers’ Studio joins…, 2024)
Bangladesh
Like in the Philippines, a DOS co-funded and co-created writing-centre initiative in Bangladesh is strategically centred. In November 2023, Molly McHarg, English Language Specialist for the U.S. Department of State and a past-president of the Middle East North Africa Writing Centers Alliance, helped in the establishment of a writing centre at the University of Dhaka (3) (McHarg, Das Srishti, & Aony, 2024). In a piece in Connecting Writing Centers Across Borders, The English Writing Corner at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, co-authors McHarg, Das Srishti, & Aony describe its creation: “[E]stablished by Dr. Molly McHarg, an English Language Specialist from the U.S. Department of State,”
[t]he concept was cultivated by the faculty members in the Department of English, University of Dhaka, in order to support students of the department with their writing skills and English language proficiency. (McHarg, Das Srishti, & Aony, 2024)
The centre’s peer tutors were “carefully interviewed, selected, and trained by Dr. McHarg” and the “the tutors employ a plurilingual approach towards tutoring, where the tutees can communicate with the peer tutors in both English as well as Bengali, their native language” (McHarg, Das Srishti, & Aony, 2024).
Screen capture from Writing Lab Newsletter’s X post on the opening of the English Writing Corner, University of Dhaka. English Language Specialist, McHarg, front, second from the left. (Join us in congratulating on the grand opening…, 2024).
Thailand
McHarg’s previous writing centre work was as a writing tutor at the American branch campus of the Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (McHarg, 2015) and in “establishing a writing center at Burapha University in Thailand,” the HU-SO English Writing Center, as a DOS English Language Specialist (McHarg, n.d.; Olson, Tantiniranat, McHarg, & Carmesak, 2021, October 8). Another DOS agent, Martha Olsen,
was assigned to Burapha University as an English Language Fellow through the U. S. State Department’s English Language Programs. She had experience as a journalist and academic, but her knowledge of writing centers was limited to a short visit, once, as a graduate student. English Language Fellows are expected to take on secondary projects in addition to their teaching hours, and so the yet-to-be-established writing center presented itself as a great opportunity. (Olson, Tantiniranat, McHarg, & Carmesak, 2021)
The “motivation for creating a university writing center sprang from [Burapha University’s] Dr. Suchada’s experience as a graduate student in the United States” (Carmesak, Olson, Tantiniranat, & McHarg, 2020, p. 1).
Dr. Suchada, along with the faculty members in the ad-hoc committee overseeing the project, wanted the writing center to have a foundation of best-practice objectives and procedures, so that it would be able to serve the maximum target population productively, both in the short term and in years to come. However, because Burapha was the first public university in Thailand to establish a writing center, there were no local models for the best way to establish this foundation. At first, the idea was to at least partly monetize the writing center through referrals to faculty members wishing to freelance as editors and proofreaders for other professionals requiring this kind of service, in addition to providing assistance to students needing help with writing skills. (Olson, Tantiniranat, McHarg, & Carmesak, 2021)
McHarg entered the project at the invitation of Suchada and Olsen (Carmesak, Olson, Tantiniranat, & McHarg, 2020, p. 1):
At this point it became clear that the writing center at Burapha could benefit from Dr. McHarg’s expertise over the long term. Alice Murray, the Regional English Language Officer in the U.S. Embassy, Bangkok, applied for a grant from the U.S. State Department’s English Language Program to fund Dr. McHarg’s work at Burapha through an English Language Specialist designation. The grant was approved in August 2019. (pp.1-2)
The founders admit to not doing preliminary work to understand local education realities or to incorporate local pedagogies and rhetorics into the writing centre:
In a perfect world, there would have been more time for the Thai faculty, committee members, and writing center director to study the various models of writing centers and congruent methodology, so that they would have had more information to decide what kind of writing center would be best for their own context. Because there was already a U.S. English Language Fellow on site, who then brought in an American specialist with experience in establishing the U.S. model of peer-staffed academic writing centers in the Middle East, these two may have influenced the direction of the Burapha writing center with their vision of “best-practices.” (Olson, Tantiniranat, McHarg, & Carmesak, 2021)
The “perfect world” the authors speak of is the foundational grounding for the writing centre to be effective in and beneficial to local contexts and realities, to understand local needs, and to not impose American knowledge-making pedagogies at the expense of local pedagogies. The failure of the writing centre to find “congruent” methodologies is reflective of the concepts of cognitive colonization. Whether the intention was colonial is notwithstanding, as the outcome is the same. It is in the interests of the DOS to embed American knowledge making, American English, and cognitive processes that are based in American understandings and to forgo local knowledge making.
When Ms. Olson, the [DOS] EL [English Language] Fellow, and Dr. McHarg, the EL [English Language] Specialist, came into the picture, and it was determined that the writing center would be modeled on the non-profit, peer-staffed, university-funded writing centers in U.S. universities, it became clear that funding was going to be a crucial challenge. In hindsight, at that point, it might have been useful to take the time to examine closely the financial paths available for the writing center, and to work more closely with the administration and faculty heads to find a way to include the writing center as a line item in the university’s budget… (Olson, Tantiniranat, McHarg, & Carmesak, 2021)
In their project report, the authors write that funding for the centre is key to the centre’s success: “the HU-SO English Writing Center staff is keenly aware of the urgent need for sustained funding. Many of these goals cannot be successfully reached without funding” (Weraphon, Olson, Tantiniranat, & McHarg, 2020, p. 15). What is both puzzling and telling is that this report was written in English only:
the authors of this paper collaborated to produce an annual report on the establishment and operation of the HU-SO English Writing Center. Because it was in English, and the Burapha University administration might not have been able to read it well, in the future the authors plan to create an annual report in Thai language too, to demonstrate the center’s value and utility to the community. (Olson, Tantiniranat, McHarg, & Carmesak, 2021).
““[i]t is hoped that an examination of the development of the HU-SO English Writing Center will serve as an example, a lesson, and a model for other universities in the region” (Olson, Tantiniranat, McHarg, & Carmesak, 2021).
Shaping favourable conditions
Joseph Nye, who coined the term soft power, writes, “soft power—getting others to want the outcomes you want—co-opts people rather than coerces” (2022, p. 12). It isn’t about imposing change, as “[p]roof of power lies not in resources but in the ability to change the behavior of states” (Nye, 1990, p. 155).
Through the use of soft power principles, the DOS’ abilities to morph its actions through a bait-and-switch, the imposition of American English is apparent in its operations of language instruction, including writing centre creation. In the case of the DOS writing centre in Thailand, once established, the DOS foothold in this institution is leveraged. For an example, through the HU-SO English Writing Center’s social media, students are invited to an event called “American Culture”:
ร่วมจัดโดย United States Embassy in Bangkok และคณะมนุษศาสตร์ และสังคมศาสตร์ มหาวิทยาลัยบูรพา
น้อง ๆจะได้เรียนรู้เกี่ยวกับเรื่องราวที่น่าสนใจ และพูดคุยกับนักการทูตชาวอเมริกันแบบสดๆ ในหัวข้อ “American Culture”
[…[j]ointly organized by the United States Embassy in Bangkok and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Burapha University.
Students will have the opportunity to learn about intriguing topics and engage in live conversations with American diplomats on the subject of “American Culture.”] (We invite students and interested individuals…, 2021; translation via ChatGPT 4o)
Advertisement for the U.S. Embassy Bankok’s “Mission Speaker Program” online event via Zoom “on the subject of “American Culture.’” This event was advertised via the Hu-So English Writing Center Facebook page (We invite students and interested individuals…, 2021).
In the case of Bangledesh, the launch of the new centre was followed by a visit from the US embassy’s Deputy Director of Public Engagement, Bren Flanigan. (University of Dhaka English Writing Corner, 2024). During the visit to the writing centre and with the university’s vice-chancellor, Flanigan “expressed his willingness to provide academic experts from USA for development of capacity building and enhancement of academic and research activities” of the University of Dhaka (US Embassy Official meets…, 2024).
As Ciocchini and Greener write in Routledge international handbook on decolonizing justice (2020), DOS’ programs around the world allow the DOS
the institutional capacity to shape favourable conditions for globalized financial capital, such as influencing and fashioning trade policies, security agendas, development strategies, dominant cultural signs and symbols, labour regimes, debt structuring or monetary policy in peripheral and Southern regions. (p. 59)
The DOS’ goal is to advance American interests by all these means. DOS writing centres are a part of their means to these goals—to colonize writing pedagogies by adopting “research publication practices based on U.S. models” (Notice of Funding Opportunity…, 2023). As agents of the U.S. Department of State, those who create writing centres for the DOS put in place the levers for the US government’s cognitive colonization. All other corollary outcomes, whether philanthropic, supportive, or collaborative, are, in the end, used by the DOS as a means of reaching their colonial goals.
The US in the Pacific
In July, the Guardian published a piece listing the numerous “[p]olicing, defence and security deals with the 10 largest Pacific countries,” including the U.S., China, and Australia.
[T]he US has at least eight defence and security agreements in place with Pacific countries. Last year, it signed a pact with Papua New Guinea that gave the US military “unimpeded” access to its bases, and in 2020, the US signed a defence and security agreement with Fiji. The US also retains its dominant military footprint in the northern Pacific through its Compact of Free Association (Cofa) agreements with Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, which grant the US full responsibility over each country’s defence and security matters. (Srinivasan & Harrison, 2024, July 9)
The new U.S. Embassy for the Pacific nations of Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu, opened in May 2023 (Modernizing Diplomacy…, 2024, p. 153) has many DOS’ education programs:
through its Public Diplomacy Section supports English language programs, higher education advising, numerous academic and professional exchanges, projects aimed at encouraging youth to pursue science, technology, engineering, arts, math and English studies, and collaborates with local partners on community resource centers in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu. (Books for Asia Partners…, 2020)
Fulbright student programs, Fulbright scholars award, American Corner program, Fulbright Foreign Student Program, American Councils for International Education programs, and American English Language programs are all offered by the DOS in the region. A 2020 DOS’ cosponsored English Language Program in Fiji, the English Access Microscholarship Program, is described by the DOS:
Access provides a foundation of English language skills to bright, economically disadvantaged students, primarily between the ages of 13 to 20, in their home countries. Access programs give participants English skills that may lead to better jobs and educational prospects. Participants also gain the ability to compete for and participate in future exchanges and study in the United States.
Will funding be offered for writing centres here, as well? In 2021, the DOS’ embassy in the capital of Fiji, Suva, offered a five-week MOOC, Establishing Academic Writing Centers at International Higher Education Institutions, laying the ground work (Enrollment [sic] is now open for the 
FREE online course…, 2021).
References
AB explores partnerships, mobility with education officials from US, Indonesia, Argentina. (2022, October 28). University of Santo Tomas. https://www.ust.edu.ph/ab-explores-partnerships-mobility-with-education-officials-from-us-indonesia-argentina/
About the U.S. Department of State. (n.d.). U.S. Department of State. https://2017-2021.state.gov/about/about-the-u-s-department-of-state/
Assistance Listings. Public Diplomacy Programs (19.040). (2021). U.S. Department of State. Retrieved from https://sam.gov/fal/0d4a24342350469ab04cf35106fa1a91/view
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(1) “We feel a little isolated all the same because throughout the Pacific everyone speaks English. There aren’t many of us who speak French: Tahiti, Wallis and New Caledonia.”
(2)The DOS reported in April 2024 that the DOS’ 7 million USD$ The English Speaking Nation (ESN) program had trained 18,000 American English teachers in Uzbekistan (U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan…2024, April 20).
(3) The Philippines, a colony of the US from 1899 to 1946, was ceded from Spain as a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898. Between 1899 and 1902, a Philippine independence war, called the The Philippine-American War, resulted in the deaths of as “many as 200,000 Filipino civilians…from violence, famine, and disease” (The Philippine-American War, n.d.), where the US forces employed tactics developed during wars with the Indigenous peoples of America in the 1880s and 1890s (see Aune, 2021).
(4) Hannah Williamson Tibbs was “an American teacher and alumna” of the now Michigan State University. Tibbs “arrived at Central Luzon Agricultural School (CLAS) in 1913, where she served as the institution’s pioneering English teacher until 1917” (Our history…, 2024).