Internationalism at UW-Madison
An Interview with Fil-Am Jamie Yancovitz
An Interview with Fil-Am Jamie Yancovitz
By Jonathan Gramling
Jamie Yancovitz was like any other student born and raised in the Bronx in New York
City coming to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She wondered if there was cow-
tipping and held other misconceptions about Wisconsin and the Midwest. She also found a
portal to the world and her own identity. Like many other students from out east, Yancovitz
was lured to Madison when she visited on a nice summer day. “I applied to schools all
over the country because I didn’t know where I wanted to go,” Yancovitz said as we
talked on Union Terrace. “When I finally came to visit Madison, I came on one of these
gorgeous days. It was even hotter than this and then there was the lake. There was
dancing on the Union Terrace. There was music on State Street. It was a gorgeous
campus town. I came and my dad and I said ‘This is it.’ We were sitting on the Terrace
with a beer in hand. My dad turned to me and said ‘You know, life couldn’t get much better
than this.’ I was like ‘You’re right dad.’ That was it. No one told me about the winters. But I
survived the four winters here somehow.”
Yancovitz is a second-generation Filipino American whose mother emigrated to the U.
S. in the late 1970s. There is a predominate tendency in the Filipino American community
to assimilate into American life. Language and culture may be lost by the third generation.
“Families have a tendency to not teach Tagalog [a Philippine dialect] or their local dialects
to their children,” Yancovitz said. “So I had to go and seek it out myself. I learned Ilongo [a
Philippine dialect] from my mom because I would actively ask her things. Otherwise, I
wouldn’t have learned. My brother and sister don’t really know Ilongo at all. You have to
Jamie Yancovitz was like any other student born and raised in the Bronx in New York
City coming to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She wondered if there was cow-
tipping and held other misconceptions about Wisconsin and the Midwest. She also found a
portal to the world and her own identity. Like many other students from out east, Yancovitz
was lured to Madison when she visited on a nice summer day. “I applied to schools all
over the country because I didn’t know where I wanted to go,” Yancovitz said as we
talked on Union Terrace. “When I finally came to visit Madison, I came on one of these
gorgeous days. It was even hotter than this and then there was the lake. There was
dancing on the Union Terrace. There was music on State Street. It was a gorgeous
campus town. I came and my dad and I said ‘This is it.’ We were sitting on the Terrace
with a beer in hand. My dad turned to me and said ‘You know, life couldn’t get much better
than this.’ I was like ‘You’re right dad.’ That was it. No one told me about the winters. But I
survived the four winters here somehow.”
Yancovitz is a second-generation Filipino American whose mother emigrated to the U.
S. in the late 1970s. There is a predominate tendency in the Filipino American community
to assimilate into American life. Language and culture may be lost by the third generation.
“Families have a tendency to not teach Tagalog [a Philippine dialect] or their local dialects
to their children,” Yancovitz said. “So I had to go and seek it out myself. I learned Ilongo [a
Philippine dialect] from my mom because I would actively ask her things. Otherwise, I
wouldn’t have learned. My brother and sister don’t really know Ilongo at all. You have to
| Jamie Yancovitz is a second-generation Filipino American whose mother emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s. |
actively seek it or it’s easy to not learn the culture.”
“My Filipino American identity is crucial to me,” Yancovitz emphasized. “I’m Filipino American. That’s how I identify myself. I’m also
half White. My father was born and raised in New York. And they trace my great grandparents back to Germany and Romania. My name is
Yancovitz. And I am very close to both sides of my family. But culturally, I’m very Filipino. I’ve lived in The Philippines and gone to The
Philippines many, many times.”
When she arrived on campus, Yancovitz found a plethora of resources to explore the world and her own culture. “I started learning
Tagalog here,” Yancovitz said. “This school — what I learned right away — teaches the most languages in the nation. It is everything
from Tagalog to Swahili to ancient Hebrew. They even teach Poly here and it isn’t a spoken language anymore. It’s only used for
interpreting Buddhist texts. I saw the list of languages coming in as a freshman. I spotted Tagalog and I said ‘That’s it. I’m taking that.’ I
really wanted to connect with my roots.”
Yancovitz packed a lot into her four years in Madison. She took courses in every field and recently graduated with bachelor’s
degrees in languages and cultures of Asia and Southeast Asian Studies as well as a certificate in Asian American Studies.
Besides learning about her own culture, it was just as important to Yancovitz to take risks and engage other students different from
her. She found that forum in the Multicultural Student Coalition. “That was a place where I found community amongst other students of
color who were really into social justice and using hip hop as a tool for education and unity amongst people,” Yancovitz said. “I was so
impressed and I had no idea Madison was cultivating this sort of hip hop feel and community on campus. And then with Marc Bamuthi
Joseph and I started going to those weekly Line Break seminars. It was amazing. So I started working with them. That’s where I started
my organizing career. From there, I started working with the Filipino American Student Organization, which I am currently the president
of.” Thoughout her collegiate experience, Yancovitz’s confidence and self-knowledge have grown. For her, it is all about taking risks.
“Don’t be afraid because if you don’t take risks, you don’t live,” Yancovitz observed. “Life is about just putting yourself out there and
pursuing what you are passionate about and pursuing what you love. The reason why I feel I have been so successful at this university
is because I have done that. I’ve taken the initiative; I’ve take risks. I’ve gone out there and just put myself in different situations and
seen how I handled them and whether they are comfortable or uncomfortable. Navigating through that is what makes you powerful. Being
comfortable with yourself helps when you put yourself out there because then you understand how you deal with situations and different
people. And you learn more about yourself and become more confident. Then you can work your way through that and I think that is real
important.”
“There are a lot of barriers and obstacles, especially for students of color on campus,” Yancovitz continued. “You just have to get
through them. You just have to find a way within yourself because it can be disheartening and it can be hard. And I have definitely had
my share of very difficult experiences. But they have made me stronger and have taught me more about who I am. And that is why I say
to other students ‘Just go for it.’ That old saying ‘If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger’ is really true.”
Yancovitz desire to learn has led her to branch out into learning other languages. “I’m currently learning Arabic, which is tough but I
love it,” Yancovitz said. “I’m learning to speak, write and read Arabic. It’s tough, but it is an amazing, beautiful language. When you learn
a language, you learn a culture. You’re there. You’re immersing yourself. You’re learning about the people, especially with Arabic. It is
very Islamic-based. We learn about Islam. I just started learning Arabic. This is my second semester. I’m doing as much as possible and
I hope to continue studying over the summer and then hope to travel somewhere in the Middle East or Egypt or Morocco.”
When Yancovitz gave the keynote address to the Multicultural Student Graduation Reception on May 3, she equated the values that
she learned at UW-Madison with a flock of geese flying south for the winter.
“There are three lessons we can learn from geese,” Yancovitz recalled. “Geese fly in a V-shaped formation. The reason they do that
is because the alignment creates more synergy and they are able to fly longer and farther because of the wind efficiency that they create
in their wing vortexes than if they were to fly alone. That’s about teamwork and working together. The second thing is that when the
leader of the V gets tired, it will simply rotate out and another goose will move in and they’ll just keep doing that until they get to their
destination. That’s about your responsibility to other people and being able to rely on others. And the third thing — and the one I find most
profound and most interesting — is when a goose falls out of the formation because it is wounded, sick or tired, two other geese will
drop down and follow it to the ground. They will stay with it until it regains its strength. Once it regains its strength, the three geese will
fly up again and try to catch up with their formation or they will catch up with another formation until they can find their group later. The
lesson there is that we need to protect each other and take care of each other.”
Yancovitz plans to do a lot of flying of her own now that she has gotten her degree. Her problem is she can’t make up her mind what
she wants to do first. “There is so much that I would like to do,” Yancovitz exclaimed. “It’s a big, beautiful world out there and I just want
to explore it as much as possible. My hope is to travel. That’s the dream. These past four years, I’ve been wanting to travel all over
Southeast Asia. I would just backpack from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and then go to
The Philippines and just stay there. But now that I am learning Arabic, I don’t want to lose this skill. Now I want to do the Middle East and
find my way around there and do Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and then do Southeast Asia. I’m also taking African dance. I
might want to go to Africa and Ghana. I still have to figure out how to do this. This summer I will be investigating different fellowships
and scholarships and opportunities. I’m looking into the Foreign Service exam and seeing if maybe I could work for the State Department
and be able to travel that way.” Yancovitz is preparing for a life-long journey through learning.
Jonathan Gramling is publisher and editor of The Capital city Hues newspaper, Madison, Wis.
“My Filipino American identity is crucial to me,” Yancovitz emphasized. “I’m Filipino American. That’s how I identify myself. I’m also
half White. My father was born and raised in New York. And they trace my great grandparents back to Germany and Romania. My name is
Yancovitz. And I am very close to both sides of my family. But culturally, I’m very Filipino. I’ve lived in The Philippines and gone to The
Philippines many, many times.”
When she arrived on campus, Yancovitz found a plethora of resources to explore the world and her own culture. “I started learning
Tagalog here,” Yancovitz said. “This school — what I learned right away — teaches the most languages in the nation. It is everything
from Tagalog to Swahili to ancient Hebrew. They even teach Poly here and it isn’t a spoken language anymore. It’s only used for
interpreting Buddhist texts. I saw the list of languages coming in as a freshman. I spotted Tagalog and I said ‘That’s it. I’m taking that.’ I
really wanted to connect with my roots.”
Yancovitz packed a lot into her four years in Madison. She took courses in every field and recently graduated with bachelor’s
degrees in languages and cultures of Asia and Southeast Asian Studies as well as a certificate in Asian American Studies.
Besides learning about her own culture, it was just as important to Yancovitz to take risks and engage other students different from
her. She found that forum in the Multicultural Student Coalition. “That was a place where I found community amongst other students of
color who were really into social justice and using hip hop as a tool for education and unity amongst people,” Yancovitz said. “I was so
impressed and I had no idea Madison was cultivating this sort of hip hop feel and community on campus. And then with Marc Bamuthi
Joseph and I started going to those weekly Line Break seminars. It was amazing. So I started working with them. That’s where I started
my organizing career. From there, I started working with the Filipino American Student Organization, which I am currently the president
of.” Thoughout her collegiate experience, Yancovitz’s confidence and self-knowledge have grown. For her, it is all about taking risks.
“Don’t be afraid because if you don’t take risks, you don’t live,” Yancovitz observed. “Life is about just putting yourself out there and
pursuing what you are passionate about and pursuing what you love. The reason why I feel I have been so successful at this university
is because I have done that. I’ve taken the initiative; I’ve take risks. I’ve gone out there and just put myself in different situations and
seen how I handled them and whether they are comfortable or uncomfortable. Navigating through that is what makes you powerful. Being
comfortable with yourself helps when you put yourself out there because then you understand how you deal with situations and different
people. And you learn more about yourself and become more confident. Then you can work your way through that and I think that is real
important.”
“There are a lot of barriers and obstacles, especially for students of color on campus,” Yancovitz continued. “You just have to get
through them. You just have to find a way within yourself because it can be disheartening and it can be hard. And I have definitely had
my share of very difficult experiences. But they have made me stronger and have taught me more about who I am. And that is why I say
to other students ‘Just go for it.’ That old saying ‘If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger’ is really true.”
Yancovitz desire to learn has led her to branch out into learning other languages. “I’m currently learning Arabic, which is tough but I
love it,” Yancovitz said. “I’m learning to speak, write and read Arabic. It’s tough, but it is an amazing, beautiful language. When you learn
a language, you learn a culture. You’re there. You’re immersing yourself. You’re learning about the people, especially with Arabic. It is
very Islamic-based. We learn about Islam. I just started learning Arabic. This is my second semester. I’m doing as much as possible and
I hope to continue studying over the summer and then hope to travel somewhere in the Middle East or Egypt or Morocco.”
When Yancovitz gave the keynote address to the Multicultural Student Graduation Reception on May 3, she equated the values that
she learned at UW-Madison with a flock of geese flying south for the winter.
“There are three lessons we can learn from geese,” Yancovitz recalled. “Geese fly in a V-shaped formation. The reason they do that
is because the alignment creates more synergy and they are able to fly longer and farther because of the wind efficiency that they create
in their wing vortexes than if they were to fly alone. That’s about teamwork and working together. The second thing is that when the
leader of the V gets tired, it will simply rotate out and another goose will move in and they’ll just keep doing that until they get to their
destination. That’s about your responsibility to other people and being able to rely on others. And the third thing — and the one I find most
profound and most interesting — is when a goose falls out of the formation because it is wounded, sick or tired, two other geese will
drop down and follow it to the ground. They will stay with it until it regains its strength. Once it regains its strength, the three geese will
fly up again and try to catch up with their formation or they will catch up with another formation until they can find their group later. The
lesson there is that we need to protect each other and take care of each other.”
Yancovitz plans to do a lot of flying of her own now that she has gotten her degree. Her problem is she can’t make up her mind what
she wants to do first. “There is so much that I would like to do,” Yancovitz exclaimed. “It’s a big, beautiful world out there and I just want
to explore it as much as possible. My hope is to travel. That’s the dream. These past four years, I’ve been wanting to travel all over
Southeast Asia. I would just backpack from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and then go to
The Philippines and just stay there. But now that I am learning Arabic, I don’t want to lose this skill. Now I want to do the Middle East and
find my way around there and do Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and then do Southeast Asia. I’m also taking African dance. I
might want to go to Africa and Ghana. I still have to figure out how to do this. This summer I will be investigating different fellowships
and scholarships and opportunities. I’m looking into the Foreign Service exam and seeing if maybe I could work for the State Department
and be able to travel that way.” Yancovitz is preparing for a life-long journey through learning.
Jonathan Gramling is publisher and editor of The Capital city Hues newspaper, Madison, Wis.