Yellow suns and the colors red, blue, and white — the colors of the Philippine flag — adorned the Carl A. Fields Center (CAF)’s multipurpose room on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. Seated at round tables were over 200 people who were eating, laughing, and talking. All attendees had two things in common: their Filipino identity and their place as a student, staff, or faculty member at an Ivy League school.
The Princeton Filipino Community Board (PFC) hosted the inaugural Filipino Ivy League (FIL) Conference, a two-day event featuring guest speakers, traditional food, and activities focused on Filipino culture. The conference centered around their theme “Kapamilya,” which means family and close bond and brought together Filipino student organizations across all eight Ivy League schools.
Joshua Soberano ’26, Alvaro Loste ’27, and Maki Flauta ’27 lead the student board of the PFC. They hope to follow in the footsteps of other groups at Ivy League universities who have already pushed for a South Asian Studies program or Tagalog language courses with a legacy of success. Tagalog is spoken by a quarter of the population in the Philippines. Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania already offer Tagalog. Yale will begin offering Tagalog courses in fall 2025.
Flauta is a contributing Print designer for the ‘Prince.’
“Our initiative is to try to have Tagalog language courses taught here at Princeton,” Soberano told The Daily Princetonian. “Our big thing with the conference is we want to use this as a way to build the foundation so that there is really significant interest in learning more about Filipino culture in wanting to learn language.”
The conference featured workshops including presentations regarding Colonial Linguistic Suppression and Filipino Language Advocacy.
“I think a big factor in our push for community-building was our recognition of the disconnect that existed between Filipino students, not even across the Ivy League, but even just within the Princeton body,” Flauta wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’ “It wasn’t until this year that we started meeting Filipino students from other schools nearby, like Penn and Columbia, and upon seeing how well we all got along, I think that fed into our desire to bring together an even bigger group that has never, in history, been in one room.”
As the event began, students began to mingle, bonding over stories of growing up with Filipino culture, their favorite traditions, and sharing conversations in Tagalog. At the conference check-in was the FIL backdrop and balloon-arch, where each school’s respective Filipino student group took pictures and new friends posed in front of Polaroid cameras with Philippine flags in hand.
After an opening speech by Rhacel Parreñas, the Doris Stevens Professor in Women's Studies, those gathered came together for a community dinner that included Filipino staples: lumpia, a delectable meat roll; adobo, marinated meat and vegetables; and pancit, a dish with vegetables and noodles.
Students also heard from guest speaker Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal, a professor of psychology for the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.
Nadal spoke about the intersectionalities of Filipino identity to unite students to work together.
“We all know that there are many ways that we can be Filipino. All our diverse experiences are authentically Filipino,” he said during the conference. “If we work together, then maybe we all will have more opportunities for everyone, and with all the different Filipino clubs here, I hope that you all continue to build in solidarity with each other.”
After workshops addressing Filipino and Filipino American identity, Flauta expressed the importance of bringing together Filipino students through these themes at this conference.
“We are starting from the inside of our own identities, and then looking systematically and institutionally to see where our institutions are failing us. By getting together with other Ivy League schools, we can work together to determine where we can step in, help each other out, and try to bridge those gaps,” she said.
“We are trying to use this event as an opportunity to progress Filipino culture and Filipino studies,” Soberano said after one of the language advocacy workshops. “We want to bring awareness to this issue of a lack of Filipino education and lack of Southeast Asian language representation at Princeton.”
While the event addressed the concerns of Filipino students regarding language and cultural advocacy at Princeton, the conference was impactful for visiting students from other schools. Transportation, food, and organization of the conference to bring together students from other schools was fully funded by Princeton and was made accessible to all students interested.
Janina Gbenoba, a sophomore at Yale, came from New Haven to attend the event.
“It is super exciting to meet new people from Filipino clubs and what they look like across different Ivy League campuses,” she told the ‘Prince.’ “Meeting new people leads to sharing ideas and celebrating [Filipino] culture together as students.”
At CAF, attendees heard a final presentation from Purposeful Unconditional Service to Others, an organization that provides relief services to the Philippines and countries around the world. In the final hours of the conference, participants shared a closing dinner where lechon, a spit-roasted pig, and several other traditional dishes were served. Students expressed bittersweet feelings over the conference’s closing and their hopes for the future of the FIL conference and the Filipino community within the Ivy League.
“It is really astonishing to see how everyone was able to come together,” Charles Miranda, University of Pennsylvania alumnus and Penn Philippine Association Board member, told the ‘Prince’ in an interview.
Students then made their way to McCosh 10 for a “Closing Ceremonies Cultural Show.” In a vibrant celebration, the event ended with a cultural showcase with performances from students of all participating schools. Spirits were high as student performers from Cornell, Princeton, and Yale took the stage. Glimmering skirts swayed as students balanced cups of water on their arms and heads during the traditional “Binasuan” dance. Student performers sang their hearts out to Filipino music and excited the crowd with dance medleys. Finally, bamboo poles clicked and clacked as “Tinikling,” the art of jumping over and dancing in between two moving horizontal poles, was displayed.
“I think there’s a really really fantastic opportunity to build a coalition that really does last,” Soberano said.
Ysabella Olsen is a member of the Class of 2028. She is a contributing writer for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at yo7647[at]princeton.edu.
Katelynn Lee is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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