For the first time, Yale students can now take courses to learn Tagalog on the Ivy league campus.
The Asian Journal reports that this fall, students could enroll in Elementary Filipino I and Intermediate Filipino I.
The opportunity comes after the student group Kasama launched its campaign advocating for the courses.
“It has been very fulfilling to finally take on detailed study of a language I have grown up hearing my family speak but never got to fully learn,” Janina Gbenoba ’27, a student in the Level 1 course “Elementary Filipino I,” wrote to the Yale Daily News.
“I try my hardest to take what I learn in the classroom and share it with the other Filipinos in my life,” said Celene Bennett ’26, who campaigned along with Kasama for the courses. She called it “a beautiful reminder of how meaningful a classroom can be.”
The university also teaches Indonesian and Vietnamese as part of its Southeast Asia language program.
Registration is closed for Common Ground: Building Together conference and gala award banquet in San Francisco on January 24. A shoutout to our planning committee: Jane Chin, Frank Mah, Jeannie Young, Akemi Tamanaha, Nathan Soohoo, Mark Young, Dave Liu, and Yiming Fu.
We are published by the non-profit Asian American Media Inc and supported by our readers along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AARP, The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, The Asian American Foundation & Koo and Patricia Yuen of the Yuen Foundation.
Find additional content on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram ,Tiktok, X, and YouTube. Please consider interning or joining our staff. Don’t miss a single headline. Subscribe for free.
