Meet Eleanor Wikstrom, a Fil-Am Harvard Summa Cum Laude who pushed for the university's historic Filipino language course

Speaking to PhilSTAR L!fe, Wikstrom considers these milestones incredibly meaningful because they represent a "win" for the Filipino and Filipino-American community.

"I understand that graduating Summa Cum Laude and having such distinctions on my thesis mean that it represents something more than myself, it's also a win for the Filipino community and the Filipino American community, and also for the community where I grew up in California. And so I think it's very meaningful for me," she told L!fe.

"[These awards are] the beginning of a lot of work. In some ways, it's the culmination of an academic career and a really extensive project that I've been working on for several years."

But her passion for the communities she represents doesn't end with her graduation. She added that it's work that she'll continue throughout the rest of her career and academics.

After Harvard, the Oakland native is set to study at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom in 2025 as she's one of the recipients of the American Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford, Wikstrom will study imperial and global history.

Representing Filipinos at Harvard

At Harvard, Wikstrom found that the Philippines and its communities in the US were underrepresented relative to its population in the country. About 4.5 million Filipinos and Filipino-Americans live in the United States according to a 2021 census.

"Going into a setting where there are very few Filipinos can be very difficult because it means that you don't really know if you're going to be able to learn more about your heritage or learn, learn more about your motherland or culture. But at the same time, it also means that you have to be very intentional about forming strong bonds with the other Filipinos that are there."

She continued, "[Since] I had the opportunity to meet other people who are equally as passionate about celebrating and uplifting the Philippines and their Filipino and Filipino American heritage, that ended up being one of the most meaningful parts of my time at Harvard, was connecting with other members of that community."

Wikstrom even played a pivotal role in pushing for a Filipino language course at Harvard as she wrote an opinion piece about its absence.

In 2023, the university began offering a course on Filipino for the first time in its nearly 400-year history. Cavite teacher Lady Aileen Orsal was hired as the subject's instructor.

"There's a really rich and important history behind the reason why Tagalog was so widely spoken in the United States, but that there was also a very conspicuous ignorance and gap about the Philippines in American education systems," she explained to L!fe.

Filipino is the fourth most spoken language in the United States behind English, Spanish, and Chinese.

With her senior thesis, she wanted to be able to trace back how colonialism in the Philippines changed what knowledge was considered valid and valuable. She also studied how this colonial rule, in turn, affected the United States, too. 

"I grew up in the United States, and that's the setting that I'm most familiar with, I wanted to make sure that that side of the history was also being exposed and being taught that we could start reckoning with it and start teaching Tagalog at places like Harvard, or start teaching more Filipino history, because it's such a big part of the United States history as well, it just often gets obscured."

'The most important thing is to be genuine'

Wikstrom, also the co-president of Harvard Philippine Forum, implied to L!fe that her academic journey at Harvard wasn't smooth sailing.

"I wouldn't want to give the impression that it was still smooth sailing the whole time because I want to make sure that especially other Filipinos who go to Harvard understand that it's okay to struggle," she noted.

Wikstrom added, "[There's] a lot of the other things that they had in order to make sure that I could be successful, like knowing that it was okay to ask for help if I didn't know how to navigate something or if I thought I needed additional assistance. I was definitely living in the current learning curve."

When asked about tips for those hoping to get into Harvard, Wikstrom said, "I would say the most important thing is to be genuine."

"Harvard interviewers are reading thousands of applications a year. They know people who are trying to craft their narrative in order to seem like the most impressive thing. But if you genuinely love what you do, and you genuinely want to make a difference in the world—which sounds cliche, but I actually want to do that and there [are] many other people who actually want to do that," she shared.

Lastly, Wikstrom said that when entering universities like Harvard, one should know one's priorities, which include self-love and well-being.

"It's easy to think that if you just [grind] all the time, and [sleep] three hours a night, [spend] all of your time doing extracurriculars, that it'll lead to success. But if you're not taking care of yourself, it's not sustainable."