Alumni Spotlight: Mila Wolpert ’15

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Mila Wolpert ’15

Mila Wolpert ’15 has recently received the prestigious Fulbright Award and will spend the next year abroad conducting research in Paris, France. The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, fosters mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. What will be the focus of your upcoming research?

I have been awarded a Fulbright research grant to Paris, France to study the globally-important, remarkably fine and decorative art collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (18451934), scion of the famous Rothschild banking family. In partnership with the U.S. Embassy’s Cultural Heritage Office, where I interned in the Summer of 2018, I will create an inventory of the Baron’s collection amassed to decorate his home, Hôtel Rothschild, which is now the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence. I will also trace where the objects are today, since much of the Baron’s collection was relocated at the onset of World War II, or looted during the war by the Nazis. Today, many of the objects are dispersed throughout the world’s finest museums, such as the Louvre in Paris or the MET in New York City. In conducting this research, I hope to shed light on the important histories behind this significant residence, a site dedicated to the promotion of mutual understanding between France and America.

What inspired your passion for this type of work?

My passion for working internationally with people from other cultures stems from my appreciation of my own family heritage. My mother is from former Yugoslavia and came to the U.S. as a war refugee in 1992 at the peak of her professional career, and thought she would go back home shortly after, but instead created a life in Los Angeles with my father. My mother brought my sister and I back to Serbia and Croatia every Summer since we were born to feel connected to our heritage and family there. Because of my experiences between my native LA community and my mother’s homeland, I knew my life’s purpose was destined to reach outside the U.S. In fact, work restricted to only one country seemed unnatural to me. With my love for the French language and francophone cultures, which I entirely owe to my time at Windward, a career in France was not only inspiring, but almost felt meant to be.

What have been your most significant challenges in getting to where you are today, and how did you overcome them?

When working internationally, you need to adapt your normal habits and practices to fit the current context, which can be out of your comfort zone. I first worked in France when I was an intern in Paris during Summer 2018 for the U.S. Embassy’s Cultural Heritage Office. Although my boss and some colleagues were American, I had to learn how to communicate and carry out tasks to fit our French clients’ expectations. In my position as an intern, I watched and analyzed how my boss, who handled situations in French and English daily, successfully completed her duties. After enough observation, I was able to work on projects by myself with both American Embassy employees and French professionals. I later applied this knowledge to my time abroad as a master’s student in England at the University of Cambridge and during my job as assistant curator at one of England’s premier country houses, Althorp Estate, the 500-yearold home of Princess Diana’s family.

How do you see this experience benefiting you, both personally and professionally, in the future?

I will be in unprecedented situations during my Fulbright research award, which will enable me to face and overcome similar challenges to those described above. My work will primarily take place across several Parisian libraries and archives, where I will investigate historical inventories, bills,

personal and professional correspondence, and photographs to gather an image of what the Rothschild furniture and art collection looked like at Hôtel Rothschild. I have never conducted historical research in France, so I will need to be independent and courageous in order to communicate with high-level professionals in French and locate material in unfamiliar situations. Through my hard work, I will become a more accomplished researcher and a more experienced French speaker.

How did Windward faculty, students, and your experience as a whole affect you as an individual and your career trajectory?

My experience at Windward plays a major role in my individual and career trajectory. During my time at Windward I discovered my life’s great passion, learning French fluently. Nothing has left a mark on who I am as a person more than my experience learning French at Windward. Other than bonding with my wonderful friends, I was my happiest at Windward when I was in French class. My love for the language began with Annick Belordre, whose fun word games to help us memorize vocabulary I still remember to this day. I was then David Sainsily’s French student in 9th Grade and was never challenged harder than in his class. At Windward, we were expected to push ourselves and not give up, and David insisted that we find a way to express ourselves in French, even if we did not know the exact words we were looking for. I vividly remember saying “laisse tomber,” or nevermind, to David when I could not finish a sentence, and always look back at that instance as a benchmark for how quickly I excelled at the language. Once I became proficient at French, as a student of Carrie Creighton and Pattie Nix, my time in the classroom felt more like self-discovery than mandatory learning. My classes with Pattie reading Camus’ “The Stranger” felt like a fun, yet challenging, elective more than anything else. I will always look back at my time at Windward as immensely formative to who I have become today.

What advice would you give to students or alumni interested in pursuing a career in this field?

The amazing, and possibly unique, aspect of my field, which could be described as the heritage field or the field of museums and art, is that you can enter it from a wide array of backgrounds. I have colleagues with backgrounds in history, archaeology, law, art, and even science. The heritage field, where people work with and interpret historical artifacts from previous centuries in today’s world, is interdisciplinary by nature. Just as I kept delving deeper into my love of French, and carried on studying it alongside history during college, I encourage current students and alumni to focus on what they are passionate about and make a career out of something that inspires them. I am at this place in my career because of the love of French I nurtured during my classes at Windward. Some people may think language classes are merely supplementary to a core education; but in language I found an opportunity, and I hope to inspire others to do the same.