Iva Youkilis

CHS parent and longtime Clayton resident has been an active protester of Trump’s administration

Amidst a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people in Washington D.C. on Jan. 21 was CHS parent and Washington University Italian professor Iva Youkilis.
It was the Women’s March, the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history, aimed at newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump.
Youkilis’ unique experience growing up in Yugoslavia and emigrating to the United States as a young adult in 1991 shape her equally unique perspective on United States politics.
“The reason why I’m so worried is because I lived during the period before the civil war in Yugoslavia. I was your age and I remember everyone saying, ‘It will not happen to us. It’s not possible. We like each other. We’re all neighbors.’ The next you thing you know, there was a war,” Youkilis said.
Youkilis was a teenager when Slobodan Milošević rose to political power in Yugoslavia and her witnessing of totalitarianism in Europe only adds to her concern with, and skepticism of, the Trump administration. Youkilis’ reservations with the Trump administration, however, are unparalleled to those of other regimes that she’s witnessed firsthand.
“[Milošević] was not a person that would go in public and make fun of where blood comes from women’s bodies, or make fun of a disabled person, and wasn’t incapable of stringing a sentence together,” Youkilis said. “All of these people, they were crazy and dangerous, but they were more educated, worldly and respectable in the beginning.”
Youkilis’ concerns with the Trump administration have less to do with the political party he represents and more to do with the kind of person she sees Trump as.
“I am a liberal person, but I am also a person that is open-minded which means that if the Republican Party got in power I could be upset or try to be involved in the process, but I would not be this upset and this afraid of what is going to happen. America did not elect a Republican; they elected a person who is not capable, and should not be in this position because he is jeopardizing the safety of this country and the people who live in this country,” she said.
Youkilis views her role in the resistance primarily as an organizer. She has taken the initiative to be an organizer of group meetings. The several groups she’s a part of, Youkilis says, focus on “[making] phone calls mostly targeting state representatives and senators and then federal phone calls, postcard writing, demonstrating, talking about it and making sure people are aware of what is going on.”
In addition to Youkilis’ discontent with the way the President holds himself and behaves is an ideological frustration in the way his administration has begun to allocate its funds.
“The scary part to me is the reallocation of funds which would make this country militant because a lot of these funds would go into military. While at the same time the funds that were allocated to education, art learning and health are being defunded,” she said. “I just think that certain things should not be touched. This government already cut funds to humanities, arts, science research. This is all what made this country great. This is why America had money and energy and resources to do research that helped the whole world.”
As a longtime member of the Clayton community, Youkilis worries that Trump’s legislative actions may pose long-term threats to the quality of a Clayton education.
“These policies and bills are passing the House as we speak so you don’t see the results but they will be visible in a year or two because they are even planning on completely eliminating the Department of Education,” Youkilis said. “So you can imagine this from the Clayton [perspective] as a high school that has resources and great teachers. If they don’t have that, what kinds of results would the students have and what kind of opportunities would all of you guys have to study and learn and be on top of the game nationwide?”
Youkilis encourages those who are passionate about America and its future – but skeptical about its current politics – to share their opinions and become part of the resistance.
“I think anybody who wants this country to prosper and be a country like it has always been, a moral compass, a research center, an example of the free world, needs to participate to stop this administration from ruining it,” she said.