On Feb. 13, the Trump Administration placed a 15-day freeze on funding for international financial aid and cultural exchange programs such as the Fulbright and Gilman scholarships. However, over 15 days later, the funding freeze still hasn’t been lifted. According to NAFSA: Association of International Educators, 85% of pending funding that was frozen still hasn’t been lifted as of March 12.

For nearly 17 years, Skyline College has hosted a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program (FLTA). The program has allowed educators from the Philippines to come to Skyline College and work with the Tagalog and English classes on campus as teaching assistants. FLTA also works with the Kababayan Learning Community (KLC) for events such as the Pilipino Cultural Night (PCN) according to Liza Erpelo.

For Erpelo, who works closely with Fulbrights as coordinator of the KLC at Skyline, there was confusion as to whether an FLTA student at Skyline would receive her monthly stipend when the funding freeze occurred.

“Her funding was frozen and we had no idea if she was going to get her monthly stipend,” Erpelo said.

Though the student did receive her stipend two weeks late, the future of the Fulbright program remains up in the air.

“We don’t know if there’s going to be a [FLTA] program next year. We don’t know if we’ll be able to host another Fulbright next year,” Erpelo said.

The FLTA program bridged a cultural gap for Filipino-American students, allowing them to engage with educators from the Philippines. Erpelo spoke about how she feels the biggest loss for this program will be a cut in contact with Fulbright students from the Philippines.

“The Fulbrights will usually bring in the culture [and] language, so students who are like me—born and raised in the United States—they basically get in touch with their culture by working with the Fulbright. I think, if anything, that’s going to be the biggest hit to us, is that we’re not going to have that connection anymore,” Erpelo said.

Niko Santana, a Skyline student and director of PCN 20, expressed his dismay about the uncertainty of the FLTA program’s future.

“For Filipino Americans who grow up in the states versus Filipino immigrants who come here, there’s always been a big divide, I’d say. So just having someone who’s coming from the mainland and coming here sharing her experiences with us, sharing our experiences with them, it’s like a vessel for growth,” Santana said. “It’s such a shame that it could potentially be, y’know, we [can’t] have it anymore.”

Editor’s note: The Fulbright scholar mentioned in this article is a member of The Skyline View.