By Rachel Showstack and Savannah Paschal
Like many US programs that depend on federal funding, Alce su Voz is currently facing a loss of resources that will affect our efforts to improve healthcare outcomes in Kansas. This is occurring amid widespread federal budget cuts to research, such as the proposed budgetary cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and crippling layoffs at the department of Health and Human Services (HHS). These agencies heavily fund medical research and aim to support the health and well-being of Americans. In late March, the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment (KDHE) notified Wichita State University of an order to “immediately discontinue” spending funds associated with a federal COVID-19 relief and vaccine equity grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of HHS because the federal government had decided to terminate the grant’s funding stream. This federal grant had been supporting Alce su Voz’s efforts to improve vaccine access and healthcare access more broadly for Mayan Indigenous communities from Guatemala residing in rural south central and southeast Kansas. After three years of engagement with Mayan communities in southern Kansas, our team was in the process of completing an educational video about childhood vaccines, with voiceovers in both Spanish and Mayan Indigenous languages, and a set of educational materials for healthcare professionals about health care for Mayan communities in Kansas. After receiving the termination letter, we halted the video project before completing the final video edits and voiceover modifications. We still plan to complete our educational materials and visit southeast Kansas healthcare facilities to provide a workshop for health care professionals despite the loss of funds.
Soon after we were notified of the loss of our PAVE grant, we received more devastating news. In early April, Wichita State received a letter from the Acting Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to notify us of the termination of our NEH grant “Stories of Language, Communication, and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kansas Latine Communities.” The reason provided in the letter was that “NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.” The NEH also terminated at least 65% of its staff last month as part of the mass layoffs across the federal government initiated by the current administration and its new Department of Government Efficiency, a program designed to reduce federal spending.
Wichita State’s NEH grant had been supporting Alce su Voz’s initiative to conduct, archive, and disseminate oral history interviews with speakers of Spanish and the Mayan Indigenous language Akateko who lived in Kansas during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recorded stories of individuals who experienced difficulties obtaining information about the virus and safety protocols, people who experienced communication difficulties in healthcare contexts, and those whose loved ones were affected by language barriers. We also collected stories of resilience among Latine Kansans who supported their families and communities and overcame challenges during the pandemic. When we received the stop work order, we had conducted sixteen of the twenty-five planned interviews and had just begun the process of transcribing, translating and segmenting the videos for archiving and dissemination.
We are working to restructure our program and identify new sources of funding to continue our work without the terminated federal grants. Meanwhile, we will continue to support health equity for speakers of Spanish and Indigenous languages in the U.S and especially Kansas. If you would like to support Alce su Voz during this difficult time, you can donate to our fund at Wichita State University Foundation and Alumni Engagement. Instructions for making a tax-deductible donation to ASV’s fund can be found here.
Alce su voz is a community-engaged program at Wichita State University whose mission is to improve health equity for speakers of Spanish and Indigenous languages in the United States, with a focus on Kansas and the Midwest. For more information or to get involved, please send an email to alcesuvoz@wichita.edu. You can also join our email list and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.