Phillipa still remembers how different New Mexico felt from the America she’d pictured. The city turned out to be a place shaped by its deep ties to Mexican culture, its food, and its people, unlike anywhere else she’d imagined. But the real surprise of that year wasn’t a place. It was a discovery about herself.
“Being an exchange student was the best year of my life,” Phillipa says. “It helped me discover and embrace my identity as a deaf person.” Her host family welcomed her fully into their lives and communicated with her equally through sign language, and at high school, she learned American Sign Language for the first time. The experience built her independence, confidence, and a deep respect for people from different backgrounds. “It deepened my appreciation for cultural differences,” she says. “It shaped my commitment to inclusion and human rights.” Today, Phillipa works for the World Federation of the Deaf, an international human rights organization based in Helsinki, Finland.
The bonds from that year in New Mexico have lasted, too. Phillipa returned to visit her host family in 2010, and she’s stayed close with the friends she made on the AFS Bus #17 trip to California, as she remembers.
She’s direct about wanting to clear up a misconception she’s encountered before. “I once received a sad email from someone who wanted to become an exchange student and was told they had to study American Sign Language before going to the USA. That is not true,” Phillipa says. “I learned American Sign Language during my exchange year at high school. Spoken and signed languages can be learned along the way, with support from the people around us.”
More than an educational experience…
Then, there’s the part of the whole experience that turns her AFS experience into something even bigger: a love story!
Phillipa is married to a Finn who was also an exchange student, through a different organization and a different year, but at the very same high school in New Mexico. Years later, on his way to travel through Australia, he returned to New Mexico to visit his own host family and school. The school told him about Phillipa and passed along her home address, and he wrote to say he’d soon be in Australia. Because Phillipa knew American Sign Language, she was able to show him around her hometown of Melbourne when he arrived. “He fell in love with me the moment we met!”, she says.
That chapter of her life that AFS quietly set in motion all those years ago has continued to be honoured in its own right. This year, on Mother’s Day, Phillipa was awarded the First Class Medal with Gold Cross of the Order of the White Rose of Finland at the House of Estates, presented in recognition of her distinguished work in child-rearing. The honour, bestowed annually by the President of the Republic, celebrates mothers who have served as exemplary caregivers and promoters of family life and parenthood in Finnish society. “I was deeply honoured to receive [this recognition],” Phillipa shared, thanking President Alexander Stubb and Mrs. Suzanne Innes-Stubb for a moment she called meaningful and memorable.
Looking back, Phillipa’s advice to anyone considering becoming an AFSer is simple: “It is worth spending a year as an exchange student, because the experience can have a lasting impact on your life.” But she’s especially passionate about one thing more people should know — that a year abroad, and the language that comes with it, is more accessible than many assume. “I hope that more deaf and hard-of-hearing students around the world will have the opportunity to spend a year as exchange students,” she says.
Phillipa’s story is a reminder of just how far the AFS experience can reach — across decades, across oceans, and even into a marriage that began with a letter and a language two strangers happened to share. Know a deaf or hard-of-hearing student wondering if an AFS exchange is possible for them? Or a host family or fellow alumnus you’ve lost touch with? Join the AFS Global Alumni Community and help write the next story like this one.