I am the eldest daughter of Vietnamese refugees resettled in San Jose, California, where the stories from my family members sparked my curiosity to more deeply learn my community history. Seeking to answer more questions about my community after I moved to Philadelphia for my undergraduate education, I came face to face with the ways the Southeast Asian refugee community continues to be harmed by systemic injustices, particularly through the deportations of our formerly incarcerated community members. Grounded in the power of community storytelling, I am now a community organizer, narrative strategist, researcher, artist, and aspiring archivist hoping to build tools to steward my community's history towards transforming our conditions and fighting for a brighter future.

I am currently based in Lenapehoking (Philadelphia, PA) by way of the unceded lands of the Ohlone Muwekma (San Jose, California); Sài Gòn, Việt Nam; and Hải Phòng, Việt Nam. As a child of refugees who survived war, poverty, and intergenerational trauma from their resettlement in the United States, I come from a lineage of artists, storytellers, and caretakers who imagined and created a more just future for me, as I hope to do for my descendants. I am a theater kid at heart who uses art and storytelling in their political practices to generate healing from and empowerment in spite of my community’s inheritance of trauma due to war, imperialism, racial capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy.

I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in History with minors in Asian American Studies and English in May 2022, and I am currently pursuing my Master’s in Library and Information Sciences.