I’m Claire Thu Anh Le, a social justice advocate from Vietnam. I graduated from Oberlin College this year with double History and Gender, Feminist & Sexualities Studies majors and a minor in East Asian. Positioning myself in a queer, feminist, post-colonial perspective, I am interested in exploring the interlocking systems of oppression away from/critical of Western influence, under the specific context of Vietnam’s unique geographical and historical position throughout its development.

In 2015, I founded Human Library Vietnam, one of the biggest student-based social advocacy NGO in Vietnam. Through a series of oral history events, my team and I create a public platform marginalized groups to reclaim their agency, share their perspectives on avoided issues and situate themselves in the centre community’s consciousness. In my commitment to oral history as a tool medium for memory and changes, I hope to be able find uniquely Vietnamese first-person narratives that map out paradigms of individual and institutional histories.

I look forward to meeting and engaging with our wonderful, insightful cohorts. Hopefully, I will come out from the program as an oral historian with a clearer sense of method and purpose.