From BBC Journalist to Peace Researcher: Linh Nguyen on Vietnam, Exile, and Healing Activist Communities

Linh Nguyen, originally from Vietnam’s Central Highlands, recounts her path from believing state-taught narratives to questioning them after gaining uncensored internet access while studying in New Zealand at 17 and discovering a radically different understanding of the Vietnam War through books and research. She describes learning more through time with Vietnamese refugee communities in San Jose and seeing how April 30 is celebrated in Vietnam but mourned as a painful day in diaspora communities. Motivated to seek truth, she studied journalism in the United States and joined the BBC Vietnamese Service, working remotely from Thailand because the BBC was not officially allowed to operate in Vietnam, and began covering issues Vietnamese state media did not report, including human rights violations, religious freedom suppression, environmental crises, corruption, and the 2016–2018 protests following mass fish deaths linked to industrial pollution. Building a large activist-source network, she saw how arrested activists were labeled “reactionary” in state media, while her interviews with them and their families revealed injustice and reshaped her perspective.

After leaving the BBC, she became a human rights specialist at the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, continuing similar reporting for American diplomats and officials, meeting activists in person, and witnessing increased government crackdowns expanding to LGBT, environmental activists, and journalists, alongside harassment and obstruction during attempts to meet local activists in her hometown. Frustrated by only documenting problems, she turned toward facilitation and completed a master’s at Fulbright University Vietnam during COVID, where interacting with government-officer classmates complicated her views by showing not all officials were corrupt. Now a PhD student in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manitoba, she focuses on reconciliation, dialogue, and addressing collective and transgenerational trauma, including internal conflict and misogyny within activist spaces. Since arriving in Canada in December 2023, she has facilitated online circles for activists across countries, and she advises human rights defenders to build social and emotional support, care for themselves physically and psychologically, and address trauma to sustain effective leadership over the long term.