Lan Nguyen is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and was raised in Long Beach, California. She is a filmmaker, community organizer, and educator. She is active in community organizing in progressive Vietnamese American spaces and issues surrounding incarceration and deportation. Lan utilizes documentary filmmaking as a tool for community organizing and social change. She has directed several short films about social justice issues, which have been screened in festivals, community centers, and universities. Lan’s work has earned her recognition as a 2019 NeXt Doc Fellow and Critical Refugee Studies Collective grantee, and her film Fighting For Family received the Loni Ding Award for Social Justice Documentary in 2020. Additionally, Lan teaches ethnic studies to high school and college students.

Jason Vu is the son of Vietnamese refugees from San Jose, California. He graduated from UCLA double majoring in Global Studies and Asian American Studies with a minor in Linguistics. He was a Peer Learning Facilitator for UCLA’s Academic Advancement Program, working to support and empower students from historically underrepresented communities in higher education. He also served as the External Vice President of the Vietnamese Student Union at UCLA and Academic Affairs Coordinator of UCLA’s Asian Pacific Coalition. In these roles, Jason has strived to advocate for his community and uplift the work of activists and organizers around him. Jason is pursuing his Ph.D. in American Studies at University of Southern California.

Kitty Hu grew up in the Bay Area, California, with immigrant parents from China. She is passionate about amplifying nuanced stories of struggle and success among people of color and exploring topics related to immigration, culture, and educational development. Kitty earned her double B.A. in Film and Television and International Development Studies, with a minor in International Migration Studies at UCLA.

Sun H (she/her) was born in Vietnam, lived in a refugee camp in Cambodia for 2 years and came to Greensboro, NC at the age of six. Sun is Bunong- Montagnard, an indigenous group found in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. She studied at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and International Studies in 2017. In Greensboro, Sun volunteered extensively with the Montagnard Dega Association promoting cultural preservation, education, research, and citizenship. Currently, Sun is the Statewide Base Building Organizer with SEAC Village based in Charlotte, NC. Sun organizes civic engagement and policy campaigns with partners across North Carolina – building power in our communities, and uplifting the voices of marginalized people.

Wun Guan Dong was born and raised in a family of Cantonese in Saigon. In the past, despite the striving day job to sustain the family, his father’s hobbies in music and painting developed his interest in art and storytelling. Dong finished college in Singapore in 2015 and came back for work, since then he developed a special interest in documentary filmmaking. The career path allows him to learn stories of various people and cultures across Southeast Asia.

Emily was a producer for RICE & Partners, a media production company in Saigon, Vietnam from 2018-2019. Emily is a producer and photographer from Melbourne, Australia. Since completing a degree in commercial photography she has worked in London, Denmark, Germany, Australia and Vietnam. She has a passion for visual storytelling and unique communication. Now based in Düsseldorf, Germany she continues to pursue her creative career as a freelancer, hoping to achieve new visual goals while integrating meaning and promoting passionate cause.

Derrick Spiva Jr. is a composer and musician based in the Los Angeles area who often integrates music practices from different cultural traditions around the world into his work with classical music communities. The Los Angeles Times has described his music as “something to savor” and “enormous fun to listen to.” During his studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and the California Institute of the Arts, music across many cultures became an integral part of his musical vocabulary. Spiva serves as Artistic Director of the new music collective and arts organization Bridge to Everywhere.