About the Project
Children of Refugees is an oral history project that documents the voices of our community: American children of Vietnamese refugees. We created Children of Refugees as a way to add ourselves to the historical narrative. As much as our lives may be born of trauma and hardship, we want to highlight the joys of our community, tell our stories, and continue the storytelling of our families, whether or not they were shared with us.
This project is led by Amy Vo and Jenn Ho, both professional archivists at academic institutions. We met in 2020 when we were part of a multi-panelist conference presentation. We stayed in touch and eventually decided to work on this project together, in service to current and future generations of our community.
Amy C. Vo is a Processing Archivist at Princeton University Library. She has worked at New York University, Rutgers University, the Monmouth County Historical Association, and the City of Austin. Her experiences in the field have led her toward projects on labor practices, the retention of underrepresented archivists, community archives, and mental health.
Jennifer Ho is Communities & Cultures Archivist at California State University San Marcos. Her work focuses on minoritized people in the American historical record. Jenn teaches primary source research and oral history methodology, and works with students and community members to facilitate the creation of self-validating records.
