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Minh-Ly

@minhly2102

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Từ sông sâu tới biển Rộng
Digital diary... exploring climate justice, finding community, care, art, learning & unlearning, how to decolonize.

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Today, Trần Tố Nga, an 84-year-old French-Vietnamese environmental activist, will appear in court against the 14 multinational chemical companies (including Bayer-Monsanto, Dow Chemical) that produced Agent Orange.

This is one of her last fights after 12 years of battles against these companies to get reparations for millions of victims in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Follow @collectifvietnamdioxine for updates on the case today in French.

DM me if you have any questions.

#agentorange by @minhly2102

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4 months ago

ผีดินแดง

This week was Songkran, the New Year celebration for Thailand, called Choul Chnam Thmey in Cambodia, called Pi Mai in Laos. It makes me miss Thailand a place I can still call home.

It was also Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, which reminded me that my grandfather was imprisoned for numerous years in Thailand for being involved in Vietnam’s liberation. The inhumane prison system my grandfather had to go through in Thailand still persists to this day. The death penalty is still legal.

Thailand: the land of smiles for US imperialism.

The land of ghost & blood of farmers, communists, Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian.

Ghosts of the red soil, those made to work for the air-conditioned empire of Bangkok.
Stories never told in books, schools, or news.

Phibun.

Thammasat massacre

Black May,

Tak Bai.

Ratchaprasong.

And many more.

Text inspired by book "Ghost of the Red Soil" - Kay Young
@dindeng_th ❤️

Film pictures took July 2025, Bangkok by @minhly2102

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6 months ago

In sight of organizing a fundraiser and film screening for @very.laod for Trần Tố Nga legal fees.

Me and an incredible friend ❤️ translated the fanzine by @collectifvietnamdioxine which will be available for free at the event.

This gathering is made possible by the vital work of Collectif Vietnam-Dioxine, which I had the privilege to learn from in France who stand at the intersection of justice for Agent Orange victims, decolonial ecology, and global solidarity from Guadeloupe’s fight against chlordecone to Palestine and Lebanon’s struggles against chemical and colonial warfare.

Event Highlights:

Teach-in: Learn about Agent Orange and its ongoing impacts
Film Screening: The People vs. Agent Orange (2020)
Community Discussion: Colonial legacies, imperialism, military capitalism, violent extraction, war, and climate justice
Title: Chất độc dế quốc
("The Toxin of Imperialism” "poison imperialism")

Details:
📅 Saturday, February 28, 2026
⏰ 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM
📍 Downtown Toronto, near Spadina TTC station
🎟️ $10 admission (proceeds support Trần Tố Nga’s legal fees)

🔗 Link in @very.laod bio

We’ll also have solidarity messages and 3D-printed items to raise additional funds. For more about Trần Tố Nga and her case, check the event description on very.laod’s bio.
Who’s coming?

Need a free ticket message me!

#agentorange
#peoplevsagentorange taken in Toronto, Ontario by @minhly2102

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8 months ago

New year new you? ...Greeting to Palestine

2025 felt like a century of global and personal crises.

A weird year for me, but it's where I saw people put the word solidarity into action making vulnerability a priority. (AKA me)

This year, I felt myself needing to go back to roots and write, research when I felt out of control of my own life.

Here are a few excerpts from these projects, some coming out in 2026.

Stepping into 2026 with a new path, new job, projects, and the resolve and stability to be unapologetically more myself.
I hope you can do the same.

Go and support this amazing project donate!
@onforgettingbook_

About : On Forgetting is a bilingual, independent hybrid book reflecting on the 50-year legacy of the Vietnamese- American War through the lenses of memory, trauma, and reclamation. This book brings together essays, poetry, visual art, criticism, and conceptual writings by both native and diasporic Vietnamese voices. By assembling a curated, multidisciplinary archive, On Forgetting seeks to preserve, question, and reimagine the narratives we inherit -and those we are told to "forget".

Wish everyone a new year of community, liberation, love, resistance, solidarity. ❤️

Thank you @decolonialthoughts for trusting me and letting me contribute I never would have thought to contribute to smt by @minhly2102

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9 months ago

After seven months of waiting,
and four months “exiled" 🤣
I’m finally allowed to return to temporarily settle on so-called Canadian territory.
The state declares me “productive” enough,
“secure” enough,to be here again.

But in those uncertainties,my birth country held me.
And in that in-between space,
I found community,organizing,joy, and the ongoing fire of decolonization.

Not only as a settler in solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty
on Turtle Island,
but from my own decolonial Vietnamese identity.

Reclaiming narrative.
Understanding history as lived resistance.
Learning that decolonization is not a metaphor is an everyday choice.

Back in Canada,I return to continue that work.
To always be in support of the self-determination of indigenous and beyond Canada
To claim my own.

As an international student,
I’ve lived in between.
Never fully belonging.
Always othered.
Targeted by racism.
Blamed for crises created by colonial capitalism.

Still, I breathe resistance.

Yes,Europe is the root of coloniality.
But it also holds today's stories, movements,
and joy that frightens white supremacy to its core.

Their tools,borders, violence, repression
can no longer silence us.

, amidst genocides and collapse,
the oppressed and the proud rise.

Mother Earth has spoken.
She reveals the lies of patriarchal colonialism.
She seeps into our bones and reminds us:
we are still here.

"Come, then, comrades, the European game has finally ended; we must find something different. We today can do everything, so long as we do not imitate Europe, so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to catch up with Europe.
Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she has shaken off all guidance and all reason...
let us combine our muscles and our brains in a new direction. Let us try to create the whole man, whom Europe has been incapable of bringing to triumphant birth.
Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe." Frantz Fanon

#decoloniality #frantzfanon #canada
#vietnam by @minhly2102

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2 years ago

As the holiday season ends, I finally find the time to reflect on 2024 and combine @nyiti.ca shoot we did in Vietnam at 5 am Lol with notes I wrote from books, quotes, and personal reflections in a way that does them justice. I slowed down and returned to what once felt like a safety net for me
- creating.

As I learn to move away from colonial depictions & embrace a more authentic version of myself, I also find my fear of returning to that little, depressed girl. This fear has kept me from fully embracing this creative side thinking it isn’t useful in resisting romanticization, inaction, or reappropriation.
Instead, I’ve felt stuck, burdened by the responsibility of using my time, privilege, and knowledge to challenge oppressive systems, only to find myself entangled in them. I’ve realized how easy it is to lose myself in the process of resistance, causing more harm than good. Colonial tendencies don’t just exist in systems & oppressors; they also creep in those of us fighting against them, often in subtle, unnoticed ways.

As I see in women we are determined, often by how our bodies and our relationships with the world are shaped by forces beyond our control. To dismantle these systems, reclaiming self-determination in everyday life over our bodies, voices, and connections. Only through healing ourselves can we begin to reshape our existence in an unequal world.

2024 has been a journey of learning how to resist this broken system while also unlearning activist tendencies to ensure that resistance is rooted in decoloniality centered on compassion and love.

Thank you for reading this It took me forever to make for no apparent reason other than my fear of sharing smt so vulnerable but also boobs 🤭 🍉🍉

2025 - Take care of yourself and your community with love ❤️

#catba
#filmphotography
#vietnam #feminineenergy #compassion #2024

@decolonial taken in Cát Bà, Hải Phòng, Vietnam by @minhly2102

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2 years ago

Short snapshots of the 1 month in Vietnam through a few of my #fujitiara film rolls.

A brief poem for a week that felt heavier than most. 💔

I miss Vietnam,
A culture pulled away for the unequal French exchange,
A language repressed, yet still whispers,
Persistent, begging me to speak to communicate its liberation.

A History—never told in school’s narrow western pages
A People scarred by blood, trauma, but still
Generous in their welcome, despite the wounds.
Freed from chains of colonial rule,
Yet still bound to another’s extractive economy.

Veneration of a leader
But at the economic cost of lost values

What radicalized me, you ask?
It might be this life path—
Decolonizing myself, piece by piece,
Into life today..

#vietnam #decolonize #nationalliberation #justtransitiob
#neocolonialism taken in Vietnam by @minhly2102

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2 years ago

Còn nước còn tát
"While there is life, there is hope" ( not the exact translation 🙃)

Pic Credit to smn I love and supported me❤️ but is stuck in Quatar😭: @nyiti.photo

Reminiscing about the last two months of my university studies, I’ve realized how much more I’ve learned in this time than in my entire four years at university—a university that, despite its academic prestige, still funds genocide and brutalized it's own students.

This camp gave me hope by offering the chance to be part of a movement filled with people who are brave, knowledgeable, and determined to fight for justice and the liberation of those who have been oppressed under apartheid since 1948.
I hold so much love for these people I wished I could have hugged at the end every single one who were part of it in some ways. ( I cried so much at the end 😭 not being there )

It’s difficult to fully express how I felt during this time and how I feel now, being part of such a meaningful cause. The sense of community while not perfect was something I've never felt before —

This movement has reignited something in all of us, showing the power of collective action and the impact we can make when we stand together even through our differences. We challenged a colonial narrative against imperialism and exposed the true colors of institutions like U of T to the world.

The students united will never be defeated
The workers united will never be defeated
The people united will never be defeated

In our lifetime we will see a free Palestine 💕 taken in University of Toronto by @minhly2102

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2 years ago

This year I’m not going to post about all the many things I’ve accomplished but I’ll delve into the first pictures I took in January 2023— that define my year.

They were taken during my solo trip to the USA en route to Morocco, driven by a very low budget. I embarked on a long journey to New York, spending 24h in the city without a hotel.
I attempted to capture the essence of this vibrant and intimidating city—”, the city of light, the city that never sleeps where dreams are made”, etc. But the imperfections of its systems became apparent, busy workers toiling late into the night, contrasting against the luxurious and imperial appearance of the city.

My exploration extended beyond the cityscape but into New York Library hours of going into every piece of art but the ones that struck me were the sections into the historical roots of capitalism and the first economic bubble movement in the 18th century that led to revolutionary changes of the independence of the USA.

This was my first deep understanding of this connection of the "age of reason" to the rapid expansion of slavery and racial colonization , which became evident in the whole library's exploration. This notion of a system rooted in racism that justifies the violence and oppression of people is what democracy and liberty were founded upon.

This understanding of the world in everything that I did during the year allowed me to unlearn and learn thanks to strong communities and activism. This year, I was inspired by incredible people fighting for justice and liberation. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who taught, trusted, loved, cared for, and engaged in challenging conversations outside their comfort zones. It's incredible to witness the resilience and power that emerge when we unite, even in the face of hardships posed by the system.

While I lost some people along this journey, I'm grateful for all the meaningful connections who helped me express what I've always believed but was too afraid to speak out❤️

✨ 2024 year for climate justice and liberation of all people

#freepalestine taken in New York, New York by @minhly2102

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3 years ago

It's my man's birthday today ! Go and support his beautiful work. ❤️

Love you 💕
@nyiti.photo

#photography #film #france #portrait taken in Paris, France by @minhly2102

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3 years ago

Put together some of my written notes in August while in France :

Trying to share a little bit of creativity even if it might not make sense or feel important /needed,

August 2023:

In our globalized,fast-paced world, individualism is prevalent, as is the rapid desire to fix a flawed unequal system and cut oneself off from others. I once thought there was no hope for recovery, self-care, and affecting change for the benefit of others all at once.

We can strike a balance between taking care of ourselves and others, even if It's easy to get caught up in the riptide of living in your own bubble. True self-love may be a life raft in agitated water, but the peaceful, compassionate energy for mindful actions that comes from collective nourishment in
the everyday mystery of encountering other is maritime more powerful and indissoluble than our own individual concentration of actions.

"The very relationship with the other is the relationship with the future" - Emmanuel Levinas

Thanks for reading and take care of your lovely self💕💕

#emmanuellevinas #france #august
#summer2023 #collectiveconsciousness taken in France by @minhly2102

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3 years ago

Embracing the essence of 'Pura Vida'! 🌴🌞

Nearly 1 Month after this trip my final
Learning journal😂😭

Costa Rica, with its highs and lows, has been a profound learning experience. A key lesson that resonated was recognizing the role of local communities in fostering restorative justice, making it accessible to everyone. It's evident that a significant shift in our approach to conflict resolution is imperative. Without initiating this change at the grassroots level within our local communities and ourselves, it's a tall order to envision global and national transformations. 🌍✨

"When we speak of protecting our planet we often speak of finding new technology but without real community, technology may be even more destructive than constructive, built with our practice of mindfulness enables us to act ourselves. " - Thich Nhat Hanh ( Book: Love letter to the Earth)

Throughout this trip , I've had the privilege of meeting extraordinary people who share this commitment to driving change. Their passion and compassion were infectious. Thank you !❤️❤️

Collective action and solidarity within communities cannot be underestimated they are powerful forces countering systemic influences. Let's embrace the notion that united communities hold the key to shaping a world that's equitable, just, and sustainable. 🤝🌱

Thank you for reading !

#puravida
#community taken in Costa Rica by @minhly2102

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3 years ago