Amanda Nguyen Charts a Path Guided by the Stars

Grounded by a maverick yet pragmatic spirit, Amanda Nguyen lights the way for generations to come.

Of all her many stellar achievements and milestones (and they are mightily impressive), perhaps Amanda Nguyen’s greatest feat is never abandoning her childhood dream. It is commonplace nowadays to speak of healing one’s inner child, but the truth is that the majority of childhood dreams are tossed by the wayside. Nguyen hasn’t just healed that inner child. She kept that child alive and strong, through all the legislative battles, through all her activism, through all her struggles, she kept her dream alive and continues to make history.

Nguyen grew up on stories of Vietnamese refugees who sought the guidance of the stars to escape war, famine, despair, and violence and to reach promised lands of hope and opportunity. These tales of the stars brought her to Harvard University where she majored in Astrophysics, determined to become an astronaut and come as close to the stars as she possibly could. She concentrated her studies on exoplanets and secured internships at NASA, as well as studying at the Center for Astrophysics/ Harvard and Smithsonian. 

But in 2013, tragically, Nguyen was raped. Her sexual assault opened her eyes to the sad situation of victims and survivors; and this brutal awakening changed the course of her life. When she went to the hospital after her rape, in what could be deemed as another attack, she found out just how much the justice system is stacked against the survivor. At the time immediately after her attack, she was a full-time student who also had a job and, after much reflection, she realized that she couldn’t deal with the rigors and emotional challenges of a trial. That decision brought her to the wall that women face when they seek justice.  

Photographed by Anjelica Jardiel

She then began a fight to ensure that women who reported their rapes could protect their rape kit, a package of items used by medical, police or other personnel for gathering and preserving physical evidence following an instance or allegation of sexual assault. Previously, the practice was to destroy the kits six months after the rape. Her fight has now become global, with full-on support from the United Nations. During the COVID pandemic, in the face of rising Asian American hate crimes, she used her visibility and wide platform to speak out against them. She continues to advocate for more visibility and equality for Asian Americans and she has testified and spoken before the US Congress and the United Nations General Assembly.  

And in the middle of her activism, her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut will come true. She will become the first Vietnamese American and the first person of Southeast Asian descent to go into space, as she embarks on Blue Origin’s next launch aboard the New Shepherd rocket. “People only take your childhood dream as seriously as you take it… in many ways, this [childhood dream] saved me. It kept me alive,” she says. “I have this part inside of me—someone before I was raped. I went into a space inside of myself and I told myself that I would never, never give up.”

Nguyen was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019; she was named as one of Forbes 30 under 30; and she was named a Nelson Mandela Changemaker and one of Time Magazine’s Women of the Year in 2022.

As a founder and CEO of the nongovernmental civil rights organization RISE, Nguyen drafted the Sexual Assault Survivors Rights Act, a bill that passed unanimously through the United States Congress. She is now working with other activists to make sure that each state will also pass laws to protect survivors and their rape kits. Every time a survivor has to ask for an extension of her rape kit, she has to relive the trauma of her attack. Victims of other crimes aren’t required to do that as law enforcement agencies usually preserve evidence from other serious incidents.

Photographed by Anjelica Jardiel

She then presented their bill to the United Nations so that there will be a global protocol for rape as a crime. “Actually, I owe the Philippines a debt of gratitude,” Nguyen says. “They were one of the first countries to vote for us, for the first-ever standalone resolution for rape survivors. Can you imagine, worldwide, there is a global protocol for murder, but there is none for rape? So, I am very grateful to the Philippines for that. It is how survivors can access justice, a universal treaty for jurisdiction. There was no procedure for countries to cooperate. Worldwide, there are now 1.3 billion survivors who will now have access to justice.”

Nguyen is also present on TikTok, and among her posts are ones documenting her Fashion Week adventures.

“The two times that I have been asked about what I was wearing were after my rape and at Fashion Week. That really got me thinking. It’s the same question but the way it is asked just makes the world of difference,” she says. When they were trying to brainstorm on how they could get the attention of hundreds of UN delegates to pay attention to their cause, they thought of Fashion Week—after all, both the General Assembly and Fashion Week happen at around the same time. “We went to some designers, and put on a fashion show, and got almost full attendance when we presented at the UN!”  

The Survivor Fashion Show is now on its fourth year. But more than just publicity, the fashion shows allow survivors to reclaim the power of what they wear. “I wanted to reclaim that question about what I am wearing. When they ask you about what you’re wearing when you are assaulted, there is blame and shame. But at Fashion Week, it’s about your own power and agency.”

Nguyen also uses red as her signature statement color. “When I testified in front of congress, I wore red. I wanted to be seen. I see fashion as an armor, a shield against being invisible.” She clearly revels in the celebratory aspect of getting dressed. “Joy is the most radical form of rebellion.”

Photographed by Anjelica Jardiel

The coming year will be monumental for Nguyen, not only because she will be able to go into space. She will also be launching her memoir. No ghost writer, she did all the writing herself. “I read so many memoirs! I don’t want to give any spoilers, but the format will be different. There will be parallel storylines, of the time until I passed my first law, and then, in a magical realism move, I will then meet my five-year-old self. It’s Saving Five, named after the five stages of grief.”

As the daughter of Asian parents, Nguyen laughs when asked about her own experience of parental guilt. “No parent ever wants to hurt their child.  I remember that when I decided to go into activism, my parents didn’t really know about it or understand it, so they were asking if maybe I would do something else. It was only when I got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize that they went, ‘Oh yes, Nobel Peace Prize, that we know’!’’

She continues: “I’m telling you, it’s like, I don’t want a wedding, I want a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. It is so beautiful. Everyone is so beautifully dressed, and at the end of it, the nominees all go into a room, and light this one candle for peace. Just imagine, all these people gathered all for peace.”

Amanda’s journey began with an escape from a war; a war that brought her to a new homeland where her arduous journey took new roots and sprouted all the way to outer space, where not even the sky is a limit. 

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