Lê Văn Sơn was born in 1985 in Thanh Hoa Province, in the north of Vietnam. While living in Vietnam, he worked as a tour guide. After speaking out in opposition to Vietnam’s government, he fled to Thailand in 2018 before immigrating to the United States. He currently works at Amazon.

In this oral history interview, Lê Văn Sơn begins by discussing his reasons for leaving Vietnam and how his wife sponsored him from Thailand to the United States. He then moves on to his impressions of Portland versus Vietnam and the struggle of integrating, including the difficulties posed by the language barrier. He also details his life in Vietnam, his engagement with the Vietnamese community in Portland, differences between the Vietnamese and American education systems, and economic and political issues in Portland’s Vietnamese American community. He concludes the interview by stating his hopes that Vietnam will experience political change and that Vietnamese American youth will be diligent in their studies.