Thanh Tân is a Vietnamese American storyteller, filmmaker, and cultural worker based in Seattle, Washington. An award-winning journalist who began her career in local television newsrooms, her reporting and writing aim to spark dialogue and drive change, with work featured on This American Life, The Texas Tribune, The Seattle Times, and The New York Times. As a brand storyteller, she has led global multimedia storytelling initiatives for Microsoft and, since 2021, has helped shape mission-driven narratives at Starbucks, connecting people through the global ritual of coffee.

Passionate about history and exploring her identity as a daughter of Vietnamese boat refugees, Thanh created and hosted Second Wave, a groundbreaking podcast from KUOW and PRX that centered the postwar Vietnamese refugee experience. She later co-founded Viet Fact Check to combat misinformation in Vietnamese-speaking communities. In 2021, she helped launch Viets for Afghans, a Vietnamese American-led mutual aid effort supporting Afghan refugees. That work led to her directorial debut: Refuge After War, a five-part docuseries for KCTS/Crosscut.

Thanh is also a sought-after interviewer and moderator of conversations about the Asian diaspora, politics, and culture. She has facilitated talks for organizations including Seattle Arts & Lectures, King County Public Library, Town Hall Seattle, and (forthcoming) Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network and PeaceTrees Vietnam. Her featured subjects have included Viet Thanh Nguyen, Amanda Nguyen, the late Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and more.

Her current projects reflect a deep commitment to cultural preservation and community storytelling. She is co-founder and DJ of SEA Vinyl Society, a collective dedicated to preserving and performing analog forms of Asian diasporic music. She is curating Kho Tàng Nhạc Vàng / Vietnam’s Golden Music Archive, a forthcoming multimedia exhibit at ARTS at King Street Station featuring rare vinyl, sheet music, and photographs from South Vietnam’s golden music era.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end in April 2025, Thanh has curated the We Were Soldiers, Too / Chúng Tôi Cũng Là Lính exhibit at Friends of Little Saigon’s Creative Space, featuring portraits by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Marcus Yam and oral histories of elderly Republic of Vietnam veterans, many of whom fought in the final battle at Xuân Lộc.

She is also directing her first independent documentary, Che’s Last Stand, which uncovers the untold Cold War stories of South Vietnamese soldiers and their extraordinary legacies at risk of erasure from history.