In the wake of a sexual assault, astronaut Amanda Nguyen turned to activism

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In 2013, Amanda Nguyen was a Harvard senior interested in pursuing a career at NASA or the CIA. But she says those plans were temporarily derailed when she was raped just a few months before graduation. Nguyen went on to become an advocate for survivors of sexual assault – and her advocacy resulted in federal legislation that changed the way law enforcement handles rape kits. Now, she's out with a book about her experience called Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope. In today's episode, Nguyen speaks with NPR's Ailsa Chang about navigating bureaucracy as a survivor, sharing her story with lawmakers, and her parents' response to her activism.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I forget sometimes how stories can
0:07.6	actually change the world in tangible ways, in ways that affect the lives of people who might
0:14.3	never even hear the story in the first place. Amanda Wynne is an activist for survivors of
0:20.3	sexual assault, and she writes about it in her
0:22.6	new memoir, Saving Five, a Memoir of Hope. In this interview with MPR's Elsa Chang, Wynne talks about
0:28.4	working to get a federal law passed that would change how police handle rape kits, and how she'd meet
0:34.2	with staffers and lawmakers about what this new law would do,
0:40.8	and there would just be crickets coming from the other side of the table,
0:44.9	until she shared her own personal story, and it worked.
0:46.8	There's more after the break.
0:52.3	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
1:05.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:10.5	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:15.9	A warning, this conversation covers the topic of sexual assault.
1:25.0	At the age of 33, Amanda Wynn has a string of accolades that most people will never collect over the course of their entire lives.
1:29.5	Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Time, Woman of the Year,
1:36.8	Forbes 30 under 30. She's also set to become the first Vietnamese American woman ever to fly into space.
1:43.4	It's a breathtaking streak of peaks, especially considering the depths she has traveled.
2:03.4	In 2013, Amanda was raped during her senior year at Harvard, just months before graduating. She had plans to work at NASA or at the CIA, but those plans were immediately derailed after she realized that Massachusetts state law would permit the destruction of her rape kit within six months.
2:19.0	So, Amanda would go on to change the law, not only in Massachusetts, but across the country, to ensure that survivors of sexual assault have the right to have their rape kit evidence preserved for the entire length of the statute of limitations.
2:26.2	She details her story in her new book, Saving Five, a memoir of hope, and joins us now.
2:30.7	Amanda, thank you so much for coming in today to talk to me. Thank you for having me.
	...

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