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Draft:Nicolas Nguyen (activist)

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Nicolas Khai Nguyen is a youth activist and advocate in Edmonton, Alberta. Nguyen has spent a good portion of his life being an advocate for the Alberta NDP and the New Democratic Party. He has very strong support for many of their candidates and elected offcials, not just in Edmonton, but all over Canada. Despite him only being a teenager, he is very politically involved, and follows up with political news and elections.

Personal Life

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Nicolas gets his last name because his dad is Vietnamese-Canadian. His dad, grandpa, and a few of his father's siblings came to Canada as immigrants after the Vietnam war. His mother on the other side of his family, is of Irish and Finnish ancestry.

Palestine

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Nicolas grew up in a household that had always been against colonialism, specifically on his mother's side. After October 7th, he was quick to immediately express his support for Palestine and an end to the occupation. When out in public he gets assumed for being Palestinian and he has been in contact with people who don't support his views of Palestine. Therefore, he is racially profiled every time to time. But besides that, he still shows full solidarity with Palestine and pushes for an immediate ceasefire.

When Nicolas was in 8th grade, a few weeks after October 7th, he started to put up Palestine flag stickers around his junior high school, pushing his principal and vice principal to show their support and call for a ceasefire. His Principal took them down within a few hours and in exchange for Nick putting up these stickers, his principal asked if he would like to make a poster that shows support for Palestine. Nicolas agreed and made the poster. When he came to the school a few days later with the poster, he gave it to his principal and he said that he would put it up, he asked if Nicolas could add a part that shows where students could contact Nick for more information. He said that he would rather it be about Palestine and not him. His principal never put up the poster, even after he agreed to this deal. In late June, 2024, Nicolas returned by giving out stickers that said "Boycott Israeli Goods" to his friends, he also put up a few but the rest were given out. His principal pulled him out of class and told him he was suspended, when he asked under what violation, the principal responded with "The Palestine stickers". Nicolas was very outraged and immediately went online and posted about the event that had just took place. The pro-Palestinian community in Edmonton had saw his video and shared it throughout the whole Palestinian community of Canada. Nicolas had a meeting with the principal and the vice-principal where they brought up the offer of the poster, his principal said "I am not interested in navigating the Palestinian conflict". He later resigned as principal of that school that year.

Activism

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For years of his life now, Nicolas has attended hundreds of protests and rallies for worker rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, Palestine, Black Lives Matter, and much more. He expresses his concerns for the things that he thinks the government and the people should care about. These also lead to the way he was introduced to the NDP, by meeting MLAs and MPs at events that he went to.

Political career

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Nicolas is a supporter of the New Democratic Party and the Alberta NDP, and has been for most of his life. He has gotten to have close relations with MLAs from Alberta and also some MPs within the borders of Alberta. He plans on running one day for the New Democratic Party and with high hopes of becoming a Member of Parliament. During early 2023 until very early 2024, Nicolas identified with the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, he said that his time with the Marxist-Leninist party was "A confusing and complicated part of my political career", quoted by Nicolas. He left the MLPC and showed support for the New Democratic Party because, in his own words, "The NDP is making real change and has the right ways to do it and they are not even close to as extremist, I'm also disappointed by where some members of the party stand on issues that I would instead agree with the NDP." After he does not claim to be a communist, but still sits on the left of the political spectrum. Nicolas attends multiple protests and rallies but he likes to not try to represent a political party, rather to just express his opinions. for example, with Palestine, he likes to not represent a political party but instead just his opinions. "Palestine should not be political. Genocide is a thing that should be protested by all sides of the political spectrum, it shouldn't be a way to get votes. It's amazing seeing our elected offcials at rallies, but they aren't there for their party. They are there for solidarity." those are words of Nicolas's post online about political parties representing themselves at protests. His first ever "election" was when he was in grade nine when he ran for his student council, with the campaign being called "Nicolas NGUYEN for 903 student council representative". Nicolas has worked mostly on the campaign of Trisha Estabrooks, the federal NDP candidate for Edmonton Centre, doorknocking and volunteering, he has spent hours ensuring that he can help them out as much as he can.

References

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1. MLA, Janis Irwin's post about Nicolas https://www.instagram.com/p/C3ylVttPm3O/

2. Nicolas Nguyen's video after suspension https://www.instagram.com/p/C8H_QTWvPic/

3. MLA, Sarah Hoffman's post with Nicolas thanking him for his support for her campaign for Alberta NDP leadership https://www.instagram.com/p/C8erMRSpv1q/

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