Merle Ratner, a renowned left-wing and anti-war activist in the US and a close friend of Vietnam. (Photo: VNA)

With her husband Ngo Thanh Nhan, a professor at New York University, Ratner participated in protests against the US war in Vietnam in the late 1960s, in the anti-imperialist movement of the 1970s and 1980s, and, more recently, in anti-racism campaigns.

She took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War when she was 13 years old and became famous for hanging anti-war slogans on the Statue of Liberty. She was a co-founder and coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC) in the New York area.

After 1975, Ratner campaigned for the normalization of Vietnam-US relations and supported Vietnam’s international activities. She visited Vietnam many times, and engaged in work with mass social organizations, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, and the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics.

Nhan, Ratner’s husband, who has a Ph.D. in Linguistics, has contributed to coding and standardizing Vietnamese, Han Chinese, and Cham scripts on computer. He is also Vice President of the Vietnamese Nom Preservation Foundation in the US.

Nhan, like his wife a VAORRC co-ordinator, also participated in the anti-war movement in the 1960s.