ANOTHER ALPHABET PLAYLIST #4 – Thị Thanh Thảo Trần

People Like Us

Thị Thanh Thảo Trầnwas born in Vietnam in 1986 and has lived in Germany since she was 13. She studied cultural studies as well as comparative literature and art history. Her short story collection *Where I Come From* was shortlisted for the Young Storyteller Award in 2022. In 2024, she received a creative writing grant from the Berlin Senate, which enabled her to complete her first novel project, *People Like Us*. Trần lives in Berlin.

An event organized by ZEBRAS Collective and Kulturzentrum Merlin, supported by the City of Stuttgart

The ZEBRAS Collective:

“You’re only a zebra if you have black and white stripes!”—Is that really true? As people with a migration background, we sometimes feel like “white zebras”—beings without a distinct appearance, because we have to hide our individual traits to conform to the norm. – Not standing out often also means simply remaining silent. Especially when German isn’t one’s first language. Then even communication between generations within a family is marked by misunderstandings and a lack of words. For example, parents can’t articulate their expectations to their children, and vice versa.

The ZEBRAS Collective aims to build intercultural bridges using languages that aren’t limited to a single alphabet and are easily accessible. We are convinced that all artistic disciplines share the goal of fostering interpersonal communication. These include, for example, drawing illustrations, cinematic storytelling, and much more. Essentially everything, if we view ourselves as a just and open society. Especially for people for whom German is not their first language, music, with its universal appeal, can serve as a kind of “barrier-free measure.”

Given our own history of migration, we want our work to specifically reach people of Southeast Asian descent, as there are still insufficient cultural offerings for this community in Stuttgart, causing it to often remain invisible. But the ZEBRAS Collective also sees itself as an inclusive space that is open to everyone. Because we understand society as a community… of diverse zebras.