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== Early life and education ==
Ngo was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.<ref name="Herron-2017"/> His parents fled [[Vietnam]] in 1978 as [[Vietnamese boat people]],<ref name="Griffin-2018" /> after they had been forced into labor and [[Re-education camp (Vietnam)|re-education camps]] by the Communist government.<ref name="Bernstein-2019" /> His mother came from an educated middle-class family that ran a jewelry business.<ref name="Griffin-2018"/> His father had been a police officer in a small coastal town in Vietnam.<ref name="Griffin-2018"/> His parents first met amid a six-month stay at a [[United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees]] camp near [[Tanjungpinang]], Indonesia, prior to their arrival in the United States in 1979.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ngo|first=Andy|date=February 2021|title=Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy|location=New York, NY|publisher=Center Street – [[Hachette Book Group]]|pages=223–233|isbn=978-1-5460-5958-5|lccn=2020951079}}</ref>
Raised in a [[Buddhist]] family, Ngo converted to [[Christianity]] in high school.<ref name="Bernstein-2019"/> After a period of time as an [[evangelical Christian]], he became disillusioned and took an interest in [[skepticism]]. He subsequently became an [[atheist]],<ref name="Bernstein-2019"/> and was strongly against organized religion, which was reflected in his social media activity in the form of what Ngo later described as "inflammatory language", with [[Reddit]] comments such as "[[Islam]] needs to be neutered like Christianity".<ref name="Gais-2019">{{cite news|url=https://jewishcurrents.org/the-making-of-andy-ngo/| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211010/https://jewishcurrents.org/the-making-of-andy-ngo/| archive-date=2021-10-10|newspaper=Jewish Currents|title=The Making of Andy Ngo|date=September 11, 2019|first=Hannah|last=Gais}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In 2019, Ngo said that his earlier social media activity "represented my simplistic views at the time" and that his comments no longer represented his beliefs.<ref name="Gais-2019"/>
Ngo speaks with a British accent, which he says he "developed from living in the UK for several years as a teen".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bernstein |first=Joseph |date=2019-07-19 |title=Andy Ngo Has The Newest New Media Career. It's Made Him A Victim And A Star. |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/andy-ngo-portland-antifa |access-date=2024-09-03 |website=BuzzFeed News |language=en}}</ref> While attending the [[University of California, Los Angeles]] (UCLA), Ngo volunteered with [[AmeriCorps]].<ref name="Griffin-2018">{{cite web|url=https://www.opb.org/news/series/racenw/immigrants-vietnam-oregon-conservative-worldview/| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180208234648/https://www.opb.org/news/series/racenw/immigrants-vietnam-oregon-conservative-worldview/| archive-date=February 8, 2018|title=For Immigrants' Son, Vietnam Trip Led To More Conservative Worldview|last=Griffin|first=Anna|website=opb.org|publisher=[[Oregon Public Broadcasting]]|date=February 8, 2018|access-date=June 30, 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref> He graduated from UCLA in 2009 with a graphic design degree.<ref name="Bernstein-2019"/> After graduation, he experienced a period of unemployment and worked as a photographer at a used car dealership.<ref name="Bernstein-2019">{{cite web |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/andy-ngo-portland-antifa| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211010/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/andy-ngo-portland-antifa| archive-date=2021-10-10 |title=Andy Ngo Has The Newest New Media Career. It's Made Him A Victim and a Star.|last=Bernstein |first=Joseph |date=July 18, 2019 |website=[[BuzzFeed News]] |access-date=July 27, 2019 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> In the mid-2010s, Ngo [[came out]] as [[gay]] while visiting relatives in rural Vietnam.<ref name="Griffin-2018"/> He began volunteering as a photographer at the [[Center for Inquiry]] in Portland in 2013.<ref name="Gais-2019"/>
In 2015, Ngo enrolled in a master's program at [[Portland State University]] for political science, with a focus on international relations and comparative politics.<ref name="Herron-2017"/><ref name="Bernstein-2019"/> While attending the school, he joined the Freethinkers of Portland State University,<ref name="Bernstein-2019"/> a student organization that worked closely with professor [[Peter Boghossian]].<ref name="Gais-2019"/><ref name="Wilson-2018"/>
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