In a recent interview with Breitbart News at Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit, North Korean defector and author Yeonmi Park shared her shocking experience of encountering anti-American sentiment on U.S. college campuses. Park, who fled North Korea at the age of 13 and later studied at Columbia University, found the hatred for the United States taught in American classrooms to be even more extreme than what she witnessed in her home country.
“At some point, I couldn’t believe if this was a North Korean classroom or an American classroom,” Park stated, expressing her disbelief at the level of “anti-freedom, anti-West, anti-American sentiment” she encountered. She went on to say that the hatred for the American constitution was even more intense than that of the North Korean government.
Park also voiced her concerns about the growing demand for “collectivism, an equality of outcomes, and socialism” among students on U.S. college campuses, which she says keeps her up at night. As a resident of New York City, she has witnessed the rapid deterioration of the city, which she attributes to these ideologies.
The North Korean defector revealed that she did not fully grasp the concept of freedom until long after her escape, when she began reading works by George Orwell, such as “1984” and “Animal Farm.” These books helped her understand the true nature of living under a dictatorship and the importance of freedom.
Despite being physically free, Park shared that she still suffers from nightmares of being arrested or executed in North Korea and continues to face threats from Kim Jong-un’s regime.
As the author of “While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector’s Search for Freedom in America” and “In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom,” Park’s unique perspective serves as a powerful warning about the dangers of embracing ideologies that undermine the principles of freedom and democracy in the United States.
