{"id":1961310,"date":"2023-06-30T11:22:02","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T15:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yeonmi-park-escaped-north-koreas-brutal-communist-regime-now-shes-being-attacked-by-the-american-left\/"},"modified":"2023-06-30T11:25:54","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T15:25:54","slug":"yeonmi-park-escaped-north-koreas-brutal-communist-regime-now-shes-being-attacked-by-the-american-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yeonmi-park-escaped-north-koreas-brutal-communist-regime-now-shes-being-attacked-by-the-american-left\/","title":{"rendered":"Yeonmi Park fled North Korea&#8217;s oppressive regime, now faces criticism from American left."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fyeonmi-park-escaped-north-koreas-brutal-communist-regime-now-shes-being-attacked-by-the-american-left%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1961310&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Yeonmi Park: From North Korean Defector to Cultural Warrior<\/h2>\n<p>Yeonmi Park\u2019s story is one of courage, endurance, and resolve. Since escaping from North Korea\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sen-cruz-calls-out-sen-sanders-for-hypocrisy-regarding-stance-on-cuban-protests\/\" title=\"Sen. Cruz calls out Sen. Sanders for hypocrisy regarding stance on Cuban protests\">brutal communist dictatorship<\/a>, she has dedicated her life to speaking out against the atrocities committed by Kim Jong Un\u2019s regime. Once she made her way to South Korea and eventually over to the United States, she was feted by the elites, including Hillary Clinton, as a paragon of resilience in the face of unrelenting cruelty and oppression.<\/p>\n<p>That is, until she began to make uncomfortable comparisons between North Korea\u2019s Orwellian totalitarianism and the woke ideology permeating the country, especially on college campuses. All of sudden, in the eyes of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-this-average-american-is-voting-for-donald-trump\/\" title=\"Why This Average American Is Voting for Donald Trump\">mainstream media<\/a>, Park was no longer a hero. Instead, she was a willing pawn of the right \u2014 hoodwinked into becoming a soldier in America\u2019s culture wars.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/06\/22\/us\/politics\/yeonmi-park-north-korea-republicans.html?partner=slack&#038;smid=sl-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent profile<\/a> from The New York Times titled \u201cA North Korean Dissident Defects to the American Right,\u201d propagates this new angle. It does so even in the headline, with the negative connotation of the word \u201cdefects\u201d suggesting that she has committed an act of betrayal by associating with conservatives and speaking out about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congressman-owens-the-greatest-threat-to-the-left-is-a-middle-class-black-american\/\" title=\"Congressman Owens: \u2018The Greatest Threat To The Left Is A Middle Class Black American\u2019\">leftist ideology<\/a> in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Further on in the article, she is framed as an outlier, an aberration. Other escapees from the Hermit Kingdom, the Times notes, tend to live tranquil lives in their new safe havens. They don\u2019t rock the boat. They\u2019re <em>grateful<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>They also subtly jab at the sincerity of her advocacy by featuring experts who believe that Park may be motivated by a desire for fame and fortune. A Korean studies professor from the University of Melbourne pointedly described her as an \u201camazing entertainer\u201d who\u2019s \u201calways picking up on keywords.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>A Complicated Journey<\/h3>\n<p>But Park\u2019s story is more complicated than that.<\/p>\n<p>Yeonmi Park was born in Hyesan, North Korea, a city on the border with China. Her father was a civil servant and later worked at a foundry, but he also supplemented the family\u2019s income by smuggling in goods from China. Park has said that watching a VHS tape of James Cameron\u2019s 1997 film \u201cTitanic\u201d was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/10\/26\/sunday-review\/the-worlds-dissidents-have-their-say.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">turning point<\/a> for how she viewed the North Korean regime, with the film providing her a glimpse to the outside world since all media is strictly controlled by the government. Her father was eventually arrested in 2002 for his smuggling operations and sent t0 one of the country\u2019s infamous reeducation camps in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>During her father\u2019s imprisonment, the family struggled and was often forced to consume insects for food. Yeonmi and her sister were forced to quit school, which she said did little but propagate the personality cult surrounding the nation\u2019s ruling Kim family. \u201cI thought Kim Jong Il was a god who could read my mind,\u201d she said of her school lessons, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/north-korea\/yeonmi-park-s-long-journey-north-korea-chicago-n849516\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according<\/a> to NBC News in 2018. \u201cI thought his spirit never dies, and I never thought he was a normal human being.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her father orchestrated the family\u2019s escape to China in 2007, when Yeonmi was only 13, after he was released from the camp. He died of colon cancer the next year, and Yeonmi and her mother \u2014 they had been separated from Yeonmi\u2019s sister during the escape from North Korea \u2014 eked out a living in China before meeting a group of Chinese and Korean missionaries in 2009 who agreed to help them get out of China by smuggling them through Mongolia.<\/p>\n<p>After being stopped by Mongolian border guards and threatened with deportation, Yeonmi and her mother were flown to South Korea. Upon reaching South Korea, she was immediately given citizenship and received an education. She also began appearing on a South Korean variety show that often featured North Korean defectors as guests.<\/p>\n<p>She first visited the U.S. in 2013 and moved to New York City in 2014 as she completed her memoir of her experiences in North Korea and China. In 2014, Yeonmi learned that her sister had been able to make her way to South Korea via China and Thailand. She enrolled in Columbia University in 2016 and graduated in 2020 with a major in economics.<\/p>\n<h3>A Voice for Freedom<\/h3>\n<p>Practically as soon as she landed in South Korea, Park began speaking out about her experiences in North Korea. Her harrowing tale soon received considerable attention, with numerous mainstream media outlets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/people\/yeonmi-park-reveals-the-horrors-of-life-in-north-korea-and-her-escape-to-china-a6678156.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">crediting<\/a> her with revealing the \u201chorrifying\u201d realities of life under Kim Jong Un and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/08\/20\/north-korean-defector-yeonmi-parks-lessons-on-perseverance.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">praising<\/a> her resilience. She appeared at both the Oslo Freedom Forum and the One Young World Summit in 2014, as well as the Women of the World Summit in 2015, which also featured former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>Park also made an appearance at the Met Gala in 2017. A Times piece <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/05\/04\/fashion\/joe-gebbia-yeonmi-park-met-gala.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">written<\/a> after her appearance at the event, titled \u201cActivism at the Met Gala,\u201d declared, \u201cIt is worth pausing to consider a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/feels-like-a-threat-sydney-sweeneys-tiny-outfit-at-award-show-riles-up-body-positivity-activists\/\" title=\"\u2018Feels Like A Threat\u2019: Sydney Sweeney\u2019s Tiny Outfit At Award Show Riles Up \u2018Body Positivity\u2019 Activists\">red carpet moment<\/a> most people missed\u201d and noted that Park is \u201chighly regarded by activists.\u201d This piece does not suggest in any way that Park attended the gala for any reason other than raising awareness about the North Korean regime.<\/p>\n<p>The establishment\u2019s fondness for Park soured once she started to speak about her experiences at Columbia and about wokeness in U.S. society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoing to Columbia, the first thing I learned was \u2018safe space,\u2019\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/06\/14\/north-korean-defector-slams-woke-us-schools\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> the New York Post in 2021. \u201cEvery problem, they explained us, is because of white men.\u201d She said that the emphasis on white privilege in her classes reminded her of the practice in North Korea of judging citizens based on how loyal their family has been to the communist party in the past.<\/p>\n<p>She compared her classmates to \u201cgiant adult babies\u201d due to their obsession with safe spaces, trigger warnings, and pronouns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought North Koreans were the only people who hated Americans, but turns out there are a lot of people hating this country in this country,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>During an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/north-korean-defector-ivy-league-nuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">interview<\/a> with Fox News, Park warned that universities do not teach students to think critically but instead blindly accept certain leftist dogmas about race and gender. She said that North Korea\u2019s education system brainwashed people into accepting blatant lies as absolute truth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn North Korea I literally believed that my Dear Leader was starving,\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/north-korean-defector-after-attending-ivy-league-school-even-north-korea-was-not-this-nuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s the fattest guy \u2013 how can anyone believe that? And then somebody showed me a photo and said \u2018Look at him, he\u2019s the fattest guy. Other people are all thin.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Oh my God, why did I not notice that he was fat?\u2019 Because I never learned how to think critically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is what is happening in America,\u201d she added. \u201cPeople see things but they\u2019ve just completely lost the ability to think critically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about the issues of gender and pronouns on Columbia\u2019s campus, Park argued, \u201cEven North Korea is not this nuts. North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese kids keep saying how they\u2019re oppressed, how much injustice they\u2019ve experienced. They don\u2019t know how hard it is to be free,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>She noted that while information and the media are strictly controlled by the North Korean government and its citizens have almost no knowledge of the outside world, Americans have access to an almost unlimited amount of information but \u201cchoose to be brainwashed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere are we going from here?\u201d she wondered.<\/p>\n<p>Park has given expansive interviews with Daily Wire host Candace Owens and DailyWire+\u2019s Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, during which she speaks more on her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ua00hjZpY6E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">escape<\/a> from North Korea and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8yqa-SdJtT4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">her time<\/a> at Columbia. He newest book, \u201cWhile Time Remains,\u201d thoroughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/While-Time-Remains-Defectors-Freedom\/dp\/1668003317\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">chronicles<\/a> her experiences with wokeness in the U.S. and calls for Americans to push back against it, lest it become a collective-obsessed dictatorship like North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>The media\u2019s heel-turn on Park after she began critiquing American society has been rather stunning. Once lauded as a champion for human rights who shared a stage with Hillary Clinton, she is now framed as a conservative activist looking to cash in on her personal trauma. But the critiques of her account and her sincerity from the mainstream media may inadvertently vindicate some of her comparisons between the American Left and North Korea as both try to silence and discredit opposing viewpoints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yeonmi Park&#8217;s tale embodies bravery, resilience, and determination. After fleeing North Korea&#8217;s oppressive communist rule, she has devoted herself to denouncing the heinous acts perpetrated by Kim Jong Un&#8217;s regime. Celebrated in South Korea and later in the United States, she continues to raise her voice against injustice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1548,"featured_media":1961311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1961310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1961310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1961311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}