North Korean defector-turned-U.S. citizen Yeonmi Park is warning Americans to be wary of the current state of our culture — something she explores in her new book, “While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector’s Search for Freedom in America,” which releases Tuesday.
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“I escaped hell on earth and walked across the desert in search of freedom, and found it,” the 29-year-old writes in the book. “I don’t want anything bad ever to happen to my new home … I want us — need us — to keep the darkness at bay.”
Park continued, “I need your help to save our country, while time remains.”
In the book, she covers the “culture wars, identity politics, and authoritarian tendencies tearing America apart,” as she ponders what the text’s description calls “a chilling crackdown on self-expression and thought” that reminds her of the homeland she escaped.
And Park knows a great deal about these subjects, as she once lived in one of the world’s most restrictive and reclusive nations. After escaping North Korea, she was tragically sold as a sex slave before finally finding freedom in America.
Park told the New York Post of her shock at seeing some Americans today claim they are oppressed when they haven’t faced anything like what she and so many others have endured.
“They were in Manhattan, living in the freest country you can imagine, and they’re saying they’re oppressed? It doesn’t even compute,” she said of some students she encountered while attending Columbia University. “I was sold for $200 as a sex slave in the 21st century under the same sky. And they say they’re oppressed because people can’t follow their pronouns they invent every day?”
Park warned that indoctrination is raging and lamented the overarching state of affairs.
She recalled how her mother had told her to watch everything she said in North Korea for fear the family would be detained. Reflecting on that experience, she commented on cancel culture in America and observed some troubling parallels from her past experience.
“That’s the end of cancel culture. Of course, we’re not putting people in front of a firing squad in America now, but their livelihoods, their dignity, their reputations, and their humanity are under attack,” she said. “When we tell people not to talk, we’re censoring their thinking as well. And when you can’t think, you’re a slave — a brainwashed puppet.”
Park warned she believes there’s a “cultural revolution in America” unfolding, and said there’s not much time to stop the tide of chaos.
This is hardly the first time Park has addressed these issues. Last year, in a PragerU video, she decried the “brainwashing” unfolding in America, citing pervasive censorship and appealing to her harrowing story to help people understand the risks afoot.
“I never thought in America I had to worry about brainwashing and propaganda,” Park said at the time. “We have a brainwashing going on in this country.”
She also said she finds herself fighting for her freedom of speech in the U.S. — a shocking reality, considering she fled communist nightmares in North Korea and China before finding solace in America.
“I get censored on YouTube and Twitter because I talk about China,” she said. “Never in my life, I thought in America I had to fight for freedom of speech. Even in America, the freedom is not guaranteed, and it’s slipping away every single day.”
Park also shared with the Post other details of her poverty-stricken childhood in North Korea, which included hunger, searches for cockroaches to eat, and a loss of total dignity. Read more here.
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