Charlie Kirk Interviews Yeonmi Park on Escaping North Korea Only to Find Woke Ideology at Columbia University

From North Korean Persecution to American Freedom

Yeonmi Park's story is one of extraordinary survival. At just nine years old, she and her 13-year-old sister were left alone in North Korea after their parents were taken away. To survive, they ate bugs and lived in conditions most Americans cannot fathom. Eventually, Park escaped to China, where she faced exploitation and trafficking, before making her way to South Korea and ultimately to the United States—a country she believed represented true freedom.

After arriving in America, Park enrolled at Columbia University, one of the nation's most prestigious institutions. She expected to experience the intellectual freedom and open debate that America promised. Instead, what she found shocked her to the core.

Columbia University's Anti-American Indoctrination

Park describes her experience at Columbia as disturbingly familiar. "All day long they talk about how to destroy America," she explains. "They were dying to dismantle the system in the name of equity, equality of outcomes—a video socialists." The rhetoric she heard in her classrooms sounded eerily similar to what she had been taught by her nursing teachers in North Korea.

In North Korea, Park was told that America was evil and the root problem of the world. Sitting in a classroom at Columbia University in New York City, she heard the same message. "It's like I just transferred back to the North Korean classroom," she says. The professors and students at Columbia claimed that capitalism was the enemy, that white men were the problem, and that the only solution was a "Commons Revolution."

The Indoctrination Parallels: North Korea and American Universities

Park draws a direct comparison between the brainwashing she experienced under Kim Jong-un's regime and the ideological conformity she witnessed at Columbia. She recalls an incident involving a gender fluid student who had a meltdown when someone used the wrong pronoun. "I actually feel bad for this person," Park says, "because for the first time I was realizing this person was also pretty much like me when I was in North Korea."

In North Korea, Park believed that Kim Jong-un could read her mind—a belief instilled through relentless brainwashing that was necessary for survival. At Columbia, she saw students who believed their oppression was somehow tied to their pronouns. "That's crazy, right?" she asks. "I mean, I think it's crazy and I'm embarrassed."

Creating Problems Out of Thin Air

Park observes that many American students at elite universities are creating injustices where none exist. In an excerpt from her book, she writes:

"Professors and administrators spoke to us like children and so many students acted accordingly. People my age, literally double my size, who appear to be incredibly fit and well-fed, sometimes reduced to tears discussing feelings they harbored that appeared to have no possible connection to anything they were supposed to be learning about. A lecture on Homer would end up with a white student crying about colonialism. A class on government would take the form of two students trying to outdo each other in LGBTQ allies. In the months I spent studying criminal justice in South Korea, I never learned that injustices could be fought by spinning new ones out of thin air."

She explains that in some sense, not having a problem is an actual problem for these students. "They are making problems out of nowhere, creating injustice. That's the industry of fighting. Here is that so-called social justice—it's all about fighting ten thousand different pronouns."

China's Financial Influence on American Universities

Beyond the ideological indoctrination, Park is deeply concerned about China's growing influence on American institutions, particularly elite universities. From 2017 to 2022, Chinese entities contributed massive sums to top American schools:

• Harvard: $79 million
• Stanford: $44 million
• Columbia: $45 million
• University of Chicago: $42 million
• MIT: $34 million
• Berkeley: $21.3 million
• University of Michigan: (amount mentioned but not specified)

Park asks the critical question: "What do they want?" She believes the Chinese government is buying these institutions to shape American narratives and influence future leaders.

Hollywood's China Problem

The influence extends beyond academia into Hollywood. Park recounts her experience trying to turn her first book into a movie. A producer sent her a script that portrayed China as her "Promised Land"—a place that gave her safety and refuge. Park called the producer immediately, asking what he was talking about. His response was chilling: "This is the only way we can make a North Korean story in current Hollywood."

The absurdity of the situation was not lost on Park. China—the country where she was sold as a sex slave—had to be portrayed as a promised land in order for her story to be told in American entertainment. "You have to make China look like it's a promised land where they sold you as a sex slave," she points out. This is just one example of how Chinese money is shaping American narratives and forcing creators to bend the truth.

Why Time Is Running Out

Park believes that America is at a critical juncture. The combination of woke ideology that mirrors totalitarian indoctrination and the financial influence of authoritarian regimes like China creates a dangerous situation. She fears that if Americans don't wake up to these threats soon, it may be too late to reverse course.

Her message is urgent: the freedoms that drew her to America are being eroded from within by people who have no perspective on what true oppression looks like and from without by foreign powers seeking to reshape American institutions in their image.