Last Tuesday, a number of organizations including Young America’s Foundation and the Yankee Institute sponsored a lecture and Q&A session in Bucknall Theatre with North Korean defector and author, Yeonmi Park.
Park escaped North Korea into China in 2007 and moved to the U.S. in 2013 to finish her memoir, In Order to Live, which was published the following year. During her time in the U.S. she has become a prominent figure, given a TED Talk, written for The Washington Post and published her second book, “While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector’s Search for Freedom in America.” As a well known conservative activist, Park makes frequent media appearances and travels the country sharing her story.
Park’s appearance was controversial, as students took to anonymous social media site, Yik Yak, to express their discontent with the university allowing her a platform. The main reasons for the criticism were Park’s political beliefs and past inconsistencies in her stories.
These inconsistencies have long been an issue that caused many to doubt the legitimacy of Park’s stories. Since 2014, journalists and other North Korean defectors have expressed skepticism over her claims. Some of Park’s claims that have been inconsistent are those concerning the fate of her father. Throughout her public appearances, Park has given three separate accounts regarding the death of her father. In her lecture at the university, Park claimed her father died during their escape and that she had to bury him. However, during other appearances, Park has also claimed that he stayed behind due to illness, or had been left behind without knowing of his family’s plan to escape.
Maryanne Vollers, the co-author of In Order to Live, said that she believed these inconsistencies to be the result of a language barrier.
“Most of these issues could be explained by a language barrier – Yeon-mi was giving interviews in English before she was fully fluent. But Yeon-mi was also protecting a secret, something she had tried to bury and forget from the moment she arrived in South Korea at age 15,” Vollers said in a 2015 article about Yeonmi for The Guardian.
After recounting her story, Park began taking questions from students regarding life in North Korea and her views on different political issues. Throughout the discussion, Park took time to criticize the state in which the western world is heading.
“Under communism in the 20th century, more than 100 million people perished and these lessons are not being taught, and that’s why we can see so much young people are misled, believing that somehow communism is a utopia,” said Park.
She also shared her opinion on corruption within the U.S. government, the honesty of the media and North Korea’s relationship with Russia and China.
