Yeonmi Park

Park was born in 1993 in Hyesan, North Korea. She writes that her father, once a party member and civil servant, turned to black-market trade and was arrested and imprisoned in 2002, leaving the family in hunger and poverty.⁠[1]

By her own account, on the night of March 31, 2007, at age 13, she and her mother crossed the frozen Yalu River into China, where the two fell into the hands of human traffickers.⁠[2]

She arrived in Seoul in 2009, two years after escaping from the North.⁠[3]

In 2012 she drew attention by recounting her family’s story on the South Korean defector television show Now On My Way to Meet You (이제 만나러 갑니다).⁠[3]

In 2014 she spoke about her escape from North Korea at the One Young World youth summit; by 2018 the lecture had been viewed almost 4 million times on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry.⁠[4]

That year she was named to the BBCBBCThe BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster. Its predecessor was the British Broadcasting Company, formed in 1922, and since 1927 it has been established under a Royal Charter. It provides television, radio, and online services in the UK, is funded mainly by the television licence fee, and broadcasts worldwide in multiple languages through BBC World Service.Open the full entry’s 100 Women list.⁠[5]

Starting in 2014, journalists at outlets including The Diplomat began casting doubt on some of her stories.⁠[6]

Mary Ann Jolley, a journalist for Australia’s Dateline program, wrote that Park’s accounts differed between interviews on details such as her family’s affluence and who crossed the border with her; Park responded that the differences stemmed from miscommunication caused by a language barrier and said she would tell her full story in her memoir.⁠[1]

In January 2015 the North Korean propaganda channel Uriminzokkiri released a video in which people presenting themselves as Park’s relatives contradicted her testimony, saying her life in North Korea was entirely different from what she described in Dublin.⁠[7]

In response, Park confirmed that the people in the video were her relatives but rejected their claims, saying her father had defected in early October 2007 and later died in China.⁠[8]

She also said some reports raising doubts carried only North Korea’s claims and not her explanation, and that she had initially said she defected together with her father because a Chinese broker had threatened her and her mother at the time.⁠[9]

On September 29, 2015, her memoir In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom, written with Maryanne Vollers, was published, describing her life in North Korea, being trafficked in China and her eventual journey to Seoul.⁠[10]

Facing doubts, Park insisted her story was true, saying some details had been changed to protect family members still in North Korea and attributing other misstatements to her limited English, adding: “I know the truth of North Korea.”⁠[11]

In June 2018, then a student at Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University, formally Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private research university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 by royal charter from King George II as King's College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and adopted the university name and moved to Manhattan's Morningside Heights in 1896. It has 17 schools and four affiliated colleges, with 35,978 students enrolled in fall 2025. Legal scholar Jennifer L. Mnookin became president on July 1, 2026.Open the full entry, Park said Trump deserved credit for doing more than previous presidents to spotlight North Korean human rights abuses, but that at his meeting with Kim Jong Un he should have demanded that the camps be opened and journalists be let in.⁠[4]

She studied for a degree in human rights at Columbia University and, after graduating in 2020, began publicly criticizing elite American universities and the liberal establishment as an indoctrination machine, appearing frequently on podcasts hosted by Jordan PetersonJordan PetersonJordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, author and podcast host who taught at Harvard University and the University of Toronto; he drew wide attention for publicly opposing Canada’s Bill C-16 in 2016 and the ensuing free-speech debate, wrote the bestseller 12 Rules for Life and founded the online education platform Peterson Academy.Open the full entry, Joe RoganJoe RoganJoe Rogan is an American podcaster, stand-up comedian and UFC commentator whose long-form interview podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, launched in 2009, is among the most listened-to podcasts in the world; he hosted the NBC reality show Fear Factor, and his show’s content and political statements have repeatedly drawn controversy.Open the full entry and others.⁠[12]

On June 30, 2021, as a North Korean defector, human rights activist and author of In Order to Live, she appeared on episode 196 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing growing up in North Korea, her escape, famine, Kim Jong Un, freedom, political correctness and facing assassination threats.⁠[13]

In February 2023 she published her second book, While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector’s Search for Freedom in America, focusing on her time at Columbia, with a foreword by Jordan Peterson.⁠[12]

In March 2023 she spoke at Roanoke College in Virginia, saying Roanoke was one of the first places she visited when she first came to the United States for Bible study and that she had become an American citizen.⁠[14]

In July 2023 The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is an American daily newspaper founded in Washington in 1877, known for its role in the Pentagon Papers case and the Watergate investigation. Run by the Meyer–Graham family for eighty years from 1933, it has been owned personally by Jeff Bezos since 2013.Open the full entry published an investigation noting that she had said on South Korean TV she never went hungry but later told international audiences of eating grass to survive; the North Korea scholar Andrei Lankov rejected claims such as her statement that North Koreans cannot see world maps. Park had explained in her book that she did not mention her childhood hardships on Korean television because she no longer wanted to think about them and the programs wanted a wealthy image.⁠[15]

Kim Byeong-uk, a defector and founder of the Seoul think tank North Korea Development Institute, said he thought she had exaggerated her past experiences.⁠[3]

Park had previously attributed the discrepancies to language and translation errors.⁠[6]

In August 2024 she wrote on X that she was a survivor of North Korean socialism and would vote for Donald Trump in November.⁠[5]

In November 2025 she spoke at UCLA at the invitation of the campus chapter of the conservative group Young America’s Foundation, describing her childhood in North Korea and her escape and criticizing the belief of many people in America that words are violence.⁠[6]

X: Public account: https://x.com/YeonmiParkNK (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/YeonmiParkOfficial (opens in a new window)⁠[13]