As Russia continues its bloody assault on Ukraine and China cracks down on dissent in its own country, Americans can see just how lucky we are to have freedom and democracy in our land. But some, who escaped repressive regimes to come to our shores, fear the US is now heading in the same dangerous direction as the countries they left behind.
Having survived authoritarianism, they see ominous signs here — groupthink, cancel culture and young Americans favoring socialism just as much as capitalism. Four foreign-born Americans shared their concerns as a warning to fellow citizens. “Hear our voices,” said Amy Phan West, an émigré from Vietnam. “We are speaking the truth because we experienced it.”
Amy Phan West: ‘Our country is in the beginning stage of communism’
Amy Phan West (above) resides in Southern California with her husband and three sons, running a small business and living the American dream.
But the life she escaped as a little girl in Vietnam was truly grim.
Born in 1980 in the small southern village of Rach Gia, Phan West saw brutal atrocities committed by Pham Van Dong’s Communist Party. Her grandfather’s brother was stabbed by a communist soldier for refusing to comply with orders, and people in her village were executed or buried alive for resisting the government, she said.
“The regime makes examples of people, and everyone knows they have to comply and obey,” she said. “If they don’t, they and their families will be killed.”
In 1985, her father brought the family to safety by stowing four-year-old Amy, her three siblings and her mom, then eight months pregnant, into the bowels of a fishing boat, praying the children would stay quiet.
“It’s a miracle we weren’t found by the communist regime at their checkpoints,” Phan West said.
After heading out of their village, the family became stranded a few miles off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. They ran out of fresh water after three days, but were rescued by the crew of a German oil tanker, who brought them to a refugee camp in Thailand.
Two and a half years later, the Phan family was granted asylum in America. They moved to Huntington Beach, Calif., to start their new life.
“The people graciously welcomed us here,” she said. “And we so appreciated America and all the freedoms we were suddenly granted.”
But now Phan West, who is in her early 40s, says she sees a slow creep toward authoritarianism in the US, based on lockdowns, free speech suppression and hypocrisy among elected leaders.
“I’m especially concerned about censorship,” she said. “If we don’t follow the status quo, we get censored and silenced. As long as people can speak their minds, they can’t be controlled.”
She also considers politicians who push socialist policies, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a threat to our civil liberties.
“With the rise of socialism, our country is in the beginning stage of communism,” she said. “It doesn’t happen overnight. First, they say they’ll take care of you. But I don’t think people understand what a slippery slope this is. You guys want socialism? Are you kidding me?”
Her concern led Phan West to try to make a difference — by running for Congress in California’s new 47th District. If elected, she would represent an area that includes Huntington Beach, the community that welcomed her family 35 years ago.
“I’m running because I can’t see a future for my children,” she told The Post.
“What happened in my country that I fled from is happening here, and I want to prevent it. Please listen to those who escaped communism and socialism. Hear our voices. We are speaking the truth because we experienced it, and we know there’s no hope if we go down this path.”
Samuel Chu: ‘China is stripping freedom of speech from Americans right here at home’
Samuel Chu (above), 44, was born into a family of activists in Hong Kong. His father, Chu Yiu-ming, was a Southern Baptist Minister who aided protesters in Tiananmen Square, built an underground railroad to help dissidents escape persecution, and set up safe houses for political refugees.
Chu grew up spending evenings in these hideaways with the dissidents.
“Those early days were important for me to understand that we need to take a stand on the side of those who are less powerful,” Chu said. “We should be willing to risk ourselves to help them.”
At 12, Chu moved to the US to live with extended family and, like his father, became a pastor and activist, forming the Campaign for Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Democracy Council to bolster support for the city among American leaders and politicians. As a result, China issued a warrant for his arrest in 2020, accusing him of “inciting secession” and “colluding with foreign powers.”
But Chu won’t be deterred. “I’m an American citizen. There is nothing they can do. Come get me. I’m not hiding.”
Still, he worries about China’s influence interfering with our freedom of speech.
He’s seen entire American industries dependent upon Chinese business go silent on atrocities committed by the CCP for the sake of profit. He points to 2019, when then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support of protests in Hong Kong, which resulted in hundreds of millions lost for the NBA and a chilling message to players and team management to keep their mouths closed.
Hollywood is under similar pressure from China. Chu said a friend in the movie business lost her job at a film franchise after sharing an Instagram post celebrating his activism in Hong Kong.
“This is not just happening in Hong Kong. I want people to understand that this is happening right here and right now. It’s already at your doorstep.”
Justo Triana: ‘US students don’t understand socialism’
Justo Triana (above) fled communism in Cuba as a teenager in 2019. But now the 20-year-old Syracuse University freshman is appalled to see peers on campus championing the same ideology that left him and his family struggling to meet their basic needs.
Triana grew up in Camaguey, Cuba, during the communist reign of Fidel Castro. Despite coming from a middle-class background, his parents couldn’t afford an air conditioner, let alone a car. Deodorant and toilet paper were hard to find, and non-tropical fruits like apples were considered a luxury.
At school, Triana was compelled to sing the national anthem and chant, “Pioneers for communism! We will be like Che Guevara!” each morning. “They turned patriotism and the sentiment of homeland into a way to reinforce the communist line,” he said.
In 2014, Triana’s father was granted asylum in the US. Five years later, Triani, his mother and sister joined him.
“I have so many new liberties now. Freedom of speech is what I have been most thankful for — the right to say whatever I want about the Cuban or United States government,” he said. But he is shocked to hear classmates flirting with authoritarian politics “as if it were somehow heavenly.”
He said he’s overheard students praising Cuba’s free education and health care, but without acknowledging the country’s decades of repression. “They don’t look at history,” he said. “And they don’t ask people who have lived in those kinds of places.”
Triana worries what will happen if America’s youth push the country toward socialism.
“I’m fearful about the future of the US. I’m afraid that these kids will grow up, get jobs, assume positions of power, and ultimately turn the United States into another failed experiment.”
Konstantin: ‘We’re moving back in time to the USSR’
Konstantin (above), a 58-year-old Russian émigré who asked only to be identified by his first name, fled the Soviet Union in 1990 in pursuit of liberty. Today he lives in Virginia and works in IT, but he’s concerned about threats to freedom he’s seen creep into American society over the last 30 years.
Konstantin grew up sharing a two-bedroom apartment in Moscow with his parents, grandparents and siblings. “We were poor,” he said. “But everyone was. Everyone had the same salary, the same apartment.” His lawyer mother and engineer father each earned a standard salary of 120 rubles a month. (About $1.42 in today’s money.)
His parents shielded him from their criticisms of the Soviet regime by speaking Yiddish when they talked politics. “As a child, I was told not to even think about stuff. My parents were scared for me,” he said.
But as he got older, he started to have his own doubts about Russia.
“I started realizing how wasteful the system was — generations of wasted people,” he said. “No matter what they did, they couldn’t improve their lives.”
In 1990, when Russia began to open up under President Mikhail Gorbachev, Konstantin brought his wife, Irina, and 5-year-old daughter to Reston, Va., to start a new life with $270 in his pocket.
He described experiencing freedom for the first time: “The light comes on, and you can see the things you saw in the dark are not quite the same as you imagined them. It was so colorful, limitless.”
But now, he said, liberties are coming under siege in America. “Sometimes I feel like I’m moving back in time, back to the USSR,” where leaders told citizens what they could read, write and think, he said.
“They’re limiting our ability to say things, or publish things. There’s even censorship on the kindergarten level, where they’re removing Dr. Seuss books.
“Today, saying something that doesn’t align with the ‘correct’ way of saying things could cost someone their job or their livelihood.”
He added: “We’re taking small steps towards the wrong society. This is the greatest country in the history of civilization. It’s built on the premise of freedom, self-reliance and responsibility. It should stay that way.”