Embracing, Empowering, and Emancipating North Koreans

On October 23, 2019, Andrew Hong, founder and executive director of Emancipate North Korea (ENoK), shared his story as a human rights activist, leader, and volunteer. The Schell Center hosted the event, titled “Unification of the Mind: Embracing North Korean Refugees.”

Sung Hwan “Andrew” Hong moved to New England from South Korea at the age of eleven. In his presentation, he described having “found his true calling” on a trip to South Korea where he discovered North Korean refugees in Seoul who were “ostracized,” residing in the mountains and “eating garbage.” Having had this “epiphany,” he began researching organizations to find that “no one in America was actually helping” North Korean refugees. He approached organizations like Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) that focused on awareness rather than direct service to seek existing ways to help. Finding little, Hong decided to start his own organization to address North Korean refugees’ specific settlement needs. Thus, he began ENoK.

Emancipate North Koreans, or ENoK, is a Chicago-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization assisting refugees from North Korea with resettlement and adjustment to a new life. ENoK aims to directly impact the North Korean refugee experience in the United States. ENoK’s mission, Hong described, is to not only emancipate North Koreans, but to empower and embrace them. Emancipation, he explained, falls short of ENoK’s vision. Instead, ENoK looks further — to uplift refugees professionally and financially and build a strong community for them to rely on for support.

To contextualize the issues North Koreans face, Hong provided a brief overview of North Korean history. After the death of Kim Il-Sung’s, the breakdown of the Soviet Union, and several natural disasters in the same timeframe, the destabilized nation collapsed. The Arduous March — a period of famine and economic crisis — took place in North Korea from 1994 to 1998.

However, Hong said, Kim Il-Sung had groomed his son to continue his regime before these events. With the Soviet Union breaking down, Hong explained, the government believed it had to put the military at the political forefront to ensure national unity. For this reason, Kim Jong-Il, Kim Il-Sung’s son, began to invest in WMDs and the military. Fearing a U.S. attack, North Korea upheld this policy of “military first.”

According to Hong, because of this “military first” policy, the media associates North Korea with “missiles and nuclearization.” Not only is North Korea believed to “affect the security of different nations,” it is also portrayed as a “risk to the world.” This portrayal, Hong argued, is one-dimensional.

Hong detailed the different reasons why North Koreans have fled as defectors. One such reason, which predates the famine, is fallout with the government. For example, Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking defector of the North Korean regime to date, left North Korea because he vehemently opposed the distinct “quasi-communist” political philosophy that governs North Korea and he rejected its emphasis on “self-reliance” and “self-sustenance.”

Another reason, according to Hong, is people’s inability to make a living. It is only through jangmadang, the “black market” in North Korea, that families are “trying to make a living without relying on the government’s non-existent support.” Hong explained that because men are required to serve in the military for a decade, they often return with no skills to sustain their families — leaving women to become the primary caretakers through selling and buying goods in jangmadang.

There is also an increasingly smaller gap between North Koreans and pop culture from outside their country’s borders, Hong said. Through jangmadang’s proliferation of Korean dramas and Korean pop on discreet USB drives, South Korean culture reaches North Korea. Some North Koreans, Hong noted, “know more about South Korean pop culture than South Koreans.”

Hong outlined a refugee’s perilous path from North Korea to the United States. Most refugees, Hong said, flee from the border area between China and North Korea; it is “virtually impossible” to cross the Military Demarcation Line that separates North and South Korea. People who live inland have a more difficult time escaping since they do not know the area as well as border region residents.

The journey, Hong explained, is incredibly complicated, dangerous, and emotionally taxing. To escape, North Koreans must overcome extensive hurdles. For those living inland, they must walk to the border themselves, since travel permits are needed to cross checkpoints and public transportation would result in capture, Hong explained. Brokers are often used at different points to ensure one does not get lost, especially when traveling with children, making it more costly to transport kids. Once someone makes it to the border, they must cross either the Tumen or Yalu River. Since there are fewer guards surveilling the rivers’ dangerous, deep points, people risk their lives to cross these areas.

In the event that someone is caught, Hong added, public executions are often held in an attempt to incite fear. The defector’s family members are also often imprisoned; however, there are so many defectors that authorities have found it impossible to imprison all of the families. Instead, the government has resorted to sending families to regions with less opportunity as punishment.

Those who successfully cross a river must seek the aid of the “underground railroad of nonprofits and brokers” to help them on their journey, Hong said. They must travel as quickly as possible to China’s southern border to avoid capture and escape to Indochina where South Korean consulates ask refugees “where they want to go.” Some refugees choose to move to South Korea — a slightly easier transition given the common language — whereas some “do not want to face discrimination” in South Korea, a symptom of strained North Korea-South Korea relations, Hong explained. Instead, many refugees prefer to opt for an entirely new life.

Many North Koreans make it to the South Korean consulate in Thailand, Hong explained, where they express a desire to come to the United States. In 2004, the Bush administration passed the North Korean Human Rights Act allowing refugees to legally resettle in the U.S. After four-year background checks are conducted, case managers help deal with each refugee’s case. Refugees then receive help from voluntary agencies or “volags” — from the World Relief Corp and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Episcopal Migrant Ministries. Still, only a handful of refugees make it to the U.S.: only two arrived in the entirety of 2018.

These agencies help refugees with their first jobs, Medicaid, and food stamps. However, after having lived their entire lives in a country with no capitalist activity, resettlement is “quite a tall task,” Hong said. ENoK seeks to address the more subtle issues facing North Korean refugees. Because urban areas have Korean American communities that are “discriminatory” to North Korean refugees, seeing them as lesser, refugees often resettle in remote areas like Kentucky, Hong said. He added that through practical assistance, such as providing a car to refugees in these remote areas, ENoK has positively changed refugees’ transition.

Other issues that ENoK seeks to address include language and cultural barriers, a lack of networks and education, and psychological stress. With their families back in North Korea, many refugees, Hong said, face guilt and anxiety as they fear for their families’ lives.

Hong explained that ENoK also serves to give refugees “marketable skills to realize their own version of the American Dream” through academic coaching and career counseling. Hong also emphasized that some refugees like the women who worked in jangmadang back in North Korea “already have entrepreneurial skills.”

In September, ENoK’s most comprehensive program to date, Empower House, kicked off. The program provides a safe shelter and other living necessities for around two to six North Korean refugees. Empower House provides free academic coaching and career counseling from ENoK’s volunteer staff. 

Hong hopes that his “humble model” will show that “donations can become investments.” Through Empower House, ENoK has alleviated refugees’ monetary concerns so they can focus on their education. While its mission is practical, Hong said, ENoK does more than direct service. The organization, he believes, has created a community.