After risking her life to escape socialism, a Minnesota mom, business owner, and author offered a stark warning about what’s taking place in Minnesota right now.
Shegitu Kebede joined Liz Collin on her podcast and detailed how she escaped socialism in Ethiopia and Kenya on her way to making it to Minnesota 30 years ago.
Escaping socialism
Kebede said that while she “escaped socialism at the age of 17,” her journey began when she was much younger. “My three brothers and I found ourselves in an orphanage. There were no adults to take care of us. I was five at the time. By the age of 16, I decided to get married just to save my two younger brothers. Because every boy was forced into the military and that’s the last time you’ll see them,” Kebede explained.
“I was pregnant and the war broke out in our town and I ran for my life without my two brothers, they were younger and I end up in Kenya in a refugee camp after three years,” she recalled.
While Kebede shared many details during the interview, one of the many striking details involves how she actually managed to escape: “My journey was by foot because running away from socialism itself is a crime and so you will be killed.”
It was arduous to say the least, as Kebede shared how she had to risk her life “hiding during the day, walking during the night without having anything but the clothes I have on my back. I gave birth to my first child in a refugee camp and then got to United States.”
She came to America with a three-year-old child—and not a penny to her name.
After her journey took her to Minnesota, Kebede has worked as a restaurant owner, social worker, and author. She has grown increasingly concerned about the state of affairs in Minnesota.
“I invested myself in Minnesota. Minnesota also invested in me,” she said.
She described watching the buildings on Lake Street burn during the George Floyd riots of 2020. She once ran a restaurant in one of the buildings that burned and she also worked in the area as a social worker.
“When I see that riot, it has nothing to do with anybody’s life, but to destroy the life of a minority, the life of people of Minnesota that work so hard,” Kebede said.
A perspective on immigration—from an immigrant herself
She also expressed dismay on the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants coming to Minnesota.
“We need to be concerned. I left socialism at the age of 17 because I knew it doesn’t work. That’s not how any human being that God has created … to live. So today, the opening of a border that has nothing to do with being humanitarian. There is a right way to do it. I am an immigrant. This country is built by immigrants, but there is the right way to do it. Opening a border like this and flooding people into our country without vetting them, without doing it the right way, because there are a lot of people who wanted to come to this country for education, family reunion, for work, but they’re waiting to do it the right way. And someone opens a back door and we are flooding people in.”
As someone who has suffered socialism and knows what immigration to the United States is about firsthand, Kebede also explained that, “the danger of that is for one, we don’t know who’s coming in. Second of all, we are seeing the result. The fentanyl that is coming in through the border is destroying our future. Every city you drive through, every city that you walk through, I love Minneapolis and my kids, we walked every single day. You can’t do that now. So much homelessness. All the young people are addicted to drugs and you see the homelessness, gangs coming into our country and destroying our future.”
Having raised three children and now with seven grandchildren, Kebede also shared some wisdom, the kind one understands only through many rites of passage.
“We need to become adults. We need to become a people that have order, you know, and we can’t just let this happen and anyone speaking against this is racist,” Kebede said.
“We need to have security. That’s what makes a nation a nation,” she added.
Kebede also explained that she supports former President Donald Trump because he “cares about our country.”
“What we’re seeing today is really America needs to wake up. If you don’t have a country, if you don’t have a nation, you are not going to be anything or anyone,” she said.
Kebede has authored several books and offers more of her insights in her motivational speeches.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
