Chuck Park Quit the State Department to Protest Trump. Now He's Running Against Grace Meng

Chuck Park was born in Flushing to Korean immigrants who started out as street vendors on Canal Street, selling whatever they could find on the loading docks of Bloomingdale's. He grew up to become a U.S. diplomat under President Obama, serving in Mexico, Portugal, and Canada — until 2019, when he resigned with a Washington Post op-ed that called the Foreign Service not the "Deep State" but the "Complacent State." The breaking point was a photograph: Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his two-year-old daughter, drowned face-down in the Rio Grande.He drove back to Queens, moved into his parents' basement in Flushing with his wife and kid, and took a job at the MinKwon Center. Six years later, he is challenging seven-term incumbent Grace Meng in the Democratic primary for New York's 6th Congressional District.In this conversation from Columbia Journalism School, Chuck Park talks about why he believes Donald Trump won a second term, why he wants to abolish ICE, why he refuses money from corporate PACs, lobbyists, and AIPAC, and why he thinks "organized people" can still beat organized money — even when his opponent has roughly eight times more cash on hand. The primary is Tuesday, June 23.What he's reading:Los Detectives Salvajes / The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño The book he recommends about the Korean American experience:Human Acts by Han Kang Where he takes visitors in NY-6:The 74th Street–Roosevelt Avenue station under the 7 train, and Main Street Station in downtown Flushing.Last museum exhibit he liked:The Ancient Egypt galleries at the Met — including the reconstructed Temple of Dendur. "It's the one that everyone visits when they come to New York."