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In 2019, 14-year-old Amira Hawat boarded a plane with her family from Venezuela to the United States believing her mother’s promise: she was headed to Disney World. What she didn’t know was that she would never return home.
Today, seven years later, the Lipscomb University student speaks publicly about her experiences growing up in Venezuela.
Her family fled the country after socialist policies led them to close their two small businesses, and she’s warning American students the same type of thing could happen here.
“Socialism is a fairytale: perfect in theory, but horrible in practice and reality,” she told The College Fix in an interview.
“There is an appeal to destroy the United States from the inside out,” she said, adding that young people’s desire to make an impact has “been channeled in the wrong way.”
“If you want to be a victim, you can live in a socialist country like Venezuela. It has never worked,” she said.
Socialism is unsustainable
Hawat was born in Barinas, Venezuela, where she grew up watching the country undergo major political and economic changes. Hawat’s parents were small business owners, operating both a restaurant and an ice cream shop.
Her father’s restaurant struggled as prices continued to rise, she said. As the cost of goods increased, he was forced to raise his own prices, which made it harder for customers to afford his services. Eventually, Hawat said, the restaurant became unsustainable, and her father was forced to close it.
Her mother faced similar challenges with the family’s ice cream shop. During Venezuela’s electricity crisis, Hawat said power outages affected the business and caused her mother to lose weeks of profits in just days. Despite attempting to rebuild using personal savings, Hawat said, her mother “could not recover” and eventually closed the shop.
As economic struggles continued, Hawat said her family also became involved politically, supporting opposition parties, protests, and movements against Nicolás Maduro’s government.
She said her family began facing increased pressure and persecution after their political involvement became known.
Eventually, Hawat said, the combination of economic and political challenges became impossible for her family to manage. They “could not keep up.”
On July 4, 2019, Hawat arrived in Miami, where her mother revealed that her family would be staying in the United States and planned to seek asylum.
Hawat told The Fix her first impression of the United States was one of “possibilities, peace and prosperity.”
Hope springs anew
A few years later, during the early hours of Jan. 3, 2026, Hawat’s mother was “blowing up her phone” with the news that the United States was bombing Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Hawat’s first reaction was to tell her mother that this was fake, or even AI-generated.
When she realized the news of Maduro’s capture was real, Hawat said she felt “pure joy,” describing it as the “greatest gift the USA gave her after giving her freedom.”
Hawat, who says she is not allowed to return to Venezuela, is now spending her summer interning at the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women in the greater Washington, D.C., area. She plans to be a free-market advocate for the rest of her life.
Hawat’s message to Gen-Z students who support socialist agendas is simple: “Be aware of where you reflect your victim mentality, because it can ruin your country in ways that will last forever.”
Education matters
Although Hawat “was always aware of the United States” growing up, she said it was not until moving to the U.S. that she was able to comprehend how “dangerous” the ideology that she believes impacted her home country really was.
Reflecting on her childhood, Hawat recalled food packages featuring socialist propaganda and government-sponsored school textbooks “full of praises for socialism,” adding that this was “normal.”
She further emphasized school material that praised socialist regimes like the Soviet Union, while “demonizing” the United States, Israel, or ideologies that were “right-wing.”
She told The Fix that the “freedoms, accountability, and responsibility” in the United States are a “blessing,” arguing that socialism and communism are incompatible with the moral and economic values of the country.
For students who think socialism is a panacea, she said they should speak with people who have lived under socialist systems.
Hawat said she believes there is a growing effort to associate socialism with ideas such as “equality” and “justice,” making those who oppose the ideology appear to be against these “basic moral values.”
“Americans need to start talking to people who have lived through these systems, not just having their only exposure to these systems be via academia or leftist media that praises socialist theory and structure.”
MORE: I fled Maduro’s Venezuela. Here’s what U.S. academics get wrong about intervention.
