Florida Atlantic University (FAU) student Ioana Peana told Breitbart News that protecting our rights “is a civic duty,” because as am immigrant, she understands how socialism can “destroy a country.” Peana, who is also FAU’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter president, spoke to SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily host Alex Marlow in a Wednesday interview for the show’s weekly TPUSA campus report.

“Originally, I’m from Romania,” said Peana, “My parents grew up under a communist government, and back in Romania, when it was a communist country, professors were favored by the government because they had the opportunity to indoctrinate students with philosophy and ideas that supported and went along with the communist government policies.”

“My family was in that environment,” she added, “so coming here to America and seeing what’s going on with the professors — and seeing students restricted of free speech on campus — it is a civic duty of what we have to do to protect our free speech, because I’ve seen it destroy a country.”

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Peana noted that in addition to her parents, she too is an immigrant to the United States, and that her family is able to “really appreciate” the United States, having immigrated from a country where people are not as free.

“I think America was blessed by the hand of God,” said Peana. “To have your First Amendment rights, and the right to own a gun — because in other countries, you don’t have that opportunity.”

“So, seeing the work that we’re doing on campus, we have a civic duty,” she added, “because I truly love America, and I don’t want it to end up like [a communist country].”

Peana also mentioned that she and her student group was fortunate enough to be able to host TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk at FAU last week for a special luncheon and class lecture, where Kirk spoke to students about the differences between capitalism and socialism, and the benefits of free markets and limited government.

The event was not only sponsored by members of the school’s TPUSA student group, but also by the College of Business at FAU, which is a very rare occurrence on a college campus today — to have a university sponsor a conservative speaker.

Peana also stressed the importance of making sure that the United States does not succumb to socialism.

“Romania was a communist government and we had a revolution, however, it’s still a Democratic Socialist country,” she said. “There’s still big government there.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.