Operation Pedro Pan (eBook)

Poignant stories from one ofthe worlds largest political exoduses of children Praise for the firstedition:Compellingreading.New RepublicA collectionof tearful testimonies woven with a tale of the event that unfolded in Cuba andled desperate parents to make the heart-wrenching decision to send theirchildren along to a foreign country.Miami Herald[Conde]does an impressive job of reporting dozens of personal stories and fascinatingvignettes. . . . A compilation of tales, some moving, many astonishing.ChicagoTribuneAwell-researched history of Operation Pedro Pan, a portrait of earlyrevolutionary Cuba and a compendium of testimony from the now-grown children.PublishersWeeklyThebooks primary value lies in the individual stories, from tearful departure andarrival in Miami to temporary shelters and placement in homes or, in somecases, in orphanages; to learning a new language and adjusting and, in manycases, assimilating; to reunions with parents, adolescence in the 60s and 70s,and adulthood.Booklist Condedoes an excellent job of narrating the essential outline of the history ofOperation Pedro Pan, and an equally superb job of analyzing the circumstancesthat created this exodus, from the viewpoint of those who felt compelled tocreate it and keep it going. . . . OperationPedro Pan is . . . as much a primary source as it is a work of history, asmuch a window onto a mentality as it is a guide to events, names, andinstitutions.Carlos M. N. Eire, HispanicAmerican Historical ReviewFascinatingis the least one can say about this book. Its the story of thousands of Cuban childrenwho wouldnt grow up under communism and were sent by their parents to the never-neverland of America. Some of them lived happily ever after because this version ofPeter Pan is a tragedy with a happy ending sometimes. Fidel Castro, by the way,plays a very credible Captain Hook.GuillermoCabrera Infante, Cervantes PrizewinningnovelistOnAugust 11, 1961, at the age of ten, Yvonne Conde left Cuba in one of the worldslargest political exoduses of children in historyOperation Pedro Pan. Between1960 and 1962 over 14,000 children were sent out of Cuba alone by desperateparents who feared for their childrens future under Castro. Unlike Peter Pan,however, these children continued to grow up even while separated from theirfamilies. As the children arrived in temporary camps in Miami,volunteers such as Father Bryan O. Walsh helped them find new homes across thecountry. Conde tracked down hundreds of these children to tell their diversestoriestheir uplifting, poignant, and sometimes tragic experiences in Americanfoster homes and orphanages. Because Conde herself was a Pedro Pan child,others have opened up to her like never before to share their feelings aboutthis painful time in their lives. Today, these children and their familiesstruggle to heal the emotional scars of their long separation. In this edition, with a new prologue, Conde looksback on Operation Pedro Pan from the vantage point of six decades and bringsreaders up to date on events and discoveries since the groundbreaking first publicationof this book in 1999. Writing with compassion and rare insight, Conde uncoversthe true tales of a little-known episode of the Cold War.