Operation Pedro Pan and the Exodus of Cuba’s Children, by Deborah Shnookal

[First paragraph]Cuba: Confronting the U.S. Embargo. PETER SCHWAB. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. xiii + 226 pp. (Cloth US$ 29.95)Presidential Decision Making Adrift: The Carter Administration and the Mariel Boatlift. DAVID W. ENGSTROM. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. x + 239 pp. (Paper US$25.95)Fleeing Castro: Operation Pedro Pan and the Cuban Children's Program. VICTOR ANDRES TRIAY. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998. xiv + 126 pp. (Cloth US$ 49.95, Paper US$ 14.95)Some forty years after it was first imposed in 1960 in the midst of the cold war, the U.S. embargo against Cuba remains the defining feature of U.S.-Cuban relations. Like the Berlin Wall, the embargo is both a symbolic and a physical barrier keeping apart two neighbors destined to move closer. Unlike the Berlin Wall which feil at the end of the cold war, the U.S. embargo against Cuba still stands.

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Operation Pedro Pan: The Migration of Unaccompanied Cuban Children to the United States, 1960–1962

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.334 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Anita Casavantes Bradford

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Cold War ◽

Catholic Church ◽

The United States ◽

Federally Funded ◽

Difficult Decision ◽

History Of ◽

Children’S Homes ◽

Pedro Pan ◽

The Cold War

Between the autumn of 1960 and October of 1962, the parents of more than fourteen thousand Cuban children made the difficult decision to send their children alone to the United States, where a young Irish immigrant priest, Father Bryan O. Walsh, arranged for them to be cared for by U.S. foster homes and in Catholic children’s homes and orphanages. The Cuban children’s exodus would later become known as Operation Pedro Pan; the federally funded and Catholic Church–administered program that was established to care for these children would be called the Cuban Children’s Program. Their interconnected trajectories are central to the history of post-revolutionary Cuba and of the Miami Cuban exile community, and shed important light on U.S.-Cuba and U.S.-Latin America relations during the height of the Cold War.

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Operation Pedro Pan: A Tale of Trauma and Remembrance

Latino Studies ◽

10.1057/lst.2008.24 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 252-268 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Flora M González Mandri

Keyword(s):

Pedro Pan

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Penny Powers, Covert Hero of the Twentieth Century

10.31235/osf.io/c5rzs ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sara Molly Pollard

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

World History ◽

Government Funding ◽

Modern World ◽

Host Countries ◽

James Bond ◽

Syrian Civil War ◽

Film Series ◽

Pedro Pan ◽

Private Donations

Ms. Penny Powers, a covert British Intelligence Officer during most of the twentieth century and (perhaps) memorialized as Miss. Moneypenny in the James Bond film series, was one of the most unrecognized saviors of children in danger in modern world history. Ms. Powers covertly organized and ran the Kindertransport and Operation Pedro Pan, two shining examples of the British intelligence service's efforts to save thousands of children from danger. Ms. Powers used the same repeatable model twice to save children in danger. Specifically, she helped save 10,000 Jewish children in the Kindertransport and 14,000 Cuban children in Operation Pedro Pan by transporting the children to a safe location, organizing temporary care for the children, planning to reunite the children with their parents when the danger had passed, and using private donations instead of government funding to help the plan appeal to the host countries. In 2016, US Representative Mike Honda proposed to replicate her model to help save children in danger in the Syrian civil war. Now, 25 years after her death, it is high time for Ms. Powers to be recognized for helping save 24,000 children.

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