Operation Pedro Pan: The Migration of Unaccompanied Children from Castro's Cuba

Operation Pedro Pan explores the undertaking sponsored by the Miami Catholic Diocese, federal and state offices, child welfare agencies, and anti-Castro Cubans to bring more than 14,000 unaccompanied children to the United States during the Cold War. Operation Pedro Pan was the colloquial name for the Unaccompanied Cuban Children's Program, which began under government largesse in February 1961. Children without immediate family support in the United States--some 8,300 minors--received group and foster care through the Catholic Welfare Bureau and other religious, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations as young people were dispersed throughout the country.

Using personal interviews and newly unearthed information, Operation Pedro Pan provides a deeper understanding of how and why the program was devised. John A. Gronbeck-Tedesco demonstrates how the seemingly mundane conditions of everyday life can suddenly uproot civilians from their routines of work, church, and school and thrust them into historical prominence. The stories told by Pedro Pans are filled with horror and resilience and contribute to a refugee memory that still shapes Cuban American politics and identity today.