June 2, 1999
MSNBC, June 2
In the 1960s, 14,000 children were smuggled into the United States from Cuba in a secret program known as "Operation Pedro Pan." A new book documents their story.
New York, June 1 - In the early 1960s, a secret plan to smuggle Cuban children into the United States without their parents resulted in 14,000 so-called "Operation Pedro Pan" children. The program was kept so quiet that some people are only now finding out that they were "Pedro Pan" kids.
It was while reading a book a few years ago that journalist Yvonne Conde learned about "Operation Pedro Pan" and wondered if she, too, was a Pedro Pan child. She was. Conde's new book, Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus Of 14,048 Cuban Children tells the children's story.
"I decided to write this book because it's a piece of Cuban history that's not known. It's the largest political exodus of children in this hemisphere and it's not known," said Conde. "What was covert about it was how the visas were given to the children. The church was very much involved in it through teachers, through schools."
The experience of the Pedro Pan children was documented in the film, The Lost Apple.
The U.S. government agreed to a plan that would bring the youngsters into the country on "student visas."
"These visas were smuggled into the country, in most cases [by diplomats], and distributed in an underground way. The majority of the cases, diplomats and diplomatic pouches were very helpful, and they smuggled these visas into Cuba," Conde said.
Once in the United States, schools in Miami were used as boarding camps.
In The Lost Apple, the narrator is seen telling the children, "The people who take care of you are called house parents. They are from Cuba, too. While you are here, they are papa, they are mama."
Because the kids arrived on so-called student visas, when the opportunity to move in with a foster family occurred, it was called a beca, which is Spanish for "scholarship." The kids remained with the foster family until their parents landed in the United States.
Conde flew to Miami alone in August 1961 at the age of 10.
Conde said, "It was a very frightening time and a time of a lot of introspection. I kept a lot of fears within myself because I didn't have anybody else to talk to them about."
Nearly all of the Pedro Pan children eventually were reunited with their parents, but the average stay at these camps was more than a year.
"The majority of people think that the pain and suffering and the separation was worthwhile because we were given choices," Conde said. However, she added, "I'm dying to go back to Cuba. I'll go back to Cuba when the reason why I left is no longer there."
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