Operation Pedro Pan : The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children

Rating:
Summary: Final Analysis
Review: Finally, a realistic review, by former Pedro pan from Camp St John in Jacksonville, presently "Chair of History and Literature" at NY State University, Dr. Roman de la Campa in his book, "CUBA ON MY MIND" juorney to a Severed Nation, published in London by Verso.
The author of "The Untold Story of Operation Pedro Pan" Yvonne Conde was not a part of the Unaccompanied Cuban Children's Program, was never at one of the camps, foster homes or schools. Perhaps this fact would not be important, except that she is not qualified to speak on behalf of the pedro pan participants. The questionaires she mailed out in order to back her own opinions, represent less than 3% Percent of the 14,048 Pedro Pans, and is not a random sample, therefore the results she states are invalid. She does not explain why certain questions were asked or avoided in the preparation of the questionaires. There is no quide to the interviews, which were unfortunatly quoted, edited, paraphrased or summarized and why. In that sense, Conde bypasses many principles regularly employed in sociological and statistical studies. The author warns that she quotes only the most representative samples of the testimonies gathered, but that single declaration may not suffice for a book that claims to represent all 14,000 Peter Pan Participants.
One of Conde's declared aims is to increase awareness of the Peter Pan ordeal in the eyes of the American public: another is to offer participants a historical reenactement of what our parents must have gone through when they decided to send us out of Cuba alone. Both are laudable goals, but they have the tone of a self-appointed editorial mission on behalf of all the children involved. The testimonies she quotes and her own seem to be driven by a political project rather than a neutral voice organizing a collective memoir. The need to come to grips with a complicated national history that affected us was not at all helped by her manipulation of the information. This book is a shameful, embarrasing and manipulative exploitation of our saga.

Rating:
Summary: Who are these critics?
Review: I just finished reading Operation Pedro Pan and I found it engrossing! I couldn't put it down. Although I am Cuban and a Pedro Pan child myself, I believe I am objective when I say that, yes, the book has a couple of typos, but nothing that detracts from the overall quality of this important historical work. As for it not being "organized"according to the Booklists review, Ms. Conde has presented a wonderful chronological sequence of events, starting with a thorough explanation of the political events in Cuba 1959-62 that made our parents take the drastic action of sending us away. It is followed with information on how the program started, how the visas were distributed clandestinely in Cuba, the temporary shelters in Miami where we were placed, letters from the children back then, and chapters on orphanages, living with foster families, abuse, forgetting our Spanish, the reunions with our parents, what happened to some of us in the 60's and 70's and comments from the children today on how this experience affected us. It finishes with the very valuable results of her questionnaire to 442 of the children, the only research of its type to date, as far as I know. Not well organized? C'mon! As for "not particularly well written"(Booklist again) people either like or dislike different authors and their styles, I found hers to be journalistic and easy to read. Who are these critics and what are their hidden agendas?

Rating:
Summary: Final Analysis
Review: I was one of the many children who took part in Operation Pedro Pan. I remember the fear, hopelessness, and loss we felt. There are many kinds of books, some are academic and scholarly, others are fiction, mystery or adventure. Some are written from the heart. This is one of the latter. As Angela's Ashes did with the tragic story of one family and individual, this book does for the thousands of children and families broken apart by the tragedy of exile from a repressive regime like Castro's. I found it irrelevant that the editing was not perfect and that it may not have been scholarly enough for some. A human story such as this one cannot simply rely on statistics and scientific models of migration. These little children were sent to the United States to escape communist indoctrination and forced labor workcamps in the fields of Cuba. It is an often repeated story of innocent children displaced by a megalomaniac who believes in himself more than he should. The tragedy of the story is that it is still occurring in many places throughout the world. I'll never forget the words of "EL Gallego" who said while we were living at St. Vincent's Home in Saginaw, Michigan, "I'll probably never see my mother again". I hope he did. The book does have one fault and that is that it was not written much earlier while these events were fresh in the minds and hearts of those who cared what happened to us.

Rating:
Summary: A forgotten and neglected story
Review: I was one of the many children who took part in Operation Pedro Pan. I remember the fear, hopelessness, and loss we felt. There are many kinds of books, some are academic and scholarly, others are fiction, mystery or adventure. Some are written from the heart. This is one of the latter. As Angela's Ashes did with the tragic story of one family and individual, this book does for the thousands of children and families broken apart by the tragedy of exile from a repressive regime like Castro's. I found it irrelevant that the editing was not perfect and that it may not have been scholarly enough for some. A human story such as this one cannot simply rely on statistics and scientific models of migration. These little children were sent to the United States to escape communist indoctrination and forced labor workcamps in the fields of Cuba. It is an often repeated story of innocent children displaced by a megalomaniac who believes in himself more than he should. The tragedy of the story is that it is still occurring in many places throughout the world. I'll never forget the words of "EL Gallego" who said while we were living at St. Vincent's Home in Saginaw, Michigan, "I'll probably never see my mother again". I hope he did. The book does have one fault and that is that it was not written much earlier while these events were fresh in the minds and hearts of those who cared what happened to us.

Rating:
Summary: Operation Pedro Pan , the Untold Story
Review: Simply deceiving!!! This book's title is incorrect, the Untold Story of Operation Pedro Pan was first told in "Fleeing Castro" Published a year earlier, 1998, and written by Dr. Victor Triay. The author aimed to provide data by sending questionaires to 800 pedro pans and getting back 442 (less than 3% of the Pedropan population) is not a valid study. The study was not a random sample and Mrs. Conde bypassed principles employed in sociological and statistical studies. The interviews were edited, paraphrased and summarized seemingly to serve the author's own view. This massive minor's exodus deserves a scholarly researched and well balanced book.

Rating:
Summary: Lies and Heartbreak: The Real Story of Operation Pedro Pan
Review: The year was 1960 and the CIA codename for the plot was "Liborio." The plan was to undermine popular support for the new Cuban government, culminating in mass protests in front of the Presidential Palace where an assassin would make an attempt on Castro's life should he address a crowd of protestors. The plan involved the following elements:

1. Extensive sabotage and terrorist campaigns including blowing up transportation and electrical facilities and burning down big clothing stores.

2. Assassinating the leaders of various revolutionary organizations so that it would be blamed on the new government in Cuba.

3. The Catholic Church in Cuba disseminating a phony law, supposedly proposed by the Cuban government, called Patria Potestad law. The law would give the government of Cuba exclusive power over children, removing it from their parents. But the law never existed. It was to be written by the Church hierarchy and then denounced by priests from their pulpits throughout Cuba.

Yet readers can examine "Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children" and find no reference to this CIA machination. Instead one reads how the government of Cuba planned to take children away from the parents and to ship them en masse to the Soviet Union where they would be subject to unspeakable horrors. Yet this book provides no evidence that this "plan" was anything more than a vicious rumor, if not an outright psychological warfare project, that resulted 14,048 children being estranged from the families.

Although the book does catalogue some of the abuses many of the children endured, it hardly touches on the irony of parents sending their children away for fear that their children will be sent away. Undoubtedly, many of these parents were sincerely frightened because they believed the rumor. Yet many of the children of Pedro Pan did experience physical and sexual abuse, neglect, intimidation, and estrangement not only from their parents but also from their siblings who went to other foster homes and facilities in the USA. Some children were eventually reunited with their families; others never were. Still, on the whole it seems, most of the children ended up in homes where they received love and considerable attention. They developed relationships with their foster families that have lasted throughout their lives. Those accounts were quite moving. Still, as other reviewers have written, the survey results and questions are so dubious one wonders how the author lacked the shame to include them in the book. It seems clear that the author has a political agenda and she told the story of Operation Pedro Pan to accommodate it

The real story of the Pedro Pan children is a heartbreaking one, a tale made more heartbreaking by the fact that the entire saga was probably unnecessary. What lie, what political outcome, could be worth separating children from their parents? I cannot consider it without crying.

Rating:
Summary: I remember!
Review: This book narrates a very important chapter of the cuban exile history. I am one of the children of Peter Pan and proud of it. Buy it for your children and the generations to come.