Separation and sacrifice: 'Pedro Pans' who fled Cuba see echoes today
| Boston and Havana
Decades later, they still remember the pecera. The fishbowl.
They remember being ushered away from their parents with dozens of other children. They remember the room of glass that made them feel like they were in a different world from their families. They remember waving goodbye, unsure of the next time they would meet.
鈥淭hey separated me from my grandfather and my father, but I could see them,鈥� says Luis Galup, who was 7 years old at the time. 鈥淭hrough the glass, all I could see was my family.鈥�
Why We Wrote This
The facts of U.S. immigration change over the decades: who鈥檚 coming, how, and why. But one group of Cuban-Americans, who arrived 60 years ago, see a common thread: the risks parents take for their children.
Mr. Galup is one of more than 14,000 Cuban children who left the island between 1960 and 1962 as part of Operation Peter Pan, the largest recorded organized mass exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere.
When Fidel Castro took over the Cuban government in 1959, overthrowing the U.S.-backed authoritarian regime of Fulgencio Batista, his revolutionary promises made many parents fear for their children鈥檚 future. Amid Cold War anxiety, the United States government and the Catholic Welfare Bureau created the operation, known in Cuba as Pedro Pan, to bring them abroad. The program covertly distributed visa waivers to thousands of Cubans between the ages of 6 and 18, who filled up the fishbowl before boarding commercial flights out of Havana.
This year, the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, Pedro Pans across the U.S. have been thinking back to the country they left behind. Far more recent events have also brought their experiences back to mind聽鈥� especially President Donald Trump鈥檚 encouragement of family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border as a strategy to deter illegal immigration.
Those separations were profoundly different from the ones that occurred decades ago in the pecera. Cuban parents volunteered to participate in Operation Pedro Pan, assuming the time apart would be brief, but their families鈥� reunions were postponed by geopolitics. U.S.-Mexico border separations, on the other hand, were unexpected for most families and involuntary. But for 鈥淧edro Pans鈥� themselves, the pain of separation is one they remember all too clearly.
鈥淭hat brought back a lot of memories and made me so angry,鈥� says Mr. Galup, referring to last year鈥檚 recordings of in a Border Patrol detention facility. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think any children should be separated from their parents like that. I understand what my parents did. ... But no child should go through this.鈥�
Both experiences show the extent of a parent鈥檚 love for his or her child, say many Pedro Pans, urging others to try to understand the difficult realities at home that motivate parents to make that sacrifice.
鈥淪eparating a family, if that鈥檚 the only way that the children can have a better life, it鈥檚 not always an evil thing,鈥� says Carlos Eire, a professor of history and religion at Yale University, and the author 鈥淲aiting for Snow in Havana,鈥� a tribute to his childhood in Cuba. Professor Eire left with Operation Pedro Pan in 1962 at the age of 11.
鈥淭his wasn鈥檛 the first time, and it won鈥檛 be the last time, as we are now seeing, that parents are desperate to get their kids to safety,鈥� he says.
A bond of separation
Mr. Galup, who is now a grandfather and lives in Miami, hasn鈥檛 returned to Cuba since he left almost six decades ago. But he still remembers the neighborhood where he grew up in central Havana.
He remembers the Ten Cent store where his mother would give him change to ride a carousel horse outside as she shopped with their ration card. He remembers a nearby park with a big statue. He remembers looking out the apartment window at the Malec贸n, a five-mile roadway along the coast that he and his grandfather would walk in the evening, buying treats along the way: warm peanuts for the grandfather, snow cones for the grandson. He remembers riding his bike along the ocean as his grandfather fished off the concrete seawall.
Customers still sit at stools at the Ten Cent Galiano鈥檚 bartop. The park across the street 鈥� Parque Fe del Valle 鈥� is a rare WiFi hotspot, and strangers crowd together on the benches to text and email.
Today, the Malec贸n鈥檚 sidewalk is worn from years of salty waves crashing over the seawall. It looks porous, like a strip of coral. But the concrete path is still the city鈥檚 north star, guiding rusty Chevrolets through rush hour, and calling hopeful fishermen and aimless lovers at night.
Mr. Galup says he hasn鈥檛 gone back because he remembers what his father said to him before he entered the fishbowl: 鈥溾�楽on, you鈥檙e going to go to a better place than where you live right now. You鈥檒l be going to a different country where you can do and say whatever you want.鈥欌��
鈥淚 would love to see where I was born,鈥� says Mr. Galup, with a sigh. 鈥淏ut I don鈥檛 want to as long as that Communist regime is still there. They separated me from my family.鈥�
Despite that resentment, many Pedro Pans still celebrate their Cuban identity.
鈥淢y country is destroyed,鈥� says Carmen Romanach, 73, who hasn鈥檛 been back since she left at 15. 鈥淏ut Cuba is in my head. It is the best part of who I am.鈥�
As the vice president of the Operation Pedro Pan Group, Ms. Romanach helps organize an annual meeting and monthly breakfasts across Miami. They celebrate the Cuban hero Jos茅 Mart铆, as well as Our Lady of Charity, the island鈥檚 patron saint聽鈥� and each other. Former Miami Mayor Tom谩s Regalado is one of us, Pedro Pans point out, as is the first Cuban-American senator, former Florida Sen. Mel Mart铆nez.
鈥淲hen we get together, we are like brothers and sisters,鈥� says Ms. Romanach. 鈥淲e really have a special bond.鈥�
It鈥檚 a community unified by shared experiences, like those memories of the fishbowl 鈥� a mentality that also makes many Pedro Pans quick to identify with recent migrants.
鈥淪eparation is separation,鈥� says Lily Lorbes, who left Cuba in 1961 at age 14.
A January report from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggests that thousands more children may have been separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under Mr. Trump鈥檚 鈥渮ero-tolerance鈥� policy than the 2,737 previously reported. (The policy called for adults illegally entering the country, including asylum-seekers, to be detained and prosecuted, with their children housed in separate facilities. Many parents had no knowledge of their children鈥檚 whereabouts.)
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has announced plans to double the capacity of a temporary shelter for unaccompanied migrant minors, who arrived at the border alone, in Homestead, Florida聽鈥� already the largest of its kind in the country.
The Homestead camp is less than five miles away from the Florida City camp where Ms. Lorbes was held when she first arrived. She still remembers sleeping on a cot surrounded by strangers.
The total number of migrant minors detained at federal shelters in 2018: at 14,700, a sixfold increase from May 2017.
鈥淭his was not an isolated thing,鈥� says Ms. Lorbes, a human resources retiree who lives in Topsfield, Massachusetts, referring to Pedro Pans鈥� experiences: 鈥淧arents who can鈥檛 leave yet themselves, but see their chance to get their kids out.鈥�
Now or never
Pedro Pans鈥� parents saw that chance in the early months of 1959, as the realities of Castro鈥檚 regime started to become clear.
鈥淭he revolution was taking over everything very quickly and turning the whole society upside down,鈥� says Ms. Lorbes. 鈥淭o go away was a risky alternative, but to stay there was also risky.鈥�
Monsignor Bryan Walsh, then with the Catholic Welfare Bureau in Miami, hatched a plan to bring young Cubans to the United States, likely with help from the Eisenhower and Kennedy White Houses. In a 1990 public letter, Mr. Walsh for giving him more than $5 million a year (more than $40 million in today鈥檚 dollars), for six years, to bring these children to the U.S. and care for them.
鈥淭he U.S. government approved [the operation]. They helped create it,鈥� says Victor Triay, a history professor at Middlesex Community College in Connecticut and the author of 鈥淔leeing Castro: Operation Pedro Pan and the Cuban Children's Program.鈥� 鈥淭he State Department called Walsh in and said, 鈥楬ere. We have an idea for you.鈥欌��
That idea was visa waivers, which Professor Triay refers to as a 鈥渓egal loophole.鈥� Mr. Walsh sent signed waivers into Cuba, which were then mass produced underground in Cuba and covertly distributed.
Jos茅 Ramirez, a Pedro Pan who lives in Westford, Massachusetts, remembers that friends simply stopped showing up to school. Then one day Mr. Ramirez鈥檚 parents told him he was leaving for the United States. One week later, he was on a plane.
Many parents, like his, told their children that they were leaving for an academic opportunity, and that they would see them in a few months. Then the Cuban Missile Crisis happened in October 1962 and Castro ended commercial flights out of Cuba. Reunification got more complicated.
It鈥檚 unlikely thousands of children left the island without the knowledge of Castro鈥檚 extensive network of informants 鈥� especially considering that many visa waivers were distributed from a house across the street from police headquarters, according to Professor Eire. When Carlos Franqui, a revolutionary propagandist-turned-critic, came to speak at Yale, the professor asked him about the Cuban government鈥檚 knowledge of the operation. He responded with a smile.
鈥溾�楢nything that would destroy the bourgeois family was wonderful for us,鈥欌�� Professor Eire recalls Mr. Franqui saying.
Many of the Cuban families who participated were Catholic and middle class, groups deemed more likely to oppose Castro, and the majority were teenage boys. In the Castro years ahead, military-age men were rarely allowed to leave the island, Professor Triay says.
Professor Eire says 80,000 additional visa waivers were printed and distributed to Cuban children, suggesting at least 94,000 could have left had Castro not closed the country鈥檚 doors.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 how desperate Cuban parents were,鈥� he adds. 鈥淭hey were not mistaken in panicking.鈥�
Families old and new
When Mr. Galup landed in Florida, Walsh 鈥� who managed the operation from Miami 鈥� picked him up at the airport. He was then taken to Matecumbe, one of the many camps in south Florida where Pedro Pans stayed until they were picked up by family members or sent to foster homes or orphanages in , as reported by the Miami Herald. With no family in the U.S., Mr. Galup was transferred to a foster family in Ohio, who had seen an advertisement in the Catholic Chronicle asking for foster families for Cuban boys.
When Anne Desmond and her husband brought Mr. Galup home, he didn鈥檛 speak English, and she didn鈥檛 know Spanish. But he soon became a part of the family.
鈥淚 know he missed his parents terribly because he followed me around like crazy at the beginning,鈥� says Ms. Desmond. 鈥淗e would cry when I went to the grocery store. He would wait for me outside the bathroom door.鈥�
Mr. Galup lived with the Desmonds for two years before his grandparents came to the U.S. and brought him to Boston. His parents arrived about five years after that.
鈥淚 remember when I went to Logan Airport to pick them up. My grandfather said, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 your mom and your dad,鈥欌�� says Mr. Galup, who was 12 by then. 鈥淢y mother said in Spanish, 鈥楬e is a little American鈥� because I could only speak English.鈥�
Professor Eire spent almost four years in camps and foster homes before his mother arrived. He never saw his father again.
After the camp in Florida City, Ms. Lorbes was 鈥渟hipped out鈥� to a foster family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before reconnecting with family outside Boston, including her cousin, Mr. Ramirez. He still remembers watching his mother through the fishbowl before boarding his flight in January 1961, at age 15. It was six years before he saw his parents again.
鈥淚 remember to this very day, and I鈥檓 looking at her right now in my head, my mother鈥檚 face,鈥� says Mr. Ramirez, as he starts to cry. 鈥淭he saddest face I have ever seen in my life.鈥�
But family has also helped him heal. Going back to Cuba for the first time in 1994, he brought his oldest son, who was almost the same age Mr. Ramirez was when he left. They visited his school in Havana, the church where he took communion, and the beach where he swam.
鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 prepared for the emotions,鈥� says Ramirez. 鈥淲ithout my son, I can鈥檛 imagine what it would have been like. He saved me.鈥�
