World apart and years away : operacion Pedro Pan and the Cuban children's program

Abstract

Between December 1960 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, 14,048 Cuban children were sent by their families out of the country to the United States through a program known as Operacion Pedro Pan. The children's memories of their homeland, their adopted country, and the program itself were formed by such factors as their age at the time of their expatriation, the length time that they spent apart from their families, and the communities that they were exposed to in the United States. While several novels and scholarly works have been written about Operation Pedro Pan, many authors have debated its purpose- whether or not the Central Intelligence Agency was trying to destabilize Fidel Castro's government- and its effectiveness because, having been a part of the exodus, their experiences influence how they report the stories of others. This paper analyzes newspaper articles, surveys, interviews, and literature written by Pedro Pans such as Carlos Eire's Waiting/or Snow in Havana, to determine how the widely accepted narrative of the United States saving Cuban children from "communist indoctrination" was formed in the United States and how this compares to the experiences of the Pedro Pan Children.

Notes

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Thesis Completion

2010

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Martinez-Fernandez, Luis

Degree

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Degree Program

History

Subjects

Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic;Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities

Format

Print

Identifier

DP0022513

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Document Type

Honors in the Major Thesis

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