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

Praise for the first
edition:

"Compelling
reading."--New Republic

"A collection
of tearful testimonies woven with a tale of the event that unfolded in Cuba and
led desperate parents to make the heart-wrenching decision to send their
children along to a foreign country."--Miami Herald

"[Conde]
does an impressive job of reporting dozens of personal stories and fascinating
vignettes. . . . A compilation of tales, some moving, many astonishing."--Chicago
Tribune

"A
well-researched history of Operation Pedro Pan, a portrait of early
revolutionary Cuba and a compendium of testimony from the now-grown children."--Publishers
Weekly

"The
book's primary value lies in the individual stories, from tearful departure and
arrival in Miami to temporary shelters and placement in homes or, in some
cases, in orphanages; to learning a new language and adjusting and, in many
cases, assimilating; to reunions with parents, adolescence in the '60s and '70s,
and adulthood."--Booklist

"Conde
does an excellent job of narrating the essential outline of the history of
Operation Pedro Pan, and an equally superb job of analyzing the circumstances
that created this exodus, from the viewpoint of those who felt compelled to
create it and keep it going. . . . Operation
Pedro Pan is . . . as much a primary source as it is a work of history, as
much a window onto a mentality as it is a guide to events, names, and
institutions."--Carlos M. N. Eire, Hispanic
American Historical Review

"Fascinating
is the least one can say about this book. It's the story of thousands of Cuban children
who wouldn't grow up under communism and were sent by their parents to the never-never
land of America. Some of them lived happily ever after because this version of
Peter Pan is a tragedy with a happy ending sometimes. Fidel Castro, by the way,
plays a very credible Captain Hook."--Guillermo
Cabrera Infante , Cervantes Prize‒winning
novelist

On
August 11, 1961, at the age of ten, Yvonne Conde left Cuba in one of the world's
largest political exoduses of children in history--Operation Pedro Pan. Between
1960 and 1962 over 14,000 children were sent out of Cuba alone by desperate
parents who feared for their children's future under Castro. Unlike Peter Pan,
however, these children continued to grow up even while separated from their
families.

As the children arrived in temporary camps in Miami,
volunteers such as Father Bryan O. Walsh helped them find new homes across the
country. Conde tracked down hundreds of these children to tell their diverse
stories--their uplifting, poignant, and sometimes tragic experiences in American
foster homes and orphanages. Because Conde herself was a Pedro Pan child,
others have opened up to her like never before to share their feelings about
this painful time in their lives. Today, these children and their families
struggle to heal the emotional scars of their long separation.

In this edition, with a new prologue, Conde looks
back on Operation Pedro Pan from the vantage point of six decades and brings
readers up to date on events and discoveries since the groundbreaking first publication
of this book in 1999. Writing with compassion and rare insight, Conde uncovers
the true tales of a little-known episode of the Cold War.