Peter Pans Discovering Cuba
HAVANA TIMES, Sept. 5 — One source of regular readers of HT are some of the 55-65 year olds who were sent without their parents from Havana to Miami in the early 1960s as young children or teenagers.
This group which was said to surpass 14,000 in the airlift promoted by the Catholic Church in coordination with the US State Dept.
Because of the poor state of relations between the US and Cuba some of the Peter Pans lost contact with family back on the island and while integrating into US schools and society Cuba became far more distant than the 90 miles separating the two countries.
Today the Philadelphia Inquirer runs a feature on people who came to the US on Operation Peter Pan titled:
50 years later, ‘Pedro Pans’ reflect on pivotal Cuba-to-U.S. trip.
You know, these people didn’t have to leave. As the article clearly points out (in spite of its intentions), many who left — especially by air — were privileged individuals who had prospered under Batista, and who did not want to adjust to the socialist project in any way. It’s hard to feel sorry for them, really. And in fact, I feel much sorrier for the later Mariel boat people: who in most cases were regular cubans who simply have lost faith in the possibility of socialism in Cuba, after decades of brutally-obvious praxis.