OPERATION PEDRO PAN
New Miami Herald database details Operation Pedro Pan
The Miami Herald on Sunday will unveil the first-ever database of the
names of the 14,048 youngsters who came to the United States via
Operation Pedro Pan, the famed exodus of children.
BY LUISA YANEZ
lyanez@MiamiHerald.com
14,048 frightened Cuban youngsters.
That's the number sent ahead to the United States nearly 50 years ago by
desperate parents convinced Fidel Castro's violent wave of Communism
would ensnare their children.
The historic escape famously known as Operation Pedro Pan was concocted
by an American school master, James Baker of Ruston Academy in Havana
and carried out by an Irish priest in Miami, Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh --
all with the money and blessing of the federal government.
No official computerized listing has existed of the 6- to 17-year-olds
who took part in the clandestine airlift, the largest recorded exodus of
unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere. It began in December
1960 and ended in October 1962 -- a casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
On Sunday, The Miami Herald will unveil the first-of-its-kind Operation
Pedro Pan Database -- a searchable listing of the 14,048 youngsters'
names, their ages upon arrival in the United States and their immediate
destination. The database will be accessible at www.MiamiHerald/pedropan.
In its print edition, The Herald will chronicle the story of the secret
operation and share the tales of a handful of Operation Pedro Pan
veterans who began their lives in exile alone, as unaccompanied minors
who went to live in camps and centers, foster homes and orphanages until
they could be reunited with their parents.
Fittingly, the mission was given its name by the late Gene Miller, a
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The Miami Herald.
This weekend, those attending Cuba Nostalgia at Tamiami Park Fair-Expo
Center in west Miami-Dade can preview the database at The Miami Herald
pavilion through Sunday.
The names in the database come from what Pedro Pan historians call ''the
Airport Log'' -- handwritten names of the children kept by Jorge
''George'' Guarch, a Cuban exile hired by the Catholic Church to greet
the children at Miami International Airport and help with their paperwork.
''I remember my parents saying goodbye to me in Havana and reminding me
to ask for George the minute I landed in Miami,'' said Eloisa Echazabal,
who came through the program at age 13. ``And when I got off the plane,
he was there to help us, just like they had told me. That was very
comforting to me.''
Echazabal didn't realize it at the time, but Guarch wrote down her name
and her 8-year-old sister's, Teresita, who accompanied her. They appear
on the log and are now included in the database.
Among other Pedro Panners in the database: Florida's U.S. Sen. Mel
Martinez; singers Willy Chirino and his wife Lissette; Miami City
Commissioner Tomas Regalado; developers Armando Codina and Ralph
Sanchez; and The Florida Bar president Frank Angones.
The most notorious? Famed drug kingpin Sal Magluta, who with his partner
Willy Falcon ran Miami's biggest drug empire in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Books and documentaries have tried to capture the fear that prompted so
many parents to send their unaccompanied children to America -- and the
culture shock they experienced when they found themselves living with
strangers in this country.
Today, Echazabal, a member of Operation Pedro Pan Group in Miami, is
among veterans of the mission -- many now in their 60s -- also working
feverishly to preserve the history of the Pedro Pan exodus.
''I don't think in our lifetime there will be another large effort to
help children escape communism,'' she said.
This is the second database related to Cuban exile history compiled by
The Miami Herald.
Last year, the newspaper launched The Freedom Flights Database, which
lists the names of the 260,000 Cubans who came to Miami on those daily
flights between 1965 and 1973. That database can be found at
www.miamiherald.com/ revolution
New Miami Herald database details Operation Pedro Pan - Miami-Dade -
MiamiHerald.com (13 May 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1045328.html
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