Published Monday, December 4, 2000, in theMiami Herald
These were the children who were made to fly. They were slipped out of Cuba
on the wings of a secret, labyrinthine mission.
During a span of two years, the so-called Operation Pedro Pan exodus
delivered to us 14,000 Cuban refugee children, the largest migration of
unaccompanied minors in the hemisphere.
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the first arrivals, who landed on
Dec. 26.
Never mind the storybook identity bestowed upon this exodus. The clandestine
mission that defined their childhood years has involved more mystery than it has
magic.
Largely triggered by parents' fears that the Fidel Castro government would
take possession of their children and indoctrinate them, the exodus came to
stand for Cuba's ultimate heartache -- the separation of children from their
parents.
The children were scattered across the United States, about half of them
going to live with relatives, others landing in orphanages, foster homes and
boarding schools.
For decades they lived in relative obscurity, as exile history regarded
theirs as an inevitable exodus.
But in the last 10 years, many of the now-adult Pedro Pans began to dig up
their roots and challenge the fairy tale. Their questions led to long-lost
childhood friends and then to deeper questions about the role of the U.S.
government and the Catholic Church.
Gradually, Pedro Pans started uncovering the names and faces of people
involved in the covert operation.
"It was almost like a biological need to know. Pedro Pans all over the
world got this feeling of needing to be involved, honestly questioning how this
happened,'' recalls real estate agent Elly Vilano Chovel, a Pedro Pan child who
has made it her mission to locate the scattered children of her migration and to
piece together the behind-the-scenes story of their flight.
With her Operation Pedro Pan Group, she set out to document their shared
history. So far, she has located some 2,000 of the Pedro Pans, scores of success
stories among them. More than this, she and other now-adult refugee children
have brought to light the complex network of Cuban exiles and Americans who
assisted in their escape. Their research has sparked everything from books to
lawsuits -- one distinguished child of Pedro Pan sued the CIA for documents
pertaining to the exodus -- to the collection of oral histories.
And this year, as the Pedro Pan generation manifests a diverse identity, the
story of Cuba's most famous refugee child stirred great soul-searching and
plenty of debates among many Pedro Pans.
In the heightened months near the end of Elián González's stay
here, passionate e-mails flew between many of them.
As for Chovel, who took heat for advocating the child's return to his father
in Cuba, a visit with the boy sent her back to her childhood, when she landed in
a foreign world at age 14.
During her visit, last Dec. 28, she told Elián the story of Peter Pan
and about the children who came with her from Cuba.
"He kept asking me to teach him how to fly like Peter Pan,'' she
recalled last week in a Coral Gables cafe, where she sipped hot Chai.
"He kept saying, 'I want to fly, I want to be Peter Pan.' He said this
over and over, until I asked him why he wanted to fly. He whispered, 'So I can
go wherever I want to.' ''
The memory still brings tears to her eyes.
"It also brought a shocking awareness that nothing has changed,'' she
concluded.
"Families continue to be split 40 years later.''
That experience brought to surface all the old feelings of separation, the
pain she and other Pedro Pans have lived with for years and the sad realization
that they still cannot fly.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald | 