Today’s article comes from The Miami Herald: Pedro Pan site Hits Milestone as Social Networking Connection. By Luisa Yanez. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1211386.html
The interesting thing about the Miami Herald is that it’s probably the only city in America where Cuba makes front page news almost daily. Today they posted a story about a new database/social networking site that the Miami Herald has made for and by Cuban-Americans, specifically for Peter Pan Kids (keep reading if you don’t know what this is).
Forget what you know about Facebook or Twitter or any other kind of “social networking” – this is a website that connects people linked by a particular socio-historical moment in time. Operation Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan) was a movement that transported children from Cuba, alone without their parents, to America from 1960-1962. It was directed mostly by Monsigner Bryan O. Walsh and the Catholic Church. The idea was to get these kids out of Communist Cuba, where the parents were becoming fearful of the new regime and what it meant for their children. Later, they would reunite with their children, when they themselves could get out. That was the plan. Some of the kids, however, remained orphans, never seeing their parents again.
Just imagine it: being in Cuba, a kid, your parents whispering in the kitchen and all of a sudden you are being shipped to a camp in Florida with other Peter Pans, and eventually taken into foster care. Talk about growing up fast – the irony of the title of this operation never ceases to amaze me. Some stories are happier ones, granted. Regardless, these stories make up a part of American history as much as they do Cuban history and the database the Miami Herald has created is allowing for this story to be told in the first person. A great effort, I think.
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