Expression, close schools, expel priests and religious orders from the island. Others feared growing interventions into family life and panicked after rumors that castro intended to deprive parents of Legal Authority over their children began to circulate. Parents also sought to protect their children from communist indoctrination. Revolutionary schools. With the help of james baker, an American School headmaster in havana, the support of a Clandestine Group of anticastro cubans, in miami a young miami young irish immigrant priest, along with the support of the u. S. State department and most likely the Central Intelligence agency, cuban parents began spiriting their children off the island and into the care of the Catholic Church in the United States. They believed their separation would be temporary since few believed the United States would allow castros increasingly leftleaning revolution to survive. After the failure of the bay of pigs invasion in april 1961 and the october 1962 missile crisis destroyed their hopes, most of the parents of these children fled to the u. S. And reclaimed their sons and daughters in exile. However, a number did not see their children again for 5, 10 and even 15 years. Some of them were never reunited. These in broad brush strokes are the facts of what have become known over time of operation pedro pan. The facts that most cubans in the diaspora and on the island largely accept. However, cubans in the u. S. And on the island have come to attribute very different meaning to the childrens exodus. They disagree about the motives that inspired it, about whether to remember it as a humanitarian or politically motivated event. And they disagree about the impact the familial separation and life in Catholic Charities administered camps, foster homes, and orphanages had on young cuban refugees. These competing collective memories have emerged over time as pedro pan children grew matured, attended college, and began articulating their own identities. As they watched Television News stories about child refugees coming to the u. S. From South Vietnam in the 1970s, and as they watched new generations of unaccompanied Central American haitian, and even cuban children arriving in the u. S. , as they married and had their own children, and as they confronted changing political circumstances on the island and in the u. S. That allowed for dialogue and travel to the island beginning under the Carter Administration in the 1970s, and during the popes historic visit to cuba in 1998. Their competing collective memories about pedro pan came to the forefront of politics with a new degree of urgency in 1999 during the transnational custody battle for the fiveyearold Elian Gonzalez. For cuban americans who identify with or as cuban exiles, it has emerged as one of the principal metaphors for and symbol of the exile from a regime so oppressive and atheistic that loving parents were willing to sacrifice their children and send them into exile alone to protect them from communist indoctrination and preserve their catholic faith. Pedro panists have become living symbols of that. Their parents decision and the decision of all exiles to flee was a heroic deed and patriotic sacrifice, an act of love and loyalty to the dream of a democratic cuban republic. In cuba, pedro pan is remembered as an american imperialist attack initiated and managed by the cia and the Catholic Church. On the island, upper and middleclass families could destabilize a young revolution that enjoyed widespread popular support. In castros words, during operation pedro pan, 14,000 children were virtually kidnapped by the United States when counterrevolutionary groups organized by the cia distributed false government bills to spread the criminal lie that childrens custody would be taken from their parents. Panic was sown. These children were separated from their parents and sent to orphanages and detention centers. These dramatically opposed memories of operation pedro pan nonetheless share something in common. They all wrestle, albeit in very different ways, with the themes of faith, family, and freedom. These echo throughout the testimonies and narratives produced in cuba and its diaspora as cubans have attempted to make sense of the childrens exodus. The term operation pedro pan was first used on march 9, 1962, when miami Herald Reporter gene miller wrote a frontpage story about an underground railway in the sky that brought cuban children fleeing the revolution to the u. S. He called this exodus operation pedro pan, a cubanized version of james m barrys novel of the little boy that flew away to live with other lost boys. Even at the height of the operation, miller was aware that not everybody was likely to understand the exodus as a humanitarian one. In fact in the early article, he , noted the communists are sure to call this child smuggling. However, this perspective would remain a minority one, at least in the United States. A series of articles on the cuban childrens exodus would appear throughout 1960s in local, state, and National Newspapers describing cuban exiles and refugee children. These articles praised the humanitarian and anticommunist motives, which at that time were seen as the same thing, of those who administer the program and cared for the children. However, these articles would gloss over the origins of the children and how they ended up in the u. S. They rarely featured the voices or perspectives of the children themselves, but rather they framed their experiences as grateful, welladjusted children eager to adapt to u. S. Culture and felt a growing patriotic attachment to their new nation. These articles in the 1960s did not use the term pedro pan. However, less positive memories of the exodus remained alive in the hearts and minds of the small number of former child refugees. In 1978, a group of radicalized cubanamerican groups collaborated with a group in havana to publish a book of testimonies about the process of radicalization and alienation they experienced from both the american mainstream and their own exile community. The first section includes testimonies which describe the experience of these children now young adults, on them having left cuba. Many of them as unaccompanied refugees, although they too did not make reference to operation pedro pan. These testimonies downplayed their parents fears and expressed a sense of betrayal and even resentment towards parents who told them their separation from family and home would be a vacation. And a short one. These early narratives highlighted the unceasing pain of parental separation. They described poor conditions in the pedro pan reception camp where children have been housed and even physical and sexual abuse at the hands of fellow campmates, house parents, and even priests and nuns charged with their care. These radicalized youth charged the u. S. Of having manipulated and destroyed cuban families. Perhaps equally damning, they the book claimed the exile from the Cuban Community and the growing support for the cuban revolution began in the camps where they had been sent to shelter them from atheistic communism. Beginning in 1977, a small number of these radicalized pedro panists also traveled with the first brigade. The mission was implicitly linked to the operation of pedro pan since one of its goals was recapturing a sense of connection to cuba for the children torn from their homeland. The decision to visit the island provoked pain and conflict among families already strained by years of separation. It also understandably provoked anger in the community who felt their choice to return was a betrayal of exile commitment to a free and democratic cuba. Their choice to return to communist cuba rendered their parents sacrifice meaningless. In cuba however, the brigadistas were welcomed. Their ambivalence about their Parents Choice to send them alone into exile, their pain confusion, and resentment were acknowledged. However, this was not necessarily in the interest of allowing a greater interpretation of the exodus to be heard. Rather, it was because they left positive portrayals reinforced the competing collective memory of a drove pan that emerged on the island. That first visit was recorded in a documentary that we told for the cuban audience the painful story of operation pedro pan which it portrayed as a deliberate and politically motivated u. S. Plot to destroy cuban families and intervene in the islands sovereign affairs. Only a small number of pedro panists participated in the production of the book project. Even fewer visited the island in the late 1970s. However, these first critical testimonies motivated cuban americans to begin articulating a collective memory that appeared to more closely reflect the perspective of many pedro panists, their exiled family members, and the american mainstream. That operation pedro pan had been an inevitable humanitarianinspired, and largely successful child saving operation. In 1978, a first attempt was made to organize pedro panists as a group in the first Pedro Pan Foundation which planned an homage to monsignor bryan walsh in miami to honor him for what they called his mission of love amongst cuban refugee children. The event was attended by hundreds of cuban exiles and pedro panists. In 1986, they organized again. This time, the thank you, America Committee registered as a florida notforprofit corporation. In june, the thank you, America Committee held their first event, a picnic to raise funds for Catholic Charities programs still administered by monsignor bryan walsh to serve abandoned and neglected children in greater miami. Their Community Work reflected the 2500 Committee Members gratitude to the United States for offering them refuge as children fleeing communist cuba. We are grateful to this nation said the president of the committee, in a june 9, 1986 interview to the miami herald. If i was still in cuba, i would have nothing. I would be in jail. In the autumn of 1990, a group of pedro panists gathered at a shrine in miami to ask monsignor walshs blessing on a new Pedro Pan Foundation. The group dedicated itself to fundraising on behalf of refugee minors, including cuban children rescued during the crisis. It also raised money in support of Catholic Homes for children which had been destroyed by hurricane andrew. It also raised money to support boys town, a catholic shelter for abused, homeless, or unaccompanied minor boys 12 through 18, which had been constructed at the site of a former pedro pan camp. Operation Pedro Pan Group incorporated was motivated by its members belief they were fortunate to find shelter in the United States. The miami media and especially the exile media agreed with this interpretation of the exodus. Beginning in 1992, they began to publish a steady stream of news stories featuring pedro pan members stories and their own memories of the exodus. One such story quotes president chavez. [speaking spanish] shed knowledge to the experience she acknowledged the experience of most pedro panists was difficult, but her story nonetheless was the story of adversity overcome with a happy ending. The herald took this one step further, claiming these men and women had been protagonists in one of the most beautiful pages in the history of cuban exile and they are conscious of this. They have made their lives. Many of them have achieved in business, art, but they dont forget. It is not possible to forget the generosity and support of those around you. In its zeal to recognize the real achievements of many of miamis former pedro pan children, it failed to recognize that in fact most pedro pan children had not been protagonists of their childhood flight from the island. In most cases, the decision to come to the u. S. Was a decision made for them by their parents and even in some cases, against their wishes. In spite of this triumphant public discourse, amongst themselves, the members of the operation Pedro Pan Group understood many of their members still needed support to overcome the psychological wounds their extended separations from their family. In march of 1992, operation Pedro Pan Group held its First National conference. More than 100 pedro panists and their parents with monsignor walsh came from across the u. S. To share their experiences. This conference gave participants permission to speak about their less positive memories. News coverage in the miami media acknowledged pedro panists had both positive and negative experiences. An article in a news magazine admitted that for some of the bigger children, coming to the u. S. Was like coming to a summer camp. It went very well for them. However for others, especially for the littlest ones, they lived a nightmare. However, in the end, News Coverage of this cathartic event concluded in line with the exile communitys agreedupon narrative about operation pedro pan. With a happy ending. We are survivors, the article said. Today, the immense majority are responsible citizens of the society we live in. Any blame for their suffering fell strictly on the castro regime. We were politically abused by a cruel system that separated us from our parents and tried to rob our culture, our language, and our customs. But it did not succeed. The article concluded overall that the departure from cuba was because we grew up in freedom and we are grateful for that. Throughout the 1990s, operation Pedro Pan Group played an essential role in reinforcing a positive collective memory of operation pedro pan and its children as successful, well adapted, and grateful to their parents, the Catholic Church, in the United States for guaranteeing them religious and political liberties. They also initiated a history project which increasingly has attempted to include a diversity of perspectives on the exodus. The pedro pan archives were moved from miamis catholic archdiocese to barry university. Operation Pedro Pan Group committed itself to trying to make contact with all of the more than 14,000 unaccompanied children who had come to the u. S. Through operation pedro pan. As part of this new interest in the 1990s amongst pedro panists who are now parents and in some cases grandparents in preserving their memories of the exodus the cubanamerican playwright began interviewing prominent exiles and leaders and participants in operation pedro pan, including monsignor walsh and jim baker. These, together with oral histories, are archived in the cuban living History Collection housed here in the special collection. Growing interest for operation pedro pan in miami also produced a ripple effect. Interest grew on the island as well. In 1996, the revolutionary film producer, whose brother frank had left cuba as a pedro panist in 1963 when he was 10 years old, produced a documentary which consisted of a series of interviews with cubanamerican women who had been pedro pan children. The documentary examined the emotional toll the experience of separation had on these womens lives. However, despite recognizing the material wellbeing and success these women achieved in the u. S. , the documentary portrayed these women as suffering still and struggling to understand the role played by the u. S. Government in stimulating the childrens exodus. This transnational contest between competing collective memories of operation pedro pan reached a peak between 1998 and 2000 when wpbt channel 2 in south florida made several documentaries about operation pedro pan and several books were published. The research was not struggling strictly motivated by academic curiosity. In a letter to monsignor bryan walsh, he admitted he sought to paint a positive picture of the exile, which he felt was especially important in light of previous negative portrayals like those found in the book. The book in november of 1999, a fiveyearold boy was rescued off the coast. His mother died. His miami relatives immediately claimed him as their own while his father called for his return to his island home. Overnight, the Elian Gonzalez custody battle infused the contest with memories of Peter Pedro Pan with a painful new urgency. The small boy became, for miamis cubanamericans, a symbol of all of the 14,000 pedro panists whose parents had similarly taken great risks to secure their freedom and future in the United States. Returning him to castros cuba they argued would be an affront to the memory of the sacrifices and hardships of their parents and those endured by all exiles. Cubans on the island also linked elian to the childrens exodus. In cuba, a new book was hastily put into production. [speaking spanish] operation pedro pan the case of psychological warfare against cuba. The promotional tag called it the story of 14,000 elians. Castro declared his efforts to rescue elian and reunite him with his father symbolically repaired the injustices committed on the thousands of cuban families destroyed as a result of the u. S. Operation pedro pan. We all know how that story ended. Elian was returned to cuba. The collective memories of the struggle to keep him in the u. S. And collective memories of operation pedro pan persist in havana and miami. On both sides of the florida strait, scholars and artists have continued retelling the story of the childrens exodus. On the island and in the diaspora, cubans affected by operation