“The world changed while I slept, and much to my surprise, no one had consulted me.” – Carlos Eire, Ph.D, Pedro Pan April 6, 1962, Age11
Over 14,000 Cuban youth came to the United States by themselves between December 1960 and October 1962. The largest known unaccompanied minor evacuation in the Western Hemisphere. It is now known as Operation Pedro Pan. These children, now adults, have an official website where they tell their stories. Over the next six months, until December 10, 2025, you will be able to visit a temporary exhibition at the Victims of Communism Museum located near the White House at 900 15th Street, NW Washington, DC 20005, and tickets are available online.
The official opening of the exhibit was on June 25, 2025 with a number of dignitaries including two keynote addresses by Cuban authors and academics Victor Andres Triay and Carlos Eire, who is also a Pedro Pan. Videos of their presentations were recorded, and are available below.
Victor Andres Triay provided an overview of the first three years of Castroism, and the concerns it raised among Cuban parents on the island.
What of the Cuban children who remained behind, and the parents who successfully got their children out, but themselves could not leave? Carlos Eire addressed these questions.
Below is more coverage on the official opening of the exhibit yesterday.
Caplin News, June 26, 2025
Honoring Operation Pedro Pan and the Cuban-American journey in D.C. (includes video story)
The Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, D.C, has unveiled a powerful new exhibit honoring Operation Pedro Pan, the largest child refugee movement in the Western Hemisphere. The exhibit marks a significant step in preserving Cuban-American history and commemorates the thousands of children who fled communist Cuba between 1960 and 1962 in search of freedom and safety.
The exhibit opened with a special reception hosted by FIU at its D.C. bureau and brought together Pedro Pan survivors, public officials and cultural leaders to reflect on forced migration and celebrate the resilience of those who lived it.
Bethsy Parajon, one of the Pedro Pan participants, spoke about the emotional weight of seeing the exhibit reach beyond Miami.
“You should learn, and you should learn from what happened to us,” said Parajon. “And it’s real people, and we have made it good, you know, and we have not lost our roots.”
For Parajon and many others, the exhibit is not just historical, it’s deeply personal.
Organizers hope the exhibit helps educate audiences about the dangers of totalitarian regimes, while also highlighting the generosity of the American people who welcomed thousands of Cuban children. As CasaCuba prepares to break ground on its future home at FIU, this exhibit stands as both a reminder of past sacrifices and a symbol of enduring cultural identity.
Laura Iglesias is a sophomore majoring in TV & Broadcasting. After graduating, she dreams of pursuing a career in television to inform communities.
Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter, June 26, 2025
Saving Cuban Children: Operation Pedro Pan
A new exhibit opens at the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington DC
By John Suarez
Operation Pedro Pan: The Cuban Children’s Exodus officially opened yesterday at the Victims of Communism Museum located at 900 15th Street, NW Washington, DC 20005. There is also a permanent exhibit that provides a global view of the human costs of communism in the world. Tickets are available online.
Placing Operation Pedro Pan in context
Prior to Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship that came to power on March 10, 1952, Cuba’s two previous democratic governments diligently upheld civil liberties while making significant contributions to the advancement of international human rights.
Ramón Grau San Martín was president of Cuba during two periods, the first between 1933 and 1934 and the second between 1944 and 1948.
During his first term, since he was a bachelor, his niece, Maria Leopoldina Grau-Alsina, served as the country’s first lady. Polita Grau was her more well-known name. She actively resisted the dictatorships of General Gerardo Machado, and Fulgencio Batista but initially backed the 1959 revolution.
However, she turned against the new regime after Fidel Castro began using firing squads in 1959, and by 1960, she was actively opposing it.
Cuban author and academic Victor Andres Triay addressed the opening of the new exhibit yesterday, in which he provided a more detailed overview of the first three years of Castroism, and the concerns it raised among Cubans on the island.
For example, Fidel Castro declared in the spring of 1960 that secondary schools would close and that “youth camps” would be established in rural areas, where Cuban children would be taught to work in agriculture and adopt a revolutionary way of life.
The dictatorship’s new ally, the Soviet Union, offered scholarships to the best and brightest to study abroad.
Castro said he would “terminate the school year and mobilize all the students from sixth grade up and send them to revolutionary schools in the countryside,” in a speech that sent shivers down the spines of many Cuban parents.
In an attempt to eradicate religious instruction, the Cuban dictatorship seized the majority of seminaries and confiscated private schools, including Catholic schools in May 1961. 131 priests, brothers, and a bishop were rounded up by the Castro regime at gunpoint in September 1961, loaded onto the Spanish ship Covadonga, and sent out of Cuba. A large number of the priests who remained were sent to forced labor camps. In 1961 alone, more than 300 priests, nuns, and brothers were expelled from Cuba.
Together with her brother Ramón Grau-Alsina, nicknamed “Mongo”, and Albertina O’Farrill (the wife of a Cuban diplomat) and Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh of the Archdiocese of Miami beginning on December 26, 1960 Polita Grau assisted the exodus of thousands of Cuban children from the Castro dictatorship. Eloísa Echazába, a young woman rescued by Operation Peter Pan, interviewed Albertina O’Farrill in 2011 and asked her about it.
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