Culture
Carlos Eire describes his experiences in Operation Peter Pan in his memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana.
Yvonne M. Conde, also a Pedro Pan, conducted research and interviews and wrote a book titled "Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children".
Other Pedro Pans have attempted to weave their memoirs into a broader understanding of not only U.S.-Cuba relations but also Cuban Diaspora-Cuba relations. Román de la Campa's Cuba on My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation does this by exploring Cuba's two capitals, Havana and Miami, and the hybrid position of the "one-and-half-generation" as well as by using the Elián González affair as a cipher for understanding how adults in both countries used children to achieve the broader ideological goals of the Cold War and how those goals are faring at the so-called "end of history".
Tori Amos made a song about this operation titled "Operation Peter Pan". It has been released as a b-side through the single of "A Sorta Fairytale", taken from the album Scarlet's Walk.
The song "Baby Elián" by Manic Street Preachers from their album Know Your Enemy also makes reference to Operation Peter Pan. During the chorus James Dean Bradfield exclaims, "Kidnapped to the promised land, the Bay of Pigs or baby Elián. Operation Peter Pan, America, the devil's playground."
Jimmy Smits' character in the TV series Cane mentioned in several episodes, that he came to the US via Pedro Pan.
Ana Mendieta is another famous Pedro Pan refugee. She was placed in several institutions and foster homes in Iowa and returned to Cuba several times over the course of her short life to "rediscover" her cultural origins. During her visits, she established contacts with the "Volumen Uno" artists, created works in natural settings, and exhibited at the National Museum in Havana. Her work has also been showcased at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and at the Hirshhorn, a Smithsonian Museum, in Washington DC amongst many other International museums. Some of this information was taken from an article titled "A Tree from Many Shores" published by Art Journal.
In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, an effort to help Haitian orphans has been named Operation Pierre Pan in reference.
Read more about this topic: Operation Peter Pan
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