Fleeing Castro

Download or read book Fleeing Castro written by Victor Andres Triay and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The first complete and comprehensive work on these important, unique programs. . . . An interesting, humane, yet tragic component of the post-1959 Cuban experience and the Cold War in general."--Antonio Benitez-Rojo, Amherst College "The ordeal began [for the children] when their parents told them they had to travel alone and that they had to keep the upcoming trip a secret. The most powerful parts of the book are their accounts. . . . Through interviews with many of the participants—the children and their parents, the coordinators of the airlift, those in the underground in Cuba and the Catholic sponsors in the United States—Triay attempts to answer many of the questions the exodus raised."--Miami Herald A stirring account of the covert effort to smuggle Cuban children into the United States in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's rise to power, Fleeing Castro brings to light the humanitarian program designed to care for the children once they arrived and the hardship and suffering endured by the families who took part in Operation Pedro Pan. From late 1960 until the October 1962 missile crisis, 14,048 unaccompanied Cuban children left their homeland, the small island suddenly at the center of the Cold War struggle. Their parents, unable to obtain visas to leave Cuba, believed a short separation would be preferable to subjecting their offspring to Castro's totalitarian Marxist state. For the children, the exodus began a prolonged and tragic ordeal--some didn’t see their parents again for years; a few never did. Until now, this chapter of the Cuban Revolution has been relatively obscure. Initially the result of an effort by James Baker, headmaster of an American school in Cuba who worked closely with the anti-Castro underground, Pedro Pan quickly came to involve the Catholic Church in Miami and, in particular, Father Bryan Walsh, who established the Cuban Children's Program, the nationwide organization that cared for those children without relatives or friends in the United States--almost half of them. The latter program, in effect until 1981, was the first to allot federal money to private agencies for child care, an action with far-reaching repercussions for U.S. social policy. Victor Andres Triay traces this story from its political and social origins in Cuba, setting it in the context of the Cold War and describing the roles of the organizations involved in Cuba and in the United States. Making use of extensive interviews with Baker, Walsh, and influential underground figures, as well as personal letters that document the fears and dreams of both the parents and the children, Triay presents this history of Pedro Pan--the largest child refugee movement ever in the Western Hemisphere--with the drama of an international thriller and the pathos of a heartbreaking family drama.

Download or read book Fleeing Castro written by Victor Andres Triay and published by . This book was released on 1999-08 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the covert effort to smuggle Cuban children into the USA in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's rise to power, this book focuses on the humanitarian programme designed to care for children once they arrived and the hardship and suffering endured by the families.

Download or read book Leaving Castro's Cuba written by Marina Villa and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Zeida's notes: In that summer of 1962 I was told to teach a group of basic secondary teachers a summer course in math. It was a nice group and we enjoyed it without ever talking of politics. But now my mind was made up. I was going to leave the country that very same year. Everything was completely controlled by the government. There was not any personal freedom. I didn't want my girls to grow up with such rigid controls. I wanted them free, so I had to leave. At the time she was not prepared for the obstacles she'd have to face. This is the story of one middle-class family who shares in the excitement of Castro's victory only to experience disillusionment and betrayal. Struggling against repression and economic hardships, Marina's mother, Zeida, a teacher and single mother, goes to extraordinary measures to protect her daughters and defend her principles. Marina Villa's illuminating account of life in Cuba during its communist transformation and the family's immigration to the United States is an inspiring gift that puts into full relief the Cuban-American experience. Marina uses excerpts from her mother's writings, interviews with friends and family members, and her own memories to tell her mother's story. Full of the same spirit her mother brought to her life, Leaving Castro's Cuba: The Story of an Immigrant Family recounts their journey while weaving a rich tapestry of familial sacrifice, courage, and love.

Download or read book Escape from Castro's Cuba written by Tim Wendel and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-03 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a 2021 Top Thriller by Alta Journal ​2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist in Action/Adventure Fiction 2021 Professional Achievement Award, Johns Hopkins University faculty Finalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year In this visionary sequel to Castro’s Curveball, the former Washington Senators Minor League catcher has returned to Havana with a small role in a movie being filmed on location. Billy Bryan soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before. Against his better judgment, Billy becomes entangled in a scheme to spirit a top baseball prospect off the island. This pits him against his old friend Fidel Castro. Despite being in his final days, the dictator remains a dangerous adversary, as does the Cuban sports machine and the Mexican crime syndicates that now direct baseball talent toward the U.S. Major Leagues. In Escape from Castro’s Cuba, Billy must once again navigate the crosscurrents of the so-called City of Columns: a place where the sunsets from the Hotel Nacional along the Malecón breakwater are as beautiful as ever, but where the alleyways in Old Havana still fan out, crooked and broken, like an old catcher’s fingers.

Download or read book Cuba in Revolution written by Miguel A. Faria and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Child of the Revolution written by Luis M. Garcia and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2006-06 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cuba, a land of cigars, hot nights, sultry music and romantic revolutionary heroes. But what was it really like to live in Fidel Castro's tropical paradise? With an evocative wide-eyed innocence, Luis M. Garcia takes us back to his Cuban childhood and his parents' dreams of escape. Child of the Revolution is a story about growing up in an extraordinary place at an extraordinary time, as the superpowers prepared to go to war over nuclear missiles installed on the tiny Caribbean island. It's a story set in a world of uncertainty and revolutionary upheaval, where a 10-year-old swears allegiance to Lenin, Marx and the legendary Che Guevara under swaying palm trees, with no idea of what it all means, except this is the only way to become a better revolutionary' and get out of school early. It is also the story of brothers and sisters torn apart by politics and how a Cuban teenager and his family end up by sheer accident - on the other side of the world. Warm, generous and gently amusing, Child of the Revolution stirs the heart and brings music to the soul.

Download or read book Marita written by Marita Lorenz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic, glamorous story of lover-turned-spy Marita Lorenz and her affair with Fidel Castro. Few people can say they’ve seen some of the most significant moments of the twentieth century unravel before their eyes. Marita Lorenz is one of them. Born in Germany at the outbreak of WWII, Marita was incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. In 1959, she travelled to Cuba where she met and fell in love with Fidel Castro. Yet upon fleeing to America, she was recruited by the CIA to assassinate the Fidel. Torn by love and loyalty, she couldn’t bring herself to slip him the lethal pills. Her life would take many more twists and turns—including having a child with ex-dictator of Venezuela, Marcos Pérez Jiménez; testifying about the John F. Kennedy assassination; and becoming a party girl with close ties the New York mafia (and then a police informant). Caught up in Cold War intrigue, espionage, and conspiracy, this is Marita’s incredible autobiography of a young woman who became a spy for the CIA.