On the night of December 31, 1958, Fidel Castro and his band of revolutionaries crossed the mountains of the Sierra Maestra and overthrew the government of military dictator Fulgencio Batista. Four years later, Castro's oppressive communist agenda forced many desperate parents to secretly send their children out of the country.
Between 1960 and 1962, more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban minors flew from Havana to Miami under the sponsorship of the Catholic Welfare Bureau in Miami. These children were called Pedro Pan, and Estrella Rodriguez Pereira was one of them.
In this sincere and deeply moving account, Mrs. Pereira becomes the voice of those who never had the opportunity to express the profound pain of being torn from their homes, thrust into a different culture, language, and way of life in a foreign land. The author reveals the struggles, fears, and indomitable spirit that define a generation of Cuban-Americans who, for that reason, lost their childhood.
