Exiled

A Refugee's Story
Journey of a Pedro Pan

A Stolen Childhood

On the night of December 31, 1958, Fidel Castro and his band of revolutionaries swarmed down from the Sierra Maestra Mountains and overthrew the government of the military dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Four years later, Castro’s oppressive Communist agenda forced anguished parents to smuggle their children out of the country.

Between 1960 and 1962, over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban minors flew from Havana to Miami under the sponsorship of the Catholic Welfare Bureau. The children were called Pedro Pans, and Estrella Rodríguez Pereira is one of them.
In this candid and deeply heartfelt account, Ms. Pereira becomes the voice of those unable to articulate the depths of their pain as they were uprooted from their homes, thrust into a foreign land, culture, language, and way of life. She reveals the struggles, fears, and indomitable spirit that defines a generation of Cuban Americans who lost their childhood.