14,048

Thank you all for your wonderful response to the post about Christina Diaz Gonzalez's book, The Red Umbrella. I received lots of emails and Facebook and Twitter comments.

I was struck by a couple of things, which I had already suspected:

Most Cubans knew about the Pedro Pans, but unless they had read Yvonne Conde's excellent book, Operacion Pedro Pan, they didn't know how many children were affected.
Outside of the Cuban community, and a few others, most people had never even heard that such a thing had occurred.

14,048. That number is staggering to me. Let that sink in for just a moment. These people are adults now. Many have never recovered from the pain of that initial separation from their parents.

Can you, as a parent, imagine the agony of making such a life altering decision? Can you imagine the fear of the alternative?

Cuba continues, to this day, to be an enigma to many.

But hear this: There are still many desperate parents on the island, without hope for a future for their children. The government continues to take parental privilege from them. The government, in fact, continues to steal lives, every single day.

But in the early 60's, 14,048 lives were saved.

Thanks, Christina, for telling such a beautiful story.

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As usual when I have a comment giveaway drawing, I plugged the names into the True Random Number Generator at Random.org and came up with two winners.

Congratulations to the winners of The Red Umbrella:

Ivis Suarez said...

* Are you personally related to or do you know any Pedro Pans?

My father in law is a Pedro Pan. Thankfully, he was reunited with his parents. I don't really know the details, though.

* Is this the first time you've heard about the Pedro Pan exodus?

No, but I didnt know it was so many children.

Ivis

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and

Kristen Benson said...

Yes, I had heard about Pedro Pan before I met you, but I didn't have a face to it before. It has a different impact when you know someone who was affected. I cried reading these posts...wow...I have no words...

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If you can make it, this weekend, please say hello to Christina and get her fabulous book. Again, she will be at the following: