The Lost Children of Cuba: Operation Pedro Pan

María de Los Angeles or “Nena” Torres is a professor of Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the executive director of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, also known as IUPLR. As a child, she was put on a plane and sent to the U.S. to wait for parents as a part of Operation Pedro Pan, a U.S. government program that aimed to protect Cuban children from Castro dissidents. Life in the U.S. wasn’t necessarily easy for Nena—her parents did join her shortly after she arrived but they faced racism and discrimination in Midland, Texas. As an adult, she sought to fill in the gaps of her childhood memories and uncover the often left-out history of Operation Pedro Pan. What she finds reveals the importance of who tells the story.