Operation Peter Pan

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Operation Peter Pan

Part of the Golden exile
Cuban children waiting in line to emigrate.
Date	1960–1962
Location	Cuba
Cause	Education in Cuba Closing of private schools Cuban literacy campaign Studies in the Soviet Union Youth camps Opposition to Fidel Castro
Outcome	14,000 unaccompanied minors arrive in the United States

Operation Peter Pan (or Operación Pedro Pan) was a clandestine exodus of over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban minors ages 6 to 18 to the United States over a two-year span from 1960 to 1962. They were sent by parents who feared, on the basis of unsubstantiated rumors,^[1] that Fidel Castro and the Communist party were planning to terminate parental rights and place minors in alleged "communist indoctrination centers", commonly referred to as the Patria Potestad.^[2] No such actions by the Castro regime ever took place.

The program consisted of two main components: the mass evacuation of Cuban children via airplane to the United States – Miami as a particularly common hub – and the programs set up to care for them once they arrived. Both were led by Father Bryan O. Walsh of the Catholic Welfare Bureau. The operation was the largest exodus of minor refugees in the Western Hemisphere at the time. It operated covertly out of fear that it would be viewed as an anti-Castro political enterprise.