Father was part of Cuban airlift

He was one of the 14,000 Cuban children who participated in Operation Pedro Pan in 1960-62, the largest exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere.

The children were sent to the United States after Fidel Castro's rise to power. Ranging in age from six to 18, the youths arrived in Miami between December 1960 and October 1962. They were placed in the care of the Catholic Welfare Bureau.

Some of the children had relatives in the United States that they were sent to live with. Others, like Mr. Gonzalez, were on their own.

"I was an altar boy at the largest parish in Havana," Mr. Gonzalez said. The parish priest convinced Mr. Gonzalez's parents that it wasn't safe for their son to stay in the country.

"I was seven years old," he said. "My mother and grandmother put me on the airplane with a sandwich. I was wearing my blue suit. My mother gave me her engagement ring."

In Miami, the children were housed in Navy and Marine barracks. Later, he was sent to a reform school in Portland, Oregon. "I ran away three times," he said.

Eventually, his father, a former police officer, was able to flee Cuba. Working in a sweatshop, he eventually earned enough money to bring his wife and eight-month-old daughter to the U.S. Together, the parents then worked to earn money to retrieve their son from Oregon. The family was eventually reunited in New Jersey.

(To learn more about Operation Pedro Pan go to www.pedropan.org.)(CNS) (01-20-00) [[In-content Ad]]