The current international media coverage of immigrants risking their lives to emigrate to a free country makes my personal story meaningful, educational, and relevant. A cruise to Cuba during the Christmas holidays of 2018 brought me back to my childhood when my family was being forced to adapt to a communist revolution. Then came the disappointment of a failed citizens revolt that attempted to return the country to a democracy, the subsequent raid by armed soldiers of my family’s home and the eventual arrest of my father without cause. These were only a few of the events that forced my family to plan our exodus to the United States.
At the age of 8, I was sent to the U.S. alone with my brother under a program coordinated by the Catholic Charites and the U.S. State Department. Operation Pedro Pan is the largest mass exodus of children in the Western Hemisphere. We were welcomed to a new homeland by a network of generous religious organizations, corporations, private citizens, and a country that had empathy for families seeking asylum from restricted and dangerous societies. I had to live in numerous locations including a regretful stay in an orphanage for troubled young boys from broken families who could not be placed in foster homes. While I was still separated from my family, I experienced the horrors of a close encounter with nuclear war.
My book combines my experience in Cuba during the cruise, my recollections as a child, and how political events and decisions made by the Cuban, U.S. and Soviet Union governments during that time changed the course of history and affected my family directly. I wrote this book because history is important and should have a significant place in our education system. Without it, we have no platform from which to leap ahead. I wrote this book because new generations should have access to roads others have paved in the past that perhaps have made life just a bit better for everyone. I wrote this book in hopes that readers take what they can, continue to build their own path and distance themselves from mistakes of the past.
विषयसूची
Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgment
Dedication
About the Author
Operation Pedro Pan
Prologue
PART ONE
Chapter 1 – Happy New Year – 1959
Chapter 2 – Welcome to La Habana – 2018
Chapter 3 – Church and Lunch – 1959
Chapter 4 – Calle J.H. Goss – 2018
Chapter 5 – Keep to Yourself – 1959
Chapter 6 – Touring La Habana – 2018
Chapter 7 – La Habana Vieja – 2018
Chapter 8 – A Shopping Experience -1950s
Chapter 9 – Summer at the Beach – 1960
Chapter 10 – Leaving La Habana – 2018
Chapter 11 – Back to School – 1960
Chapter 12 – Bay of Pigs – 1961
Chapter 13 – After the Invasion – 1961
Chapter 14 – It’s Time to Leave – 1961
Chapter 15 – Santiago de Cuba – 2018
Chapter 16 – Dress Rehearsal – 1962
Chapter 17 – February 17, 1962
PART TWO
Chapter 18 – It’s the People – 2018
Chapter 19 – Welcome to Miami – 1962
Chapter 20 – A New Home – 1962
Chapter 21 – Reflecting at Sea – 2018
Chapter 22 – A New Life – 1962
Chapter 23 – Moving Again – 1962
Chapter 24 – Christmas Eve – 2018
Chapter 25 – Welcome to New York – 1962
Chapter 26 – Life in the Orphanage – 1962
Chapter 27 – A Merry Christmas – 2018
Chapter 28 – Return to Miami – 1962
Chapter 29 – Cuban Missile Crisis – 1962
Chapter 30 -Another Move – 1963
PART THREE
Chapter 31 – A Move to Connecticut – 1963
Chapter 32 – The Morning Light – 1963
Chapter 33 – Leaving Cuba – 2018
Chapter 34 – Happy New Year – 1964
Epilogue
Note from the Author
Photos
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Anthony Timiraos was born in Havana, Cuba and currently resides in South Florida with his husband Arthur who has been by his side for 51 years. He began his professional career as a Certified Public Accountant in Hartford, Connecticut. Various career advancement moves for both brought them to Boston, New York City and back to Connecticut. A retirement to South Florida in 2003 was shortened when he accepted the position of Chief Financial Officer for the county’s community foundation. After five years, he co-founded, with four other local philanthropists, Our Fund, Inc, a new community foundation serving LGBTQ+ non-profit organizations providing services in South Florida. He became their first Chief Executive Office and President in 2011 and retired in 2016 to enjoy travel and photography. Our Fund, Inc. is currently one of the largest LGBTQ+ community foundations in the country.His love for travel and photography began in his early college years, Today, Anthony has traveled the globe extensively and enjoys capturing portraits of the people he meets and the architecture of places he visits. He is also known for his focus of the male form, which has led to the creation of a captivating body of work displayed in four books. His photography from global travels also bespeak a truly perceptive eye for ambiance and character.
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