PedroPan Database

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http://www.miamiherald.com/pedropan/

http://www.miamiherald.com/cgi-bin/pedropan/search

Dear members of the Pedro Pan Group,

My name is Luisa Yanez. I’m a reporter with the Miami Herald and I wanted to let you know that the Pedro Pan Database Project is nearing completion.

We are giving a preview of the database at Cuba Nostalgia, a cultural event open to the public starting Friday, May 15. The database will be officially unveiled in the newspaper and on our website on Sunday, May 17.

We hope you will find this project a useful vehicle in preserving the history of Operation Pedro Pan – an iconic chapter of Cuban exile history in the United States.

As Eloisa Echazabal has told you, The Miami Herald has computerized the names of all the 14,000 Cuban children who came to the United States through Operation Pedro Pan.

From now on, you will be able to find your name, date of arrival and camp or location you were originally assigned to by simply entering your name in the search engine provided.

The information provided comes from the Airport Log, which were kept by Jorge “George” Guarch, who met many of you at Miami International Airport.

Your dates of births will be converted to “age of arrival” and no other personal information is available. The database cannot be scrolled; you must put in a name to search it.

The Pedro Pan database will also provide a feature where Pedro Panners can leave messages for each other so they can reconnect today – if they wish to do so.

I’m excited about this project for all of you. I hope you are too. Please feel free to come visit the Miami Herald booth at Cuba Nostalgia the weekend of May 15 -17.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

On a personal note, I would like to thank Eloisa Echazabal for her invaluable help in putting this project together. You are all lucky to have her workiing on preserving your unique history.

Luisa Yanez
Miami Herald
305-376-4627

Published by Christopher

5 Replies to “PedroPan Database”

  1. Hello family and friends- I’d like to volunteer one of our many talented children, grandchildren, nephews and/or nieces – to add the two links in the message below to our Cuba Memories Gallery web site (don’t y’all be tripping over each other trying to be first now, you hear….). It’s interesting to find the names in the Miami Herald newspaper Pedro Pan data bank of my Newton school mates in Guanabo, including some with whom I grew up but to whom I never got a chance to say good bye, their families lived in constant fear that the Cuban government would learn of their plan. These guys kept disappearing and nobody would want to discuss it- all very hush-hush. Their families would just say that they were away vacationing (in the middle of the shool year- yeah, right ..! You could hear the whispers that they had gone to the “North”- as if to say “Estados Unidos” would bring calamity. The politically correct name in Cuba for the USA was “yanquis imperialistas” in lower case. It was a very nice gesture by the Miami Herald newspaper to have assisted in this project. Geoge Guarch was the gentleman who would go each day to the Miami International Airport waiting on the Pan Am or KLM flights from Havana during the Pedro Pan children’s exodus out of our country. Once in the US, when the unaccompanied kids walked in through the arrival area, the customs people would intercept us, they would then enter our names in the port of entry log. Sometimes we got candy or yellow wrapper Juicy Fruit gum ( I hadn’t tasted or seen Juicy Fruit in a couple of years. I must have chewed it so long that my jaw felt as if it would fall off. After processing us, we would then be brought to George Guarch who would take us in a white 1962 Ford Econoline passenger van -“güagüita” to the different children’s camps- Florida City was my destination. George was a very kind, terrific person and all of us really loved the guy.
    He used to keep his own record of each of the many thousands of unaccompanied kids that he had transported to one of the then several Miami area refugee camps that looked after us. It is from his notes that made this data base possible. Hugs to all…..

  5. Hola, quisiera saber si en las lista de Pedro Pans se encuentran los nombres de Jose Aragon que vino con su hermano mas pequeno.Si alguien lo conoce y me pueden dar razones.Cuando sus padres vinieron se destacaron en Puerto Rico y su padre tenian un negocio de fotgrafias. La ultima vez que vi a Jose Aragon y Bonnie en Espana que viviamos ahi en Alcala de Henares el trabajaba en la base de Torrejon,de controlador de aviones.En el ano 1976 nos visito aqui en Miami.Se que se iba para 1215W.Park Valdosta GA. Por Favor si alguien los conoce que le diga que llame a Isabel Perez-Borroto vda de Rene Perez Borroto.Se los agradeceria si alguien me den razones.Gracias por la gran obra que estan haciendo Isabel

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