Ed Canler holds a bike in Havana, Cuba, before leaving his native country in 1961.
Photo contributed by Ed Canler.
ABOUT OPERATION PETER PAN• From December 1960 to October 1962, more than 14,000 Cuban youths were sent by their parents to the United States to prevent their being indoctrinated in Communism.• It is the largest recorded exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere.• Children were reunited with U.S. relatives or placed in camps in Miami, orphanages, foster homes and boarding schools throughout the country.• Parents later were granted humanitarian visas by the United States and many were reunited with their children.Sources: Operation Pedro Pan Group Inc.; Ed Canler, a Peter Pan kidTIMELINE• January 1959: Fidel Castro’s guerrillas defeat Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista’s army.• January 1961: The United States breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba.• Jan. 3, 1961: The Catholic Welfare Bureau in Miami is authorized by the U.S. Department of State to notify parents in Cuba that visa requirements have been waived for their children. It was basically the beginning of Operation Peter Pan – Operación Pedro Pan, in Spanish.• April 17-20, 1961: The Bay of Pigs invasion fails to overthrow Castro.• Sept. 20, 1961: Ed Canler is sent to Miami with his older brother.• October 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis ceases commercial flights between the United States and Cuba for three years.• 2009: The first Peter Pan kids return to Cuba.Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, Operation Pedro Pan Group Inc.
With every step that 10-year-old Ed Canler took, he pushed his foot harder and harder against the ground of Havana’s airport, knowing he was not coming back to his native land.
He and a crowd of Cuban children marched like little penguins toward a waiting plane, a piece of cardboard with their names on it attached to their shirts.
“When I let go of my last foot onto the stairway of the plane, I knew that was it,” said Canler, now 60. “That’s where the break with Cuba occurred.”
He didn’t fully realize what was happening then, but he had just begun his part in a drama playing out between the United States and Cuba in the years between Fidel Castro’s ascent to power in 1959 and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that would bring America and Russia to the brink of war.