When Marta Welch flips through the pages of her old Cuban passport, it’s a reminder of what she left behind, and what she gained, by fleeing the island to live in the United States.
“I was so excited to be in America and to leave a country that was so oppressive,” Welch said.
It was 1962, and Welch was one of more than 14,000 children who left the island through a secret operation known as “Pedro Pan,” or Peter Pan, in English. It was likely the largest exodus of unaccompanied children in history.
Cameron Duckworth, Denver7The secretive plan, hatched by religious groups like Catholic Charities in collaboration with the U.S. government, aimed to remove children from Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba, and later reunite them with their families…