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Cuban Immigration After the Revolution, 1959-1973
A Pan American Airlines ticket for Margarita Lora, who left Cuba as part of Operation Pedro Pan in August 14, 1961.

A Pan American Airlines ticket for Margarita Lora, who left Cuba as part of Operation Pedro Pan in August 14, 1961.

Operation Pedro Pan was a program that airlifted over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children from Havana to the United States between 1960 and 1962. After the Cuban Revolution, some Cuban parents feared for their children's futures under the new Communist regime. They entrusted the Catholic Church, aid societies, and the US State Department to connect their children with awaiting relatives and friends in the United States. Some were cared for by the Catholic Welfare Bureau and placed in temporary shelters in Miami before being relocated to foster families in thirty different states until the families could be reunited. This Pan American passenger ticket was used by eight-year-old Margarita Lora when she left Cuba for Miami, Florida on August 14, 1961, as part of Operation Pedro Pan. The passenger name on the ticket is Elia M. Prats Martinez, Lora’s name before marriage. (The M stands for Margarita.) She ended up in foster care for four years with her sister and two brothers, in Syracuse, New York, until her parents arrived in the US in 1965.

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Citation Information
Pan American Airlines, “Margarita Lora's Passenger Ticket, 1961,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/3ff00f75a69470d1dcc849a84f0a7701.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center via Smithsonian Institution.

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Item 5 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Cuban Immigration After the Revolution, 1959-1973

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A clip from a 1963 film, Cuba: World Verdict, produced by the US Information Agency about early responses to the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
A news clip of a Cuban official discussing his changing opinions of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, October 25, 1960.
A pamphlet entitled “Castro Admits Cuba is Communist,” published by the Truth About Cuba Committee, December 1961.
A script from a news story about four Cuban refugees in Fort Worth, Texas that aired on December 21, 1961.
A Pan American Airlines ticket for Margarita Lora, who left Cuba as part of Operation Pedro Pan in August 14, 1961.
A translated excerpt from a 2008 interview with Cuban Albertina O’Farrill who worked for refugee initiatives including Operation Pedro Pan.
A photograph of the Cuban refugee Sanz family at home in Van Nuys, California, October 2, 1962.
An excerpt from a US Senate subcommittee hearing on “Cuban Refugee Problems” with testimony from Dr. José Miró Cardona, 1961.
A speech about Cuban refugees in Miami-Dade County to the Downtown Rotary Club by Marshall Wise of the US Cuban Refugee Center, May 2, 1963.
An excerpt from a publication about the number of political prisoners in Cuba created by the Truth About Cuba Committee, April 1964.
A photograph of Cuban refugees arriving in Miami on a Freedom Flight.
A photograph of a family reuniting at a Cuban refugee camp in Miami, Florida, 1966.
A photograph of a Cuban American restaurant in Miami, Florida, 1966.
A 1969 photograph of a bust of José Martí in Union City, New Jersey.
A map titled “Fidel Castro’s 10-year Reign in Cuba,” published by the Civil Education Service, 1969.

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