Hope is All I Had: The Memoir of a Pedro Pan Girl

Havana, Cuba.Life at the Longueira's household, set on an island where palm fronds swayed to the music of the cha-cha-cha and children made sandcastles at the turquoise water's edge, was idyllic.When Fidel Castro took power, the music ended, and the terror began. Cuban parents made the painful decision to send their children away to safety without the assurance of ever seeing them again.Fifi, finds herself traveling alone as she carries a baby doll, she had named Hope. She is one of 14,048 children who fled Cuba in what was to be known as Operation Pedro Pan. She is then sent by Catholic Charities to an orphan home in Saginaw, Michigan, where she must learn a new language, how to survive snowball fights and a bully that she calls "Trouble." Later that year, fear of nuclear war arose when Russian missiles were found in Cuba. Fifi's parents were in danger. Would she feel her mother's hug again?