Eloisa Echazabal

Eloísa Echazábal (linkedin.com)

From December of 1960 through October of 1962 more than 14 thousand Cuban children arrived alone in the United States. They were sent by their families because the government in Cuba was against their beliefs of freedom. The families wanted their children to live in a place where they would not be indoctrinated by the communist government. The relocation of the unaccompanied Cuban children came to be known later as “Operation Pedro Pan.”

Eloísa Echazábal was one of the children who took part in Operation Pedro Pan. She was just 13 when she left Cuba. She had noticed that things were changing in her country and her parents wanted to have a safe place for her and her sister, Teresita. One day soldiers from the militia came into Eloísa’s school. Eloísa was not afraid when the soldiers came in her classroom because it was like a normal school day and she was 13 years old, not an adult, so she knew they wouldn’t do anything to her. She was just one of the students. Soon the militia took over the school and everything around Eloísa changed. Her familiar teachers were gone. Her school was different, even though it was the same place. She wasn’t afraid really, but she felt very uneasy. But soon after, Eloísa and her sister left Cuba and went to Miami on an airplane. Her parents told her that it would only last a few months because they thought the government of Castro would not last very long. They told her to ask for “George” when she arrived in Miami. That’s all she knew – that she was going to study in the United States.

Eloísa felt like it was an adventure when she was coming to the United States and didn’t know who it was that she was going to meet or what her new life would be like. She thought they would be traveling around for a little while and then go back to Cuba. But at the same time she was sad because she didn’t want to leave her family. So she had mixed emotions.

Eloísa was only in Miami a short time, just a week, before she was relocated to Buffalo, New York. When it was time for her to leave for Buffalo with her sister, George, who was the same man who had met her plane when she arrived from Cuba, took her to the airport. He helped most of the children who were part of Operation Pedro Pan.

It was very cold in Buffalo. Eloísa stayed in an orphanage for two months and found it hard to learn a new language because when she was in Buffalo the nuns at the orphanage spoke Polish and English with a Polish accent. So it was like if you were an English speaking person and were learning Spanish from someone else who didn’t really know the language well and had a different accent. One of the nuns at the orphanage gave Eloísa English lessons every night after dinner and that was really helpful. The only sad part about being part of Operation Pedro Pan was living in the orphanage and later with a family that wasn’t her own because she missed her family and didn’t know exactly when she would see them again. When Eloísa was in the orphanage she was lonely and missed her family and would cry at night. Another girl would go and bring one of the nuns to help Eloísa feel better, but it was very sad. She made some friends, though, and that made it easier. Eloísa was moved to a foster family’s home and stayed there for 7 months until she returned to Miami and joined her parents. After the school year ended, Eloísa’s parents were able to come to Miami and so she left Buffalo and joined her family there and that’s where she grew up. She went to Notre Dame Academy which is now part of Archbishop Curley Notre Dame High School in Miami.

Eloísa’s heroes are her parents because she believes they were right in deciding to send her and her sister to the United States. They were very courageous because they wanted to make sure their daughters were away from the communist indoctrination and even though it was hard for them, they did the thing that was best for their freedom. When her parents arrived in the United States they also had to learn English and somehow earn a living, so it was not easy for them either. Both of her parents are gone now. They were in their fifties when they came to Florida in the early 1960’s. Eloísa is not married and has no children, but she has her sister Teresita, and her cousins.

Eloísa Echazábal (miamiherald.com)

Eloísa never wanted to think about or talk about the Pedro Pan years until recently. Eloísa studied International Relations at Florida International University and earned a Masters Degree in Business from Seattle University. Miami is the best place to live for Eloísa. She lived in Washington State and Puerto Rico for awhile, but she likes it here in Miami the best. Now she is trying to document the lives of the people who participated and preserve the history for others to learn from. To accomplish this, she is working with three universities in South Florida: Barry University, Florida International University and The University of Miami Cuban Heritage Collection. She currently works as Administrative Assistant to the president of Miami -Dade College Medical Campus. She collects all the archives, old news articles and files about Operation Pedro Pan so that its history can be recorded and preserved. Fifty years from now, she wants to make sure that all of the people who are children and grandchildren of the Pedro Pan kids know what happened. She thinks it will be finished in a couple of years. It is her dream for the history to be preserved.

She appreciates being able to come to the United States and live her life here. She has never returned to Cuba and has mixed emotions about it. One half of her heart wants to go back and walk the same streets and see the same places she remembers from her childhood. But the other half of her doesn’t want to go back to a place where the same communist regime is still in control. She feels that because of her experience she is able to look at things in a very positive way and that when she faces trouble or difficulty, she can look back at her Pedro Pan days and know that she will get through whatever obstacles she faces and be even stronger because of it. She always tries to overcome whatever difficulty she encounters. Her wish for the future is that there is peace for the world and no one has to live in fear.

Eloísa Echazábal is our hero because she has a positive outlook on life and is working to save the stories that will help other people understand our country’s history and the history of Miami!

Thank you, Eloísa, for sharing your story with us!
Mrs. Mink’s 3rd Grade Class