Local ‘Pedro Pans’ going back to Cuba for first time since 1961

Local 'Pedro Pans' going back to Cuba for first time since 1961
By Jim Haug
jim.haug@news-jrnl.com
Published: Sunday, March 15, 2015 at 3:15 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, March 15, 2015 at 3:15 p.m.

As Fidel Castro's revolution took hold in Cuba, Ormond Beach resident
Luis Leorza recalled saying goodbye to his parents in the Havana airport
in 1961 when he was 15 years old.

"The last words I heard from Mom and Dad were, 'We'll see you when we
see you.' And that's when I thought to myself, 'Holy mackerel, this is
some serious (stuff) here," Leorza said.

Leorza was a "Pedro Pan," part of the movement in the early 1960s that
spirited 14,000 children from Cuba to the United States, as their
parents sought to save them from growing up under communism.

Leorza, 69, and fellow Ormond Beach transplant Angel Ribo, 63, will
return Tuesday to their native Cuba for the first time since they left
in 1961.

Ribo has mixed feelings because of the mistreatment he said his family
has suffered under the Castro regime.

As a child, Ribo said he was strip-searched at the airport in full view
of his parents as a "final gotcha" form of intimidation.

"My memories of Cuba are of a 10-year-old kid who left his parents and
thought he would never see them again," said Ribo, the owner of
Peninsula Research, which does clinical trials. "I consider it part of
my healing process, to close the circle. I need to go back now knowing
God had a plan."

Ribo is taking along his family, including an 8-month-old granddaughter,
because "I want them to know they come from very humble beginnings so
they can appreciate what they have in the United States."

Leorza, a retired engineer, feels like it's now or never.

"Let's face it, I'm not getting younger," Leorza said. "Why not take the
chance now when I can still do it? I can visit the house where I was
raised."

The two Pedro Pans, a name taken from the fictional character who flew
London kids in the middle of the night to Neverland, will return to Cuba
for eight days with the same Daytona Beach-based tour group, Hot Cuba
Travel.

Charley Gonzalez, a partner in Hot Cuba Travel, said this is the first
time — aside from his parents — that he has taken Cuban-born U.S.
citizens in the 15 years that he has been leading tours to the island.

They will tour Leorza's hometown of Sagua La Grande, which is the
hometown of another Pedro Pan, former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida.

Then, it's on to Havana, where Ribo's family had a wine import business.

Ribo would also like to see his family's apartment and the warehouse
that belonged to the family business.

Ribo's grandfather and family patriarch, Isidoro Somines, originally
came to Cuba as an orphan stowed away on a freighter fleeing the Spanish
Civil War. The Ribo family eventually reunited in the United States.
Ribo grew up in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa. At nights, the
family would de-stem tobacco leaves to make extra money, Ribo said.

Because he comes from a small family, Ribo said he doesn't have
relatives in Cuba.

But Leorza said he is planning to see a cousin in Sagua La Grande.

Because Leorza's uncle wanted to keep his family together, Leorza said
his cousin did not have the same opportunity to leave as a Pedro Pan.

Many Cuban families thought the Castro regime, which came to power in
the revolution of 1959, would blow over in a few years. Some sent their
children abroad on student visas for their well-being, said Jose Amaro,
a trustee of Operation Pedro Pan Group Inc. and a retired professor of
international relations.

Parents were also afraid their children would be indoctrinated into
communism and made to spy on their families, Amaro said.

Because of complications in deciding what to do with their businesses
and homes, many families, including Ribo's and Leorza's, found it
difficult to get up and leave. So children were often sent ahead while
their parents stayed behind to get their affairs in order, Amaro said.

As relations between the United States and Cuba worsened, the Catholic
Welfare Bureau in Miami, with the assistance of the U.S. State
Department, organized a relief effort, finding foster homes and
converting summer camps to host unaccompanied minors from Cuba.

Both Leorza and Ribo initially went to converted summer camps. Ribo and
his brother Luis went to stay with a foster family in Tampa, where his
parents later joined them.

Leorza got into the University of Portland, a Catholic school in Oregon,
at age 16. But he later rejoined his parents in Daytona Beach, where his
father, Luis Leorza, would teach mathematics at Bethune-Cookman
University, and his mother, Raisa, would teach Spanish at Father Lopez
High School.

His parents came to the United States on an empty freighter that had
brought over medicine, food and other supplies to Cuba as ransom for the
imprisoned Bay of Pigs fighters, said Raisa Perez-Lugones, older sister
of Luis Leorza.

Their mother would live through the Cuban Missile Crisis in Cuba in
1962, telling her children that she saw the trucks carrying the Soviet
missiles go past the family home in Sagua La Grande.

Leorza said he appreciates the tough decisions his parents made on his
behalf.

"To put us on the plane and not know whether they would see us again,
that had to be one hell of a decision to make," Leorza said.

Source: Local 'Pedro Pans' going back to Cuba for first time since 1961
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