Author recalls ’62 airlift from Cuba to Miami, B-N
By Michele Steinbacher |msteinbacher@pantagraph.com
When Carlos Eire visits Bloomington on Thursday, it will be a homecoming of sorts for the National Book Award winner and Yale University professor.
Eire, a Cuban refugee whose boyhood memoir, “Waiting for Snow in Havana” won the prestigious award in 2003, was one of roughly 14,000 children secretly whisked out of Cuba in the early 1960s as part of Operation Peter Pan. The plan was organized by the U.S. government and Catholics in Miami to aid families opposed to the Cuban revolution.
Carlos, then 11, and his 14-year-old brother Tony arrived in Miami in 1962. They lived in a series of group homes and foster homes for a year.
In 1963 they relocated to Bloomington to live with Carlos’ paternal aunt and uncle, and his two cousins, the Amado Nieto family of 609 E. Front St….
On Thursday, Eire will speak about his books during two public events, a 2 p.m. question-and-answer session at Bloomington Public Library, and a 7 p.m. talk at Illinois State University’s Braden Auditorium in the Bone Student Center. Twin City libraries and Barnes and Noble Booksellers are sponsoring the author’s visit.
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