Episode 36: Barbara Palacios Wessels - An Operación Pedro Pan Survivor

In Part 2 of “Operación Pedro Pan: The Voices and Stories of Cuba’s Child Exodus—A Knights HistoryCast Mini-Series,” the Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Barbara Palacios Wessels, a Pedro Pan, who arrived in the United States from Cuba via Operación Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan) on September 27, 1962, with her two younger siblings. Barbara was also a panelist from Day 1, Panel 2, which featured “community experts (survivors) that shared their personal perspectives to aid our understanding of the profound impact of Pedro Pan on their lives” at the esteemed, conspicuous, and powerful “Operación Pedro Pan: Honoring the Cultural, Historical Legacy of Cuba’s Child Exodus” Two-Day Program that Florida Humanities, UCF’s Department of English and Department of Modern Languages and Literatures sponsored (see https://cah.ucf.edu/pedro-pan/ for more details on sponsors and the program in general).

In one of the most personal, emotional, riveting, and powerful Knights HistoryCast episodes ever, Barbara recounts her life, her story, and how she is a part of the history of Operación Pedro Pan forever.