Review by Choice Review
Garcia has created a compact reference work that is at once highly readable and eminently useful. The statistics are there, but Garcia also effectively conveys something of the turmoil and passions of the times through her own interviews with participants and the judicious use of secondary sources. For example, readers learn that 14,156 children were flown to Miami via the underground network known as "Operation Peter Pan," but they are also given details such as the candy dish with tranquilizers kept for parents desperate to get their children out of Cuba and the fact that most "Peter Pan" organizers paid for their activities with long jail terms (one was not released until 1986). With equal skill, Garcia portrays the successive waves of immigration, up to a necessarily cursory discussion of the rafters of 1994. Her treatment of the tension among residents in the Cuban community in South Florida over their perception of themselves as exiles or as immigrants, her commentary on their political and social diversity, and her discussion of writers and scholars in exile are convincing and enlightening. This evenhanded account is highly recommended for undergraduates and above. M. A. Olshan Alfred University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
