27. The Politics and Culture of Abundance, 1952

Quiz for Experiencing the American Promise: Operation Pedro Pan: Young Political Refugees Take Flight

Select the best answer for each question. Click the “submit” button for each question to turn in your work.

Question 27.1

1. Why was the United States willing to relax its immigration requirements and policies for Cuban immigrants in the early 1960s?

There were so many reports of brutal mistreatment by Communist leaders in the late 1950s that the United States decided it must help Cuban refugees.

Many of the Cuban immigrants who wanted to come to the United States were talented scientists and engineers who would be useful to the country.

The United States assumed the immigrants would only be in the country temporarily, and would go back to Cuba once Castro was no longer in power.

The United States still abided by the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, which established the special relationship between the United States and Latin America.

Question 27.2

2. Thousands of Cuban parents sent their children to the United States through Operation Pedro Pan in the early 1960s because they feared that, if their children stayed in Cuba, they would be

killed by anti-Communist guerrilla fighters.

brainwashed by the Communist government.

denied the health care they needed if they were sick.

subjected to a one-child-per-family policy.

Question 27.3

3. In the context of the Cold War, why was it significant that nearly 250,000 Cubans immigrated to the United States after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959?

The fact that so many people wanted to flee communism was a powerful symbol of the superiority of American capitalism over Soviet communism.

The vast majority of those 250,000 Cubans had come to the United States to serve as spies for the Communist government in Cuba.

Although the United States had previously enforced rigid restrictions on immigration, the Cold War caused a wholesale relaxation of those policies.

Since the United States had deported so many suspected Communists in the 1950s, it desperately needed more workers, which these Cubans quickly became.

Question 27.4

4. Although the United States claimed that Operation Pedro Pan was intended as a humanitarian effort to help the Cuban people, some people who participated in the program as children now wonder if the program was actually rooted in

the Monroe Doctrine.

a sense of racial superiority.

Cold War politics.

Christian evangelism.

Question 27.5

5. This essay supports which of the following historical arguments?

Operation Pedro Pan was ultimately beneficial to the United States because most of the children grew up to become important public figures.

The poor diplomatic relationship between the United States and Cuba that continues to this day can be traced back to Operation Pedro Pan.

Operation Pedro Pan proves that the United States never actually cared about humanitarian concerns, and has always had ulterior motives.