Reading About History While Living Through History

There’s an old curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” But the more interesting something is, the more likely it is to become the subject of a graphic novel. And the more historical graphic novels you read, the more you start to notice patterns.

Last year, when I reread Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio after the campus protests against the war in Gaza, I noted similarities with the anti-Vietnam protests that led to multiple fatal shootings in the 1970s. Now that American and Israeli aggression against Iran is spiraling into a wider conflict, books like Persepolis, the landmark work about the Iranian Revolution, and A Game for Swallows, about the residents of a Beirut apartment building helping each other through a night of bombing during the Lebanese Civil War, are more important than ever.

As critical as it is to remember the past, however, it can be emotionally difficult to connect these now-distant events with what is happening right in front of our eyes. How do you process and respond to such stories? That is one of the questions I put to Andre Frattino, the author of We Are Pan, out June 2.

With art by Yasmin Flores Montañez, We Are Pan tells the story of Operation Pedro Pan, an American effort to rescue Cuban children from the abuses and indoctrination of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. It is told from the perspective of several now-grown individuals who participated in the program.

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Unlike with Frattino’s previous project, Tokyo Rose: Zero Hour, where the book’s subject was long since deceased, the events depicted in We Are Pan are recent enough that Frattino was able to interview many of the participants directly.

“It was refreshing to be working on a subject where the people involved could answer me in person, where I could see the emotions in real time as they reflected over their experiences,” he told me via email. “Because of that, I think my writing for this story was a bit deeper, a bit more personal.”

That story involved countless families who made the impossible, heartbreaking decision to send their children to America by themselves — sometimes to stay with relatives, but often with complete strangers — without any guarantee that they would ever reunite. (Indeed, most of the children who participated in the program have never returned to Cuba, and many never saw their loved ones again.) This herculean operation was made possible through the devotion of individual Americans, including Father Bryan Walsh, who, supported by government funding, brought thousands of children to Florida and found them foster homes all across the country.

Just reading through this description of We Are Pan, you’ve probably already begun to connect the dots with current events, not least of which is the immigration crisis. Where once the American government welcomed Hispanic children fleeing corrupt governments and dangerous situations, we now throw them into places like the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, where they endure inhumane conditions and illegally prolonged periods of detention with no idea when they will be released.

Even granting that our previous generosity was at least partially mercenary — a scene in the book shows Father Walsh soliciting funding from a government official who is at least as interested in stopping the spread of communism as in helping the children — the difference is astonishing.

Frattino also saw these parallels but was careful to balance them with respect and care for the individual experiences of those involved in Operation Pedro Pan.

“[T]he story of Cuba means many different things to many different generations of Cubans. It’s not clean cut,” Frattino explained, later adding, “However, while the story belongs to the Cuban people both here, there, and abroad, the cautionary tale that it provides us is something we all must take ownership of. Authoritarianism, neighbor against neighbor, ‘us’ versus ‘them,’ loss of self, starvation, homelessness, fearmongering, these aren’t foreign concepts; this isn’t a dusty old history tale. It’s relevant everywhere.”

Then there’s the blockade.

As of this writing, the U.S. has yet to lift an energy blockade that has kept oil and gas from reaching Cuba for months. The consequences have been catastrophic, with everything from transportation to basic medical care becoming increasingly inaccessible. Unlike in the 1960s, when Americans took it upon themselves to alleviate Cuban suffering, the U.S. is now directly responsible for that suffering, while nations like Russia and Mexico have stepped in to try to mitigate the damage.

Finally, on April 15, U.S. government support for Catholic charities providing aid to unaccompanied migrant children — the same financial support that began during Pedro Pan and has remained in place ever since — was abruptly halted, likely in an act of petty vengeance stemming from Trump’s disapproval of Pope Leo’s repeated calls for peace and mercy in the Middle East. And so we find a more direct link between the past and the present, as modern American politicians tear down what their predecessors worked to build just a generation or two ago.

It is both fascinating and distressing how a single story like the one depicted in We Are Pan has so many connections to so many current events. Everyone who reads it is sure to notice something different, including parallels I didn’t mention here. But, as Frattino says, the heart of the matter is really very simple:

“There’s a lot going on in this world, a lot to distract us, but in all this time, Cubans have struggled and survived, both on and off the island. The Pedro Pans, like all Cuban expats, are waiting to see if they’ll ever see home again. I think what I’d like someone to take away is that the story of Cuba could be the story of any of us, anywhere and at any moment.”