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Set in Havana during the Cuban Revolution and in the Deep South before and during the Civil Rights Movement, A Crowded Loneliness, is based on the true story of Catalina Miranda. Born during the Cuban Revolution in Havana, her family worked closely with Fidel Castro to overthrown the dictator Fulgencio Batista, until Castro announced that he was a communist. After her brother’s arrest and her father’s death, her family decided that she would take part in Operation Peter Pan as part of a mass exodus of over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the United States between 1960 and 1962. At the age of nine, she and her 11-year-old brother, Mario, boarded a plane to Miami with little more than the clothes on their backs. A week later, the dark-skinned Catalina and Mario found themselves separated and shipped off to orphanages in New Orleans–in the Jim Crow South.
What follows is a gripping story in which Catalina faces discrimination, violence, and racism all alone in a strange new land. Although the prospect of reuniting with her family seems bleak, she survives by her wit and determination as one of a handful of girls to integrate whites-only schools, the segregated Woolworth’s dining counter, and the famous whites-only Saenger Theatre.
With the recent warming of relations between the United States and Cuba, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and recent racial tensions, Catalina’s story is as relevant today as it was in the 1960s. It is an eternal testament to the power of never letting go of your dreams and of finding your treasures where you least expect them.
