The Tower of Snow, a sculpture built by Enrique Martínez Celaya in 2012, is meant to memorialize the author’s own experience of exile and Operation Pedro Pan, which saw thousands of unaccompanied children between the ages of 6-18 sent from Cuba to Miami in the early 1960s.
Some children from Operation Pedro Pan have spoken out on how they feel about this bronze sculpture, which depicts a boy carrying a house on his back and is located at Sixth Street and Biscayne Boulevard. One of those kids was Carlos Reyes.
When he was only nine, Reyes was sent to the United States, away from his family in Havana, Cuba, through Operation Pedro Pan to escape the Communist regime that took control of Cuba in the ’60s. Now, he gives his perspective on the “Tower of Snow” and why he feels this monument does not represent him as a Pedro Pan child.
The Pedro Pan program saw the evacuation of over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children between the ages of 6-18 during 1960-1961.
Reyes had no idea when he left his home that he would be away from his family for over four years before settling down in South Florida.
