In early 1960, just after the Cuban revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, rumors spread throughout Cuba that the newly installed communist government would take children away from their parents and ship them off to work camps in the Soviet Union. Frightened parents started sending their children alone to Miami under a secret program run by a Catholic priest and financed in part by the U.S. government. María de los Torres was six years old when she landed in Miami as part of this massive airlift.