Top Shelf Productions will publish We Are Pan, an original graphic novel written by Andre Frattino and illustrated by Yasmin Flores Montanez, this summer. The hardcover tells the true story of Operación Pedro Pan, a secret joint effort between the U.S. government and the Catholic Welfare Bureau to evacuate Cuban children to the United States in the wake of Fidel Castro’s revolution.
Between 1960 and 1962, 14,000 children were sent from Cuba to America by parents who feared for their futures under communism. The children, later known as “Pedro Pans,” were relocated across the United States, most living in foster homes. In many cases, they never saw their families again.
The book features a foreword by Alex Segura, comic writer and author of the novels Secret Identity and Alter Ego, whose own family history connects to the Cuban diaspora.
We Are Pan marks the debut graphic novel for both Frattino, a professional illustrator and storyteller based in Savannah, Georgia, and Montanez, a comic artist and illustrator from Puerto Rico who earned her MFA in Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design. She was also part of the inaugural class of DC Comics and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Milestone Initiative Talent Development Workshop.
We Are Pan arrives June 2.