When the U.S. Welcomed the ‘Pedro Pan’ Migrants of Cuba

Cold War America Resettled Unaccompanied Minors as an Anti-Communist Imperative. Today, the Nation Forgets This History

When Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, 13-year-old José Azel joined the ranks of the underground opposition engaging in acts of sabotage. When Castro closed the country’s schools, José’s father became worried. So he sent his teenage boy on a brief trip to West Palm Beach in June 1961 on a cargo ship full of seminarians. It was the last time they saw each other.

From 2021 to June 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported just over 400,000 “encounters” with unaccompanied children. The quality of care for these kids …

How Hollywood’s Black Friday Strike Changed Labor Across America

A 1945 Union vs. Studios Battle Set Off Broad Right-Wing Hysteria—Its Lessons Should Resonate Today

It was October 5, 1945. The Conference of Studio Unions (CSU), a union representing craft laborers in Los Angeles, including painters, carpenters, set designers, cartoonists, and others, was seven months …

A Mid-Century Playbook for Saving Progressive American Education

Fifty Years Ago, Parents United to Get the Far-Right John Birch Society Out of Their Schools

This May, an email landed in my inbox. The correspondent, who’d come across my new book on the John Birch Society, wanted to share how members of this far-right anticommunist …

How an American Boy Learned About Democracy by Living in the Beijing Hotel | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

What Communist China Taught a 6-Year-Old American Boy

With Tiananmen Square as My Playground, I Learned Lifelong Lessons About Diplomacy, Authority, and Democracy


A worker comes to Beijing, to Communist Party headquarters, and asks to see Chairman Mao.

A soldier stops him. “You can’t see Mao,” he says. “He’s dead.”

The worker returns the …

The (Actual) Communist Agents Who Lurked Among Us

American Fears About Soviet Spycraft Never Seemed to Match Reality

Russian spies held a morbid fascination in the minds of Americans dating back to the Red Scare in 1919, following the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of the Communist International, …

“Frivolous” Humanities Helped Prisoners Survive in Communist Romania

Covertly Studying Language and Literature Connected Captives and Freed Their Minds

In a recent New York Times article on the movement to promote university majors promising higher employment and income, Anthony Carnevale, a professor at Georgetown University, sums up the utilitarian …