More and more people sail away from Cuba to the United States every year. The usual reason is to move from Fidel Castro and his rules, although many other reasons are obviously important enough for them to risk their lives; a reason like trying to escape from her ex-husband and landing with tragedy. A choice has to be made while dealing with all of the Cuban frustration: do I live or risk my life along with thirteen others? Among the heart wrenching events which happen worldwide every year, few have come close to the well-known saga of Elian Gonzalez and his family. In 1999, many Cubans left Cuba to sail to the United States.
The Coast Guard picked up more than 1,300 rafters; more than double the number in 1998. The distance between Cuba and the mainland is less than 150 miles(Ramo 62). Most fleeing Cubans make the trip from Cuba to America the old fashioned way: in a rickety craft with weak motors. A good trip takes about ten hours, while a bad trip goes on for days. Sailing the Atlantic could be eternal during a storm, as Cubans are swept away. At least sixty people have paid the price of venturing each year(64). Caught up in freedom fever was Elisabet Gonzalez, who had been dating small-time Cuban hustler, Lazero Munero, since 1997.
During the summer of 1998, Munero and three friends made the trip to America on a tiny boat. That fall he went back to Cuba because he was heartsick from his family and Elisabet. A few months after his jail release for escaping, he began persuading Elisabet to join him on a second getaway. He also began to advertise the trip to others in their town at one thousand dollars ahead, then he began patching up an old boat and envinrude fifty horse power outboard motor. When they set out that Sunday, Munero packed rations of water, bread, cheese, and hot dogs for his fifteen passengers.
At four thirty A. M. hey set to sea with hopes of arriving in Miami before the next sunrise. After less than a mile, the engine failed and Munero returned to shore, while passenger Arianne Horta nervously put her five year old daughter back on land. The group, now fourteen strong, set off again the next morning, but that night during a storm just south of the Florida Keys, the motor failed again. It left the boat more vulnerable to the tumbling seas. The group decided they would be better off by climbing into the two large innertubes they carried as life preservers(Ramo 64).
Of the two innertubes aboard the rickety boat, the women and Elian were put onto ne tube, while the men held on to the other; they gave in to the ocean one by one. Munero was the first to go, followed by a deluded man who wanted to swim for land and then a second man who set out to help bring him back and never returned. At least one woman, seeing part of her family drowned, decided she had no reason to live and let go of her innertube. On Thanksgiving morning, two fishermen found a small innertube off the coast of Fort Lauderdald, Florida, with what they thought was a doll on top.
They sailed past and continued fishing until one of the men realized the doll was alive(Ramo67). They picked him up and waited after they called the Coast Guard: Ill adopt the boy if there is no one here to claim him. This is the best Thanksgiving gift I had ever imagined(Ramo 67). Elian was rescued in good condition and was cared for by relatives in Miami, but he cried out for help at night, fearing that hed been abandoned each time his cousin, whose bedroom he shares, got up to use the bathroom(Padgett 68).
After two and a half days, the fourteen passengers whittled down to three(Ramo 67). The other two survivors were Horta and her boyfriend Nivaldo Fernandez Ferran who were rescued by the Coast Guard nd had been granted permission to stay in the United States for the time being(Padgett68). Elians Miami relatives swore they would never exploit him in the media; however, they did seek permanent custody. His relatives trotted before local cameras and asked him if he wanted to stay there. Elian responded with a yes. Watching him, it was obvious to see that all he wanted was to be held(Ramo 62).
The Miami relatives described Elian as a shy, but affable and studious, first grader whose most recent childhood passion, besides baseball, is flying kites(Padgett 68). Small and spacious, Elians room, which he shared with his cousin, was nothing like his back home in Cuba(Ramo 61). Many Americans are disgusted with both Castro and the anti-Castro zealots in Miami, who are shamelessly using Elian and his father as pawn in their political game of chess(Ramo 60). The Immigration Naturalization Service (INS) ruled that Juan Miguel had the right to call him back to Cuba, although the fight over the boys future wasnt doe yet.
On Friday, January 4, 2000, an Indiana Republican, Representative Dan Burtin, issued a congressional subpoenaing to freeze Elians repatriation until his American family appeals in court. The American Court system always asks themselves who will get custody of a childs life; making the decision was enough for them when Elian came(60). Ex-president George Bush had quite a say in the situation: The Cuban boys father ought to come to America. He ought to get a taste of freedom, and then ought to make his decision on whats best for his boy… I think its a mistake for the INS to send the boy back to Cuba (Ramo 67).
U. S. immigration officials had granted Elian permission to stay and apply for residency, but a family court would decide his fate. As soon as Elian was plucked from the ocean, Cuban-American politicians appropriated him as a poster child. Castro and Miamis anti-Castros were poised to put the boy in a custody battle between Elians U. S. relatives and his father and grandparents in Cuba(Padgett 68). A group of Cuban government psychologists counseled Juan Miguel on what to say to Elian about their separation. It didnt help much when Juan Miguel saw TV pictures of Elian dressed in a new school uniform.
Cuban psychiatrists advised Juan to tell Elian during their regular phone calls that he was on vacation and that they would be reunited soon(Ramo 61). Starting a new school would put a lie to that promise and the amily was determined to drag the case through the courts. Juan Miguel pleaded with INS officials to speed up the process because of it maybe being harder for Elian to adjust to Cuba once he got home(Gibbs 26). For months, no one knew whether Juan Miguel was reading from a script or speaking from his heart, although anyone who heard his plea believed he might be entirely sincere to getting his child back to Cuba for good.
Juan Miguel proved to Janet Reno that he could take care of the child. She asked herself if he was really a loving father and if he really wanted to raise his child in a country where milk is rationed for hildren over seven years old and soldiers drown citizens who try to flee(Gibbs 25). Reno speaks her mind: It is not our place to punish a father for his political beliefs or where he wants to raise a child. Indeed, if we were to start judging parents on the basis of their political beliefs, we would change the concept of family for the rest of time(Gibbs 26).
U. S. Officials hoped Juan would come to Miami to pick Elian up, but insisted that returning Elian is the obligation to them. Castro barred Juan from making the trip, fearful of a defectionRamo 67). One of the few reasons to keep Elian in Miami was to keep him surrounded with ll affection his mother had hoped to find for him there. Everyone talked about the father and not what the mother wanted: an opportunity, career, and freedoms(Ramo 61-62). A reason not to send Elian back was because a U. S. immigration officer met with Elians father at his home in Cardenas.
The officer was worried that Juan Miguel might be manipulated by Castro and wanted a location that was unlikely to be bugged. The goal of that was to determine how close the father and son really were. Miami told investigators that Juan Miguel was an indifferent father. The questions Juan was asked were What ize shoes does your child wear? What are his teachers names? Who are his friends? Not only did Juan pass the quizzes, but he painted a portrait of a deep and emotional relationship, but the investigators also found that he honestly believes in Castro and the system that he built(Ramo 67).
A videotape of Elian shot by family members in Miami on Univision, the Spanish Channel, was distributed to other networks. The boy is seen on his bed while gesturing animatedly and suggesting that his father remains in his country. Some critics said he appeared to be coached. Elians words were broadcast on ABC, CNN, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, FOX, and Univision. Viewers were repeatedly shown the home video footage. On a Time/CNN survey, fifty-six percent of Americans agreed to return the boy to Cuba to live with his father, rather than live with the U. S. ith other relatives(Blade A9).
Ninety percent of local Cuban Americans felt Elian should remain in the U. S. (Ramo 62) Finally, armed U. S. immigration agents smashed their way to the home of Miami relatives before dawn on April twenty-second, taking the sobbing Elian from this house to his father, in Washington. As demonstrators wept in rage and coughed from pepper spray nd tear gas, the agents wrapped him in a blanket and carried him to an airport. The action touched off a fury in the streets outside the Miami home where Cuban exiles have kept a vigil since November.
It took five months for the custody battle over Elian to build a tense standoff. It took federal agents less than four minutes to end it. About twenty agents of the INS leaped from the vans, tore through a chain link gate, broke through the front door, and with brandished weapons, stormed through the tiny house in the search for Elian. While images from the raid were almost instantly and repeatedly broadcast on elevision, bands of angry protesters began roaming Miamis Flager Street corridor, upsetting dumpsters in the street and setting tires and debris on fire at many places.
Riot-clad police showed little tolerance for the disruptions, gassing those who defied orders to clear out. Protests were continued through the day and 260 people were arrested. Miami swelled as groups for blocks around the house burned tires in intersections, snarling traffic. They also punched, kicked, and spit at police and hurled bus benches onto the streets, blocked roads to the airport, and burnt down an abandoned house(Blade A9). Mental-health and child-development specialists showed deep concerns about just how wide a range of emotional and developmental problems Elian will have in the future.
Appearing normal, they said a major reason for it was that he was in shock and/or denial. Later in life, most likely he will see memories invariably come trickling and flooding back. The loss of a parent, especially a mother and especially by a young child is widely viewed as a potentially personality-altering trauma in and to itself, without the overlay of having watched her die(Blade A9). After suffering such a tragedy like Elian, one would never think of the strength this hild proved to have.
Hopefully, this saga of Elians childhood will teach those escaping from Cuba to America a lesson. Its a mistake that the U. S. wouldnt let Elian back to live with him in the first place. This is all just proof of how selfish Americans are. Of all the choices one has to make in his or her lifetime, they should always do what they know they should do, even if they dont want to. Its best to do whats right for someone else once in a while. The Miami family should have used common sense, because a six year old boy belongs with his father to teach him the manly ways of life.
