CUBAN TRANSITIONS

In November 1999, soon to be six year old Elián González was found on a Florida beach. His mother had secretly taken him on a dangerous boat voyage out of Cuba to live with relatives in Miami, but she and ten others did not survive the trip. Due to US law that allowed all Cubans who reached American soil to remain in the country, Elián was brought to live with relatives in Little Havana. Immediately his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, began to petition for Elián to be returned to his custody in Cuba. The events began a months-long affair which renewed hostilities in US-Cuban relations and became a major political issue.

The affair occurred at a particularly critical period in US-Cuban relations. As cited by Julia Sweig, many hoped that the end of Democrat Bill Clinton’s second presidential term would bring about a liberalization of relations between the two countries. The heated political debate surrounding Elián quickly put an end to those hopes. In the US, Republican lawmakers sought to push a bill through Congress to grant Elián US citizenship, but were ultimately unsuccessful. The US public was very divided on the issue. Both Elián’s grandmothers traveled to Washington DC to attempt to negotiate the boy’s return to Cuba. As the international debate surrounding the affair intensified, media camped outside the González’ Miami home.

On April 20, 2000, federal agents stormed the small house in Little Havana and removed six year old Elián at gunpoint, to be reunited with his father and returned to Cuba. I was only eight at the time, but I have distinct memories of watching the news on TV and not understanding why I had been hearing this little kid’s name for months, and why armed federal forces had to take him away in a pre-dawn raid.  On June 28, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the relative’s case seeking asylum for Elián. This ended the Miami relatives’ legal battle, and Elián and his father returned to Cuba.

However, the return was not an end to the affair, as Elián became an important symbol in Cuba and a part of the larger cultural zeitgeist. In a 2000 episode of Saturday Night Live, Chris Kattan played Elián’s father in a recurring sketch called “Janet Reno’s Dance Party”, where Will Farrell dressed up as the US Attorney General who authorized the raid to extract Elián. In 2002, he was awarded the Free Spirit Award by The Freedom Forum. In a 2005 60 Minutes interview, Elián referred to Fidel Castro friend and a father figure, re-igniting debates in Miami, where his relatives claimed that Elián must have been coered into giving such statements.  Elián now attends military school and is a member of the Young Communists Union.

When Elián turned 18 on December 7, 2011, it was news on both sides of the Straits of Florida. This proved how he had inadvertently transformed from a young boy, lucky to survive a dangerous journey that killed his mother and ten others, into a Cuban national symbol.

Sources

BBC News, “Elian interview sparks Miami row,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4299294.stm (accessed February 29, 2012).

CBS News, “Elian Gonzalez turns 18, quietly celebrates,” http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57338130/elian-gonzalez-turns-18-quietly-celebrates/(accessed February 29, 2012).

Sweig, Julia E. Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.