Dateline: 03/31/00
The United States can't seem to decide how bad life is in Cuba. I was always indoctrinated that communism was evil, especially the Soviet Union and Cuba. China was a whole other world of malfeasance. I was also taught that the American Indigenous people were better off after Manifest Destiny. In the recent presidential campaigns, Latino values are popular because of the strong family values. Each candidate is portraying himself as sharing those same values. Ignore the fact that Latino organizations have given poor ratings to either candidate's actual interest in the commmunity. We're suppose to vote for them because we all love our families and want to do what's best for them. So, when Elián lost his mother and his father asked for him to be returned, we could all understand that he should be returned to his father - if Castro didn't live there.
No one has said Juan Miguel González is unfit or abusive. For those who believe that the parent-child bond should never be broken, it's hard to understand how someone could oppose the reunion. Schoolchildren and parents are protesting nearly every day in Cuba to see his return. Those who would keep the boy in the U.S. fear that he would be a slave in Cuba. Years ago I read a confederate fairy tale, Eneas Africanus. A slave was separated from his master during the war, so he took his master's gold and traveled around the country trying to find him. By the end, many confederates had kindly helped him try to find his master. The master and slave are eventually reunited with Eneas' new wife and several children to help in the master's service. This is typical of the accounts between the oppressed and the oppressor. The oppressed say that nothing about the regime is good and those in power say that the subjects know that status quo is best.
When Elián is returned to Cuba, dissidents say he will be indoctrinated to favor the forty year old revolution. He is only a few years away from being forced to work on a farm-labor camp for about two months every tropical summer. At sixteen, he will likely be sent away from his family to a military boarding school to serve until he is twenty-seven. While receiving his free education he may be bussed to a rally for the return of a boy he never met, like so many were bussed for him. He will follow Castro's every command. He will hear the nation malign the reputations of those that would leave Cuba or abandon the revolution. This of course would include his mother. Elián may even get the opportunity to take part in mitines de repudio (repudiation meetings), where citizens and/or schoolchildren gather and shout insults at anti-revolution dissidents. As long as Elián believes in socialism and supports Castro's revolution, then he will be receive additional education and become reasonably successful. If he speaks out against socialism, marches in demonstrations against the government, or studies abroad without permission - doors will be shut and he will likely find himself in jail someday.
We feel for the father and we feel for the dissidents. We didn't like Kathy Lee Gifford when she had investments that required child labor. We also empathize with immigrants in oppressed nations who want to live in freedom. But, we don't feel too much. If Elián had been eighteen years old when he was found floating in the ocean, he would have been detained and shipped back. Under U.S. policy, a Cuban refugee must actually make it to the shore to be granted asylum. If they are intercepted in the water, refugees are to be returned to Cuba. An agreement between Cuba and the U.S. theoretically prevents prosecution of repatriated Cuban refugees. However, Castro has not yet repealed the law that permits prosecution.
Another great tragedy surrounding our favorite raft boy is that neither U.S. policy nor Cuban human rights have been debated. No right is so sacred the U.S. government will not violate it. We remove children from their parents every day and we slide needles into the veins of convicted criminals. Everything is relative. If Juan Miguel comes to the states and returns of his own free will with his son, then he will have proved that there are parents who believe that Cuba is an appropriate place for children to grow, work, love and die. He will have returned to that regime with another citizen following behind him. Those who immediately supported returning the child will have made a statement that human rights are doing fine in Cuba, or that we don't pay attention to Cuban human events. We'll continue trying to increase our relationship with China and resist dropping the embargo against Cuba. We'll welcome refugees from any war-torn nation where we go to keep peace, but continue to return Cubans who don't make the death-defying trek across the ocean successfully. I'll still try to figure out how badly the United States believes human rights are being violated in Cuba. It's evidentially not bad enough to prevent this child's return.
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