The United States has been in an uproar for the past few decades. Suddenly people want to control the labels and images that define them. This self-determination has led to Anglos stuttering as they start to say one word and remember they must say something else. You're also not allowed to publicly say you dislike ethnic people. With the U.S. united behind Juan González on the "Elián issue", I wonder if some people haven't found a loophole.
The Elián situation is not solely a Latino issue. As more days pass, more issues fall into the melting pot of legal and cultural conflict. So far, I see the issues as including:
The last issue is what I think about lately. Cuban-Americans are being stereotyped and demonized in some very old-fashioned ways. Most groups of Latinos have fallen in line with the will of rest of the country on this issue. Some are fighting to let people know that the Cuban-American community is not reflective of the thoughts and concerns of other Latino sectors. Others are maligning the Cuban-American community in the same passionate way non-Latinos are. Some groups are upset that Cubans get preferencial treatment for asylum issues. I find it upsetting that a type of political jealousy has biased various ethnic groups on the situation. Some people want the boy return to his father and Cuba, simply because he have been sent back immediatrly if he wasn't Cuban. While I believe this to be true, is this how we should measure all of the issues involved? Do we gith gainst the rights they have, or to include our own group in that political circle? This whole episode is a reminder to the whole country that Latino culture is not a uniform culture. You will never be able to rubber-stamp our beliefs and culture. We must always consider that when such vast generalizations and assumptions become commonplace, organized bigotry is never far behind. Just as people stereotype Latinos, they are stereotyping Cuban-Americans independently.
Cuban-American dissidents are a very organized group with a common goal. That goal is the downfall of Castro's regime. This goal happens to be shared with the United States Government. Because Cuban-Americans despise communism, the government and the American people have readily supported and praised the Cuban dissident community. But, now the anti-Castro dissidents seem to be fighting against a father's rights to custody of his child.
Much of what I said in the above paragraph is wrong. Cuban-Americans do not all think alike. They take varying positions of the six points I listed. Others ignore the whole episode and are only angry at the armed raid to transfer the custody of a child. I brought some accuracy to the paragraph by including the words "dissident" and änti-Castro". There are many Cubans in the U.S. who support Castro, or are apathetic to the whole situation. While Castro's own daughter defected, there are many Cubans living in this country who are free to return to Cuba.
People are becoming apathetic towards communism and focusing a little more on domestic issues. The most domestic issue is your own family. With the growing focus on family, it becomes very easy for emotions to override fact. Last week, the news was inundated with a doctor's report that said Elián was in "imminent danger". Unfortunately, the doctor was a pediatrician (not a child-psychologist) and had never met Elián. Like the rest of the country, he seemed to characterize the entire situation based on assumptions and unproven judgements.
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