blarin@library.miami.edu writes:
A Cuban American's Pursuit for Understanding
I am an American. Born in America to Cuban parents who escaped Fidel
Castro's Cuba when they were 19 years old. I am 35 today and still in awe
of their courage. They were young and brave and they sacrificed
everything - their homeland, their worldly possessions, the hope of seeing
their parents again -to pursue freedom and a better life for their children.
Although my parents suffered and struggled, I grew up a typical American
girl. I went to an American school and had American friends. At school
age, English became my primary language. My European genes even made me
"look American". I assimilated effortlessly into American life.
My grandparents were not able to flee Cuba with my parents. They lived ten
years in Fidel Castro's Cuba. We finally found a way to bring them to the
United States in 1969.
I remember how strange it seemed to be meeting my grandparents for the
first time at age 6. My grandparents or "abuelitos" seemed like saints to
me. They were deeply religious, benevolent - but somehow broken people.
As a child, I was amazed that anyone could pray so much. I would tip toe
to their room and listen to them praying on rosary beads in Spanish for
hours - praying for our family, for the oppressed countrymen they left
behind, for the needy around the world, and for the unequivocal and
absolute demise of Fidel Castro. That was the first time I realized that
Fidel Castro was a bad man.
Since then, Castro has murdered over 85,000 people.
The media, family folklore, and live accounts exposed me to the horrors and
injustices of Cuban life. As an adult, I quietly mourned the loss of
Cubans who died seeking the life I cherish - most notably the families who
were executed in July 1994 on a ferryboat fleeing the country. Castro's
agents fired water hoses at the families, ramming and capsizing the boat,
killing 40 people - 12 younger than Elian Gonzalez. I ached emotionally
for my father when he told me of a childhood friend that was imprisoned and
continually tortured for 25 years for distributing anti-Castro leaflets.
I was deeply moved and disturbed by the incident that occurred during the
Pope's unprecedented mass in Cuba this year. A young Cuban woman, raising a
sign, was captured on national television. The sign pleaded for Cuba's
freedom. Cuban police pounced on the woman in the crowd, arrested her, and
sentenced her to 30 years in prison. Today she is in solitary confinement
at Mazorra (the Cuban National Insane Asylum) in a cell reserved for the
dangerously deranged. She is being "treated" with electro-shock therapy.
This is what happens when you embarrass Fidel Castro. My fellow Americans -
this is the "home" that we will send Elian back to.
Many think that the Elian ordeal is about reuniting a son with his father.
Ironically, it is not. If that were the case, there would be no argument
from Cuban-Americans. Cubans are fiercely loyal to family. Believing that
Elian is "going home to Dad" is being recklessly naive.
Cuban-Americans are protesting because Elian is NOT going back to his
father. The Cuban Constitution governs that children are the property of
the State. They are owned by the government. Juan Miguel has no say, no
rights, no parental control. Make no mistake - Elian is going back to
Fidel Castro.
Let's consider Elian's possibilities. If he weren't famous - just an
average Cuban boy - he would "be allowed' to live with his father until age
11. At age 11 he would be removed from his home and forced into slave
labor in the tobacco fields - no exceptions. This is the norm for Cuban
children - and Elian's best
case scenario. The problem is that Elian is now famous - an international
symbol - and politically useful to Castro. Castro will want Cubans and the
world to see Elian "reborn" - living a Communist life.
He will do what he needs to do to transform Elian into the perfect "symbol"
of the Revolution. We already know - per Castro himself - that Elian will
be "worked on" by government psychiatrists so that he will forget
everything he has seen in America. He will be "conditioned" and
intimidated most of his life
into believing what the State wants him to believe. If he doesn't believe,
he will fear the consequences.
To survive, he will have to denounce his own mother and his relatives in
Miami. He will lose his soul. Some say they are shocked that
Cuban-Americans would keep a boy from his father. We are shocked that you
would send him back to Communist Cuba.
The root of Cuban-American angst is not widely understood. What
Cuban-Americans know in their hearts - that Americans do not know - is that
no parent that loves a child and has experienced Fidel Castro's Cuba would
ever voluntarily send their child back to that world. Never. It is
incomprehensible to believe.
You see, the crusade for Elian has never been about custody to
Cuban-Americans. It has been about something greater and far more sacred in
our minds - his freedom.
Cuban-Americans want to give Elian a world where he has liberty, rights, and
hope. As the picket signs say "Love is Great, but Freedom is Greater".
This is hard for the average American to internalize - largely because the
average American has never experienced tyranny.
Those who have - the East Germans, the Vietnamese, the Yugoslavians would
attest to what a parent would do to save a child from tyranny. There are
legendary stories of East German parents throwing their
children over the Berlin Wall - knowing that whatever fate awaited their
child "on the other side" was far better than any life they could offer.
Heartfelt stories exist of Vietnamese families rushing to U.S. airbases in
1975, desperately throwing their children into American helicopters as they
lifted out of Saigon - knowing it was the child's only chance for a better
life. These are heart-wrenching, selfless, heroic acts of parental love.
Thousands of Cuban parents - like Elian's mother - have risked their lives
to do the same. Juan Miguel Gonzalez is being horribly manipulated by
Fidel Castro. We know he loves Elian, but he is powerless to save him.
Juan Miguel may be the most tormented and tragic character in the Elian
drama.
World opinion lends credibility to this line of reasoning (for hose of you
thinking Cuban-Americans are biased or melodramatic on the Castro subject).
Just two weeks ago the United Nations went on record condemning Cuba as "one
of the worst and last consistent violators of human rights". Cuba was put
in the same league as Iran and Iraq. Ironically,
our current administration has gone to battle stations over human rights in
Kosovo - yet we close our eyes to human atrocities occurring 90 miles from
the United States to the relatives of American citizens.
What is worse, we are beginning to mirror Fidel's behavior. I was ashamed
of my country this weekend. Never in the history of this country have we
strayed so shamelessly from the principles of our forefathers. It will be
with great sadness in my heart that I explain to my Cuban grandfather that
the government
he has revered, appreciated and sought refuge in for 30 years raided a
private American home at gunpoint with the purpose of returning a 6 year old
child to Communism. It will be with an even heavier heart that I tell him
that 60% of Americans agreed with it.
I ask you, my fellow Americans, to search your hearts and open your eyes.
This situation is not as black and white as it seems. Can you honestly say
that you would blindly turn over your 6 year old nephew, knowing what you
know now?
Some call the Miami relatives outlaws - chastising them for "not
cooperating" with the Federal government. If you, like Lazaro Gonzalez,
learned that no law obligated you to turn over the boy, could
you find it in your heart to personally "cooperate" in sending this little
boy to a life of tyranny?
Could you live with the role you played in his fate? Could you sleep at
night? Lazaro Gonzalez was not defying the law. He was following his
conscience. Turning over Elian would have haunted him for the rest of his
life.
Finally, fellow Americans, I ask you to please be careful in your judgements
and your broad generalizations. Newspapers, media - sometimes friends -
have made terrible and hurtful generalizations. Cuban-Americans are not
zealots or thugs or mafiosos. They are passionate, nonviolent, educated,
successful people who have risked everything for the principles at America's
core - liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness. Cuban-Americans are
entrepreneurs, CEOs, doctors, diplomats and hard working middle class
citizens. They epitomize patriotic America.
Today they are a community that is hurting, feeling alienated from fellow
Americans, and reeling
from the betrayal of their government. There has never been a more
emotionally difficult time for Cuban-Americans in this country. Do not
underestimate the depths of their wounds. We do not expect you to feel our
pain - we expect you to respect it.
All we wish for Elian is hope. Exiles launch life in America with so
little - they live off sheer hope. Hope lets us dream - it keeps us alive.
I was raised watching hope at its best - observing the grit, integrity and
steely determination of my Cuban parents as they fought to succeed in this
great land. They taught me to survive, to love this country, to honor my
heritage and to appreciate freedom. Like many first-generation Americans,
I dream big, work
hard, and seize the best that America offers. Because my life is full of
hope.
Cuban-Americans will forever mourn the hope that Elian was denied - the
potential he never reached. I know I will think of him often, living his
life in oppression - his human spirit eroding a little each day. And each
day I will wonder if today is the day that those little dancing lights in
Elian's eyes flicker out.
Ana M. Chao
April 26, 2000 |
