He Will BE A Father!!
Twenty years ago, in 2000, the 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez was the most famous child in the world as Havana battled Little Havana in Miami for his custody. Elian is now 26-years-old and on Father's Day Sunday he announced on his Facebook page that he will become a father this summer for the first time. He wrote: "Soon I will begin to understand what it means to be a father. But what I know up until now is my own father, and I hope to do it as half as well as he did with me."
The father that Elian spoke of is Juan Miguel Gonzalez. In 2000 the world watched Juan arrive in the U. S. to fight a tug-of-war with Little Havana for the custody of his son. While still five, Elian had washed up ashore in Florida on an innertube after his mother had died tried to reach the USA. It was a fight that Juan was not expected to win because Little Havana's Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami had dominated the USA's Cuban policies since they fled the Cuban Revolution's astounding victory over the U.S-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in January of 1959.
In Little Havana Elian was in the custody of omnipotent Counter Revolutionaries such as Havana-born U. S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. But in 2000, just prior to the November-2000 election of Republican President George W. Bush, who was tightly aligned with Little Havana, the U. S. President was still a Democrat named Bill Clinton. Thus, the Clinton administration, not Ros-Lehtinen and her powerful supporters, made the final decision on Elian's custody battle.
With the U. S. government in this rare instance standing up to Little Havana, the photo above evolved as one of the all-time most famous photos in the annals of U. S. and Cuban history. U. S. marshals were sent to Little Havana where they had to rescue the frightened and terrified Elian Gonzalez from a clothes-filled closet. Thus, Elian returned to Cuba with his father Juan and 20 years later they both still live in Cardenas, Cuba. This photo was taken by Alan Diaz for the Associated Press and, not surprisingly, it won the Pulitzer Prize.
This was Juan after regaining custody of Elian.
On his Facebook page the now 26-year-old Elian Gonzalez posted the two photos above showing him and his fiancee Ilianet Escano Valdes when they met and the way they are today. Ilianet and Elian later this summer will have their first child. It will be a girl.
This is Juan and Elian in their hometown of Cardenas, which is in Matanzas Province. Elian graduated from the University of Matanzas with an Engineering Degree and now works for a company that makes plastic water containers.
Living modesty in Cuba, Elian and Ilianet both say they don't want to ever live anywhere else. Elian, in the interview above, said he doesn't regret not being "a very rich man in Miami." His exact quote: "I think I would have become the poster boy of that group of Cubans in Miami that tries to destroy the revolution, that try to make Cuba look bad. I would have been used in that way. Maybe I would have become an actor on TV or maybe I would have more money than I have here...with more comforts. But my feet, my body, and my mind are all in Cuba. But there are times when I think about the United States." At this point in his interview with ABC-News, Elian paused to acknowledge some tears. Then he said, "Yes, I would like to visit the United States some day to thank the people who helped my father in 2000. I only hope that relations can be cleared up. Everybody can have their different point of view, have their political differences. But I don't think the countries and families should continue to be separated."
*&***********************&*
And now...Elian Gonzalez and Ilianet Escano will have their first child, a little girl, later this summer. And despite the Twin Perils of the COVID-19 pandemic and the even more dangerous U.S./Little Havana-imposed Blockade of their island, Elian and Ilianet are happy with their lives, with their nation, and with the baby they will soon bring into the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment