October 2, 2024 • 30 mins
After Elián’s Thanksgiving rescue at sea, he was released to relatives in Miami. Just a day later, the Cuban government sent a note: the boy’s father and Fidel Castro wanted Elián back. Tensions between the U.S. and Cuba had long been high, and relations were about to be tested to the extreme as the Thanksgiving miracle became an international custody battle. Just over a week after his rescue, on Dec. 6, 1999, Elián turned six years old. That same day Fidel Castro sent an ultimatum to the U.S. to return the boy to his father within 72 hours.
In Cuba, Peni was a young teen when Elián made it to Miami. Peni remembers seeing Elián everywhere: T-shirts, billboards, daily Fidel Castro briefings. She also remembers attending protests. Peni sits down with her younger brother Juanki to discuss their memories of the case, a national cause really, in Cuba. At the heart of the case is something Peni and Juanki know intimately: family separation.
This season's cover art by Ranfis Suárez Ramos.
Thanks to These Archival Sources:
Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives
Original Material Appeared In:
ABC Evening News
ABC Nightline
Action News
AP Archive
BBC Panorama
CBS Early Show
CBS Evening News
CNN's "Elián: The Remarkable Story of A Cuban Boy's Journey to America"
C-SPAN
Good Morning America
NPR
RTVE Telediario
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
When Elian made it to Miami, I was twelve years
old living in Cuba. My younger brother, Juan Carlos, who
we called Kwankey, was eight, kuanky like me. Remember, Alian's
face was everywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Of course, and they made shirts and posters and all
over the school.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
There was the flavor of the month.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Elian's story was more than just the flavor of the month. Actually,
it was a national cause. Before Elian was even rescued,
his family in Cuba had contacted the Communist party in
his hometown seeking help. That's how Fidel Castro found out
(00:45):
about Ilian. The Cuban government sent a message to the US.
The day after Elian was found, Tregress and Mino Superba
in Cuba returned the boy to his father in Cuba.
In the days that followed, Strum met with Ilian's father
and became increasingly angry. In film and check, he said,
(01:13):
the US has kidnapped Elian Gonzalez.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
The opinion shut down where.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
It sounded a little like a threat, but the ominous
stone in Castro's boys escaped my kid brother. He was
more concerned that he could not watch his regular cartoons
because of the constant news about Eliang.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
They were giving a whole spill of bring back Alian
at that time.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I'm a kid that he really didn't care about it.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I did not care about cartoons. I was just a
regular nerdy preteen, dividing my time between poetry and the
Spice Girls. The year before, my father had fled Cuba
for Miami. He was trying to escape the poverty and
instability of our country. I didn't know when I will
see him again. Much of this time in my life
(02:12):
is blurry, but there is one sharp memory. I'm in
front of the US headquarters in Cuba at a government
mandated protest that I was required to attend.
Speaker 7 (02:26):
Screaming loudly.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Bring back Ilian to Cuba. This memory surprises me now
because frankly, I don't remember what I actually thought of Elia,
like I don't remember actually having an opinion, and yet
here I was at this protest, screaming from the bottom
of my heart. I have come to realize I was
(02:58):
not screaming for Elian. I was screaming for my dad,
screaming in frustration that, like Eleane, the same strip of
ocean separated me from my father. I did not understand
or really care about the political forces that had caused
or separation. I only knew that I missed him, that
I needed him, that I was angry that I could
(03:21):
not be with him, and so I.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Screamed, no family issue had to go through what we went,
just because I'm looking for a better future.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
My brother told me this recently.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I agree, but we are Cuban, and to be Cuban
is so often to be separated from their family. Unpenny
later meets and this is chess peace. The Elian Gonzalez
Story a production of Putuda Studios in partnership with Ihearts
(03:59):
Michael Tuda podcast Network. On December sixth, nineteen ninety nine,
Elian Gonzalez celebrated his sixth birthday in Miami. It was
just a week and a half after he had been
rescued from the sea. He had been staying with distant
(04:21):
relatives on his dad's side, his great uncle Lasara Gonzalez,
and Lazaro's twenty one year old daughter Mary Leasis.
Speaker 8 (04:30):
How did he survive by himself when he's only five?
And the only thing I could probably say that it's
just a miracle.
Speaker 7 (04:37):
People said.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
She became like a mother figure for Elian. She cared
for him, making him chocolate milk, something that was so
luxury in Cuba and that Elean had quickly come to love.
One journalist reported that Mary Leasis would say to Elian,
mere Alliancito, your grandmothers cannot make you this in Cua.
Speaker 8 (04:58):
I just want him to be wherever he wants to
be comfortable.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Marit Less quickly became the family spokesperson. Unlike her father,
she spoke English well because she had been raised in
the US. She was young, passionate about the lean, and
comfortable in front of the cameras.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
I asked him, do you want to go back? You
mean you know you want to stay here?
Speaker 9 (05:21):
And he said, I don't want to go back.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
She and her father, last Settle, believed Elian's mother died
trying to give him safety and freedom in the US,
and they were not alone. Cuban Americans would show up
at their house demand in the US government let Elean
stay in the US.
Speaker 7 (05:42):
Yeahmanda.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
People would say it would be a shame to send
the boy back to communism and hunger in Cuba. At
his birthday at a local park, Elien was given many
gifts and a huge birthday cake, but that was an
Alien's only birthday party in Cuba, his school organized a
celebration in his absence with a special guest, Fidel Gastro
(06:12):
himself stopped by. He wore his typical olive green military uniform.
Alien's father, Juamiel, spoke to his son by phone that
day to wish him a happy birthday, and they spoke
as if Alien will be back in Cuba soon.
Speaker 10 (06:29):
Well, that went to Hedi. Really.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There were protests in Havana marking the week of Alian's birthday.
Cubans chanted down with imperialism, socialism, or death. But the
protest in Cuba did not change Elean status in the US.
(07:03):
His future was still in limbo. His Miami relatives had
begun the process to file for asylum for Elian. At
the time, Cubans were guaranteed entry to the US if
they made it to the US soil. But Alian didn't
technically meet these requirements.
Speaker 11 (07:22):
Because he was rescued at sea and never made it
to the shoreline. He was a wet foot Cuban national.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
This is Bernie Permurter, professor of law at the University
of Miami. He's referring to an unusual American policy at
the time known as bisco pimojus or wet foot dryfoot.
It allowed any Cuban to legally stay in the US
as long as they made it to the American shore
(07:53):
after crossing the ocean from Cuba, literally stepping on dry land.
That's the dry foot. But Cubans who were captured or
rescued at sea by the cost guard, they were not
permitted entry to.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
The United States. That's the wet foot.
Speaker 11 (08:11):
The federal government had taken legal custody of Elianis. I
said he didn't reach the shore, so he did not
have the benefit of dry feet landing on the beaches
of Florida.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So Alien's status under immigration law was not certain, and
another immigration policy in the US at that time said
that only a parent could apply for asylum for their child.
So to immigration officials, Alien's Miami relatives didn't have the
authority to decide the boy's fate.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
I'm not sure I understand what their rights are. These
were distant relatives.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
This is Jim Goldman, former special agent with US Immigration
and Naturalization Services or ions. We shall say in unusual circumstances,
the law does allow the government to assign a guardian
to one unaccompanied child, even if there are distant relatives
or not relatives, but in this case, the government was
(09:14):
insistent that there was no need to since Elian's father
wanted him back.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I think the biological father has more right to make
decisions for his child at the time was, you know,
five and six years old, more so than anybody.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Jim thinks this case should have been open and shot, but.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
It became a hot topic because I think the system
allowed for it to become a hot topic.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
He's right.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
Tensions between the United States and Cuba get hotter every
day six year old Cuban refugee Ilian Gonzales remains in
this country.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The American media system jumped on Alian's story.
Speaker 12 (09:56):
Cuban men, women, and children protested on the streets of
by the thousands last night. It was the largest turnout
so far at the third night of protest, orchestrated by
Fidel Castro.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It became the biggest story in the country at a
time when networks competed for wall to world news covers.
Speaker 13 (10:17):
It happens at the same time that we have the
modern media machine being created, the twenty four hour news cycle,
the dying of network news, the expansion of cable news
the need for content.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Go back and look at some of the news archives
and it does start to fill at times like Elean
was treated like content. There were cameras always stuck in
Ilian outside the Miami home, reporters trying to catch a
look of him playing ball, being.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
A little boy.
Speaker 14 (10:50):
Relatives of Elian Gonzalez say they saw a different side
of the six year old, a boy simply filled with
joy and happiness.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Reporters tried to capture sure every detail of Alian's introduction
to American culture, like when he went to Disney World
for the first time, where he got a personal hug
and a baseball hut autograph for Nana Masi Alamenos came
Mickey Mouse himself.
Speaker 14 (11:16):
But Ellian showed some lingering signs of his Thanksgiving ordeal
and rescue at sea when he went on the It's
a Small World water rid.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And the interview request kept coming. Diane Sawyer had a
playdate with Lean on camera.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
It was probably the biggest media item in the United States,
if not the world at the time.
Speaker 9 (11:39):
He would go to a party, you would go to
a restaurant, you would see your family. The talk the
main subject was Ellian, you know what's going to happen
to that boy.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Alina Mayo Assay is a television news bra a seasoned
news anchor who covered Miami's biggest stories for decades. She
says nothing at the time could compare to the appeal
of Alien story.
Speaker 7 (12:04):
It was unprecedented.
Speaker 9 (12:06):
It was our headline story practically every day. It was
before Alian and after Alian. It definitely marked a line
and the story and the history of the Cuban exile
in the United States, especially in Miami.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
But in Cuba.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
The US media frenzy seemed to make Fidel Castro even
more upset, and soon Castro will send another stern message.
We turned the boy in seventy two hours. Fidel's message
(12:50):
to the US was clear, returned the boy in three.
Speaker 7 (12:53):
Days, only not too el Primian.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So that the pains of for an on trauma Dipoe
and his family does not go a mini longer, he said,
and his words were in the only ominous move. Castro
stationed several dozen Cuban soldiers outside of the US Government
Intersection office in Havana. This is the headquarters where I
(13:19):
remember attending government sponsor protests for Elian. I remember the
tension in the air, the vague sense that there was
something biggest stake here, something with a lot of biggers.
(13:39):
To understand why Land's case became such a big deal,
you had to understand the complicated relationship between Cuba and
the United States. Let's start in the early fifties. At
this time, Cuba was ruled by Fulhenzioatista, who was once elected,
but whose government had become actually a military dictatorship.
Speaker 10 (14:03):
Six years of surface pastparity and government corruption, of retression
and police brutality, right explosive discontent.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Mattista was friendly to US interests, allowing American companies like
Coca Cola and United Fruit to own a giant amount
of Cuban land. Workers struggled to survive on low wages
and oppressive conditions. This inequality ripened the country for the
ideals of Fidel Castro's revolution.
Speaker 10 (14:33):
Hubert's Fidel Castro emerged triumphant after two years a guerrilla
warfare against the Batista regime. A revolution that began with
Castro of fugitive ended with the find of dictator for
Cenzio Batista and the entry into Havana of rebel forces
to be acclaimed.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
By the city.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
He and his fighters including a john Argentinian doctor named
Erneto che Evara, eventually overthrew a Vista and his government.
Castro and his men were the underdogs. The uprising had
begun with just eighteen men in the mountains of La
Sierra Maestra, and it had spread to the whole island.
(15:14):
At first, the US was not alarmed.
Speaker 8 (15:19):
Now, when Fidel Castro's fighting to depose Battista, he's not
calling himself communist. Many of the people who were in
his movement, which was called the twenty sixth of July Movement,
were young people who were ardently anti communists.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
This is Ala Ferrer, the Cuban American history professor at
Princeton you heard from in episode one.
Speaker 8 (15:39):
But they believed in deposing Batista. They believed in acting
against government corruption.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
By nineteen sixty, the new government approved laws that banned
all foreign ownership of Cuban land, banishing American companies from
the island and nationalizing their businesses. His government also confiscated
the line of Ques, who held more than one thousand acres.
Even Castro's own mother was apparently outraged that her son
(16:07):
had confiscated their family estate. Castro redistributed this line to
workers or statecomings.
Speaker 8 (16:16):
They start enacting social reforms like the urban reform, cutting rents,
and with all these laws that they're passing, they're getting
enormous amounts of support.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Some of that support came from my own grandparents, who
got the chance to buy for almost nothing the apartment
that they were renting before the revolution. It was the
same apartment where I was raised with my mother thirty
years after that. Not everyone felt like my grandparents.
Speaker 8 (16:44):
Obviously, the people whose land is being taken away are
not necessarily going to support.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
But Castro was well liked in Cuba, not just by
my grandparents but by many other Cubans.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
So the tor policies in Cuba, doctor Castro, are leading
to two conditions of great economic difficulty.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Is this so everybody working?
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Everybody happy?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
In this nineteen sixty one BBC interview, Castro is young, smiling,
easy going. The journalist wrote that Castro charmed and impressed
many reporters. When Castro came to power, he promised democratic
elections will come as soon as the new government stabilized,
but by the early sixties that hadn't happened. The Cubans
(17:34):
who left for the United States after Castro had taken
their land.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
So Castro not for a revolutionary but a despot.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Some people say, some of your Cuban enemies, says yes,
people in Miami Americans say that you started a revolution
to bring in democracy and you have not done so.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
In this part of the video, when the reporter mentions
ones in Miami, Castro gets a son Ricita his marks
a little.
Speaker 7 (18:05):
Do you believe that there is no democracy here?
Speaker 15 (18:07):
I'm ensure there is more your question than that.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
In the United States, the most free main man you
can't find in all America is the Cuban.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Ada says that in a survey from February of nineteen
fifty nine, about ninety one percent of the respondents said
that the new government was doing everything perfectly well, but
Washington didn't feel this way.
Speaker 8 (18:36):
Here is Ada again, The President and senators and congressmen
were saying, what is Cuba doing? It's turning communists.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
By nineteen sixty two, the US had cut diplomatic ties
with Cuba and declared and embargo forbidding American trade with Cuba,
hoping to create shortages and hunger on the island to
destitlize Castro's new government. This time Castro had been turning
into the Soviet Union for help and trade.
Speaker 15 (19:06):
What the United States and self respect can endure that
lemit has now been reached.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
The CIA also secretly trained some fourteen hundred Cubans who
had led for the US to invade Cuba at the
Way of Peaks Lava Yedecuccinos, believing the attack could kickstart
an uprising against Castro. But the attended invasion failed miserably.
(19:33):
I remember learning in our history classes in Cuba about
these early days of Castro's rule, how he created new systems,
free health care and free education, improving the quality of
life for ordinary Cubans. I remember some people in Cuba
saying that yes, their life improved at the beginning, and
(19:54):
they supported Castro, pretty convinced that great years were ahead.
But what I didn't learn in school was that from
the very beginning, the censorin and self Censorina started, and
Cuba quickly became a place with almost no freedom of expression.
Under this new regime, dissidents were often imprisoned and then
(20:20):
thanks got warse.
Speaker 8 (20:22):
It's a period that follows the fall of the Soviet
Union and state socialism in Eastern Europe and the Cuban
economy just tanked almost from one day to the next.
There was the joke of you know, Cuba, but it
wasn't really a joke. You know, Cuba just has three problems.
You know, there's a union and mercilla, comedia breakfast, lunch
and dinner. And everywhere I went, the constant refrain was
(20:46):
noise fasci. Everyone had the reservation meant that, and it
was just this constant struggle to live and to survive.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Over the decades, waves of Cuban's left the island for
the US flights and votes. There were the fourteen thousand
children who were put on planes to Miami in fear
that they will be taken away from their families and
put in communist inductrination camps. That never happened, by the way.
Speaker 8 (21:17):
Then the next wave was nineteen eighty and the Mario
boat lived in which one hundred and twenty five thousand
people came in the space of about you know, five months.
Speaker 15 (21:25):
Even less, the president has literally opened the floodgates, placing
no limitations on the number of Cubans entering the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
A decade after Mariel, with the fall of the Soviet Union,
Cuba entered the years of severe scarcity that I remember
from my childhood. The Cuban government named it the Special
Period or Elperio Pessie.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
Then there was the Raftro crisis in ninety four, which
I think was about thirty five thousand people in the
space of a few months. But in all those years
there were people leaving.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Most of the time could not leave Cuba together. They
would decide who had a better chance to leave, save,
send money, and work hard to help the rest of
the family on the island. There are many families like
mine and Aliens where a parent or a child comes
without the rest of their family.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
Family separation is, you know, was a part of the
story of the Cuban Revolution from the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Family separation has become souci a part of the Cuban
cultural DNA that is actually pretty difficult to meet a
Cuban who has not been touched by it. And who
you blame for that separation depends on what side of
the small strip of ocean between Cuba and Florida you
are on. Alien's story flooded every corner of life in Cuba.
(23:04):
I remember not just attending but watching the protests in
Havana demanding Elian be brought home. So those Harold Cardinas
quean journalist and political analyst.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
People in Havanah had to rally all the time, and
it's impressive when you look at the images of the
Malecon in Havana next to the sea full of probably
millions of Cubans. That is an impressive thing. That showed
the capacity that the Kivan government had back then to
rally people and to bring them together for a cause.
(23:40):
I am sure that many of them were strongly encouraged
in their jobs to join those rallies, but others were
going because they really believe in it.
Speaker 7 (23:53):
I felt this too.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Sure there were people there because the protests were mandated,
but I also saw people who were truly calling for
his return, outraged that the boy was being kept from
his father.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Obviously, at that age, it's hard to distinguish between the
real fight of a kid that deserves to be with
his father and the propaganda and how the governments also
used people citizens for propaganda purposes. So as a child
it was hard to distinguish the propaganda.
Speaker 7 (24:25):
On both sides.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
In Cuba, I remember hearing a lot about how Alien's
father had never agreed that Ilian could be taken to
the United States. How the US was keeping a boy
away from the rightful parent, another example of the evil
US Empire. But for Cubans in Florida, this case was
about freedom and saving a boy from oppression.
Speaker 15 (24:52):
Many of the people, the Qubit Americans in Miami identified
with the mother and her motivations for doing what she
did and the fact she lost her life in trying.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
To do this.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
This is former Assistant Secretary of State Petromero. But this
idea that Alien's mother had died trying to reach freedom
for her son is not as black and white. There
is some evidence that Alien's mother was going to the
United States not for freedom, but to follow her boyfriend.
Speaker 16 (25:23):
They truly were the Cuban Romeo and Juliet Well.
Speaker 7 (25:27):
She was reputting the story.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Journalist and Louis bardak So a five page love letter
between the couple, and she and others are convinced that
love was the real motive.
Speaker 16 (25:39):
The reason the mother was on the boat was because
of her great love for Rafa Muneerum. If Rafa had
said we're going to Iceland or we're going to Columbia,
I think she.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Would have gone with him, regardless of why she got
on the boat. What do you should know is people
either identified with Lilian's mom and the US or Alien's
dad and Cuba.
Speaker 15 (26:07):
Everybody can understand, you know, a child who's a Cuban
child taken away from you know, the bosom of the
motherland and all of that stuff, and you know we
want him back. And yeah, I mean it was it
was great for propaganda.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I see how Alian was used by both sides to
boaster ideology. But mostly when I see Alian, I see
US Cubans, people who have experienced family separation over seven decades.
I see my family, my brother Juankey, who now lives
in Miami and works as a SWAT paramedic and firefighter.
(26:48):
Some people thought that you look like Ilian yourself.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Well, yeah, that was my nickname on Fire Academy when
I was eighteen, or my English pretty much up. But
back then it was pretty bad, and that was my
victim of Fire Academy, Alion Gonzales, you are the littlefees million.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
It is true my brother does look like Alan.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Maybe that's why it's been easier for me to imagine Elean,
not as a headline, not as a piece of geopolitics
or history, or even as propaganda. No, I see Elean
as someone who once was a boy in a new
and unknown country without his mom.
Speaker 7 (27:34):
Or his dad.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
And I know the whole that creates in your heart
to be separated from a parent. Forces greater than you
keeping you from them, countries and their policies, politicians and
their aims, reporters and their deadlines. That's all in the periphery.
(27:56):
At the center, at the heart of Alian's journey is
that he was a boy who longed for his parents
like I once did. Next time on Chess Peace, Miami,
(28:22):
Cubans and Ilian's relatives start getting angry.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Elean comes Fidel hasn't gone down.
Speaker 10 (28:29):
Everybody is not happy about that, and by God, Fidel's
not going to get this trophy.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
And the battle for Elian starts breaking up a family.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Chess piece.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
The Elian Gonzales Story is a production of Utuda Studios
in partnership with Iheart's Michael Turda podcast Network. This show
is written and reported by me Pennileea Medz with Maria Garcia,
Cold Rockwell and Tasha Sandoval. Our editor is Maria Garcia.
Additional editing by Marlon Bishop or. Senior producer is Nicole Rockwell.
(29:10):
Our associate producers are Tasha Sandoval and Elisabeth Loental Torres.
Sound designed by Jacob Rossatti and our intern is Evelin
Fajardo Alvarez. Our senior production manager is Jessica Elis, with
production supports from Nancy Trujillo and Francis Poon.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
Mixing by Stephanie.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Levo, Julia Caruso and j J Carubin, fat checking by
Media Bautista, Scoring and musical creation by Jacob Rossatti and
Stephanie Levo and credits music from Los aceos Or. Executive
producers are Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia. Legal review by
Neil Rossini. This episode was recorded in part at Dynamica
(29:55):
Studio in Mexico City. Whuturo Media was founded by Maria
noo Cossa. For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or whenever you listen to your favorite shows
mpany later, missus see you in the next episode. Novement
episode
When Elian made it to Miami, I was twelve years
old living in Cuba. My younger brother, Juan Carlos, who
we called Kwankey, was eight, kuanky like me. Remember, Alian's
face was everywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Of course, and they made shirts and posters and all
over the school.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
There was the flavor of the month.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Elian's story was more than just the flavor of the month. Actually,
it was a national cause. Before Elian was even rescued,
his family in Cuba had contacted the Communist party in
his hometown seeking help. That's how Fidel Castro found out
(00:45):
about Ilian. The Cuban government sent a message to the US.
The day after Elian was found, Tregress and Mino Superba
in Cuba returned the boy to his father in Cuba.
In the days that followed, Strum met with Ilian's father
and became increasingly angry. In film and check, he said,
(01:13):
the US has kidnapped Elian Gonzalez.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
The opinion shut down where.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
It sounded a little like a threat, but the ominous
stone in Castro's boys escaped my kid brother. He was
more concerned that he could not watch his regular cartoons
because of the constant news about Eliang.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
They were giving a whole spill of bring back Alian
at that time.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I'm a kid that he really didn't care about it.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I did not care about cartoons. I was just a
regular nerdy preteen, dividing my time between poetry and the
Spice Girls. The year before, my father had fled Cuba
for Miami. He was trying to escape the poverty and
instability of our country. I didn't know when I will
see him again. Much of this time in my life
(02:12):
is blurry, but there is one sharp memory. I'm in
front of the US headquarters in Cuba at a government
mandated protest that I was required to attend.
Speaker 7 (02:26):
Screaming loudly.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Bring back Ilian to Cuba. This memory surprises me now
because frankly, I don't remember what I actually thought of Elia,
like I don't remember actually having an opinion, and yet
here I was at this protest, screaming from the bottom
of my heart. I have come to realize I was
(02:58):
not screaming for Elian. I was screaming for my dad,
screaming in frustration that, like Eleane, the same strip of
ocean separated me from my father. I did not understand
or really care about the political forces that had caused
or separation. I only knew that I missed him, that
I needed him, that I was angry that I could
(03:21):
not be with him, and so I.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Screamed, no family issue had to go through what we went,
just because I'm looking for a better future.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
My brother told me this recently.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I agree, but we are Cuban, and to be Cuban
is so often to be separated from their family. Unpenny
later meets and this is chess peace. The Elian Gonzalez
Story a production of Putuda Studios in partnership with Ihearts
(03:59):
Michael Tuda podcast Network. On December sixth, nineteen ninety nine,
Elian Gonzalez celebrated his sixth birthday in Miami. It was
just a week and a half after he had been
rescued from the sea. He had been staying with distant
(04:21):
relatives on his dad's side, his great uncle Lasara Gonzalez,
and Lazaro's twenty one year old daughter Mary Leasis.
Speaker 8 (04:30):
How did he survive by himself when he's only five?
And the only thing I could probably say that it's
just a miracle.
Speaker 7 (04:37):
People said.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
She became like a mother figure for Elian. She cared
for him, making him chocolate milk, something that was so
luxury in Cuba and that Elean had quickly come to love.
One journalist reported that Mary Leasis would say to Elian,
mere Alliancito, your grandmothers cannot make you this in Cua.
Speaker 8 (04:58):
I just want him to be wherever he wants to
be comfortable.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Marit Less quickly became the family spokesperson. Unlike her father,
she spoke English well because she had been raised in
the US. She was young, passionate about the lean, and
comfortable in front of the cameras.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
I asked him, do you want to go back? You
mean you know you want to stay here?
Speaker 9 (05:21):
And he said, I don't want to go back.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
She and her father, last Settle, believed Elian's mother died
trying to give him safety and freedom in the US,
and they were not alone. Cuban Americans would show up
at their house demand in the US government let Elean
stay in the US.
Speaker 7 (05:42):
Yeahmanda.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
People would say it would be a shame to send
the boy back to communism and hunger in Cuba. At
his birthday at a local park, Elien was given many
gifts and a huge birthday cake, but that was an
Alien's only birthday party in Cuba, his school organized a
celebration in his absence with a special guest, Fidel Gastro
(06:12):
himself stopped by. He wore his typical olive green military uniform.
Alien's father, Juamiel, spoke to his son by phone that
day to wish him a happy birthday, and they spoke
as if Alien will be back in Cuba soon.
Speaker 10 (06:29):
Well, that went to Hedi. Really.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There were protests in Havana marking the week of Alian's birthday.
Cubans chanted down with imperialism, socialism, or death. But the
protest in Cuba did not change Elean status in the US.
(07:03):
His future was still in limbo. His Miami relatives had
begun the process to file for asylum for Elian. At
the time, Cubans were guaranteed entry to the US if
they made it to the US soil. But Alian didn't
technically meet these requirements.
Speaker 11 (07:22):
Because he was rescued at sea and never made it
to the shoreline. He was a wet foot Cuban national.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
This is Bernie Permurter, professor of law at the University
of Miami. He's referring to an unusual American policy at
the time known as bisco pimojus or wet foot dryfoot.
It allowed any Cuban to legally stay in the US
as long as they made it to the American shore
(07:53):
after crossing the ocean from Cuba, literally stepping on dry land.
That's the dry foot. But Cubans who were captured or
rescued at sea by the cost guard, they were not
permitted entry to.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
The United States. That's the wet foot.
Speaker 11 (08:11):
The federal government had taken legal custody of Elianis. I
said he didn't reach the shore, so he did not
have the benefit of dry feet landing on the beaches
of Florida.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So Alien's status under immigration law was not certain, and
another immigration policy in the US at that time said
that only a parent could apply for asylum for their child.
So to immigration officials, Alien's Miami relatives didn't have the
authority to decide the boy's fate.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
I'm not sure I understand what their rights are. These
were distant relatives.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
This is Jim Goldman, former special agent with US Immigration
and Naturalization Services or ions. We shall say in unusual circumstances,
the law does allow the government to assign a guardian
to one unaccompanied child, even if there are distant relatives
or not relatives, but in this case, the government was
(09:14):
insistent that there was no need to since Elian's father
wanted him back.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I think the biological father has more right to make
decisions for his child at the time was, you know,
five and six years old, more so than anybody.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Jim thinks this case should have been open and shot, but.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
It became a hot topic because I think the system
allowed for it to become a hot topic.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
He's right.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
Tensions between the United States and Cuba get hotter every
day six year old Cuban refugee Ilian Gonzales remains in
this country.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The American media system jumped on Alian's story.
Speaker 12 (09:56):
Cuban men, women, and children protested on the streets of
by the thousands last night. It was the largest turnout
so far at the third night of protest, orchestrated by
Fidel Castro.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It became the biggest story in the country at a
time when networks competed for wall to world news covers.
Speaker 13 (10:17):
It happens at the same time that we have the
modern media machine being created, the twenty four hour news cycle,
the dying of network news, the expansion of cable news
the need for content.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Go back and look at some of the news archives
and it does start to fill at times like Elean
was treated like content. There were cameras always stuck in
Ilian outside the Miami home, reporters trying to catch a
look of him playing ball, being.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
A little boy.
Speaker 14 (10:50):
Relatives of Elian Gonzalez say they saw a different side
of the six year old, a boy simply filled with
joy and happiness.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Reporters tried to capture sure every detail of Alian's introduction
to American culture, like when he went to Disney World
for the first time, where he got a personal hug
and a baseball hut autograph for Nana Masi Alamenos came
Mickey Mouse himself.
Speaker 14 (11:16):
But Ellian showed some lingering signs of his Thanksgiving ordeal
and rescue at sea when he went on the It's
a Small World water rid.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And the interview request kept coming. Diane Sawyer had a
playdate with Lean on camera.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
It was probably the biggest media item in the United States,
if not the world at the time.
Speaker 9 (11:39):
He would go to a party, you would go to
a restaurant, you would see your family. The talk the
main subject was Ellian, you know what's going to happen
to that boy.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Alina Mayo Assay is a television news bra a seasoned
news anchor who covered Miami's biggest stories for decades. She
says nothing at the time could compare to the appeal
of Alien story.
Speaker 7 (12:04):
It was unprecedented.
Speaker 9 (12:06):
It was our headline story practically every day. It was
before Alian and after Alian. It definitely marked a line
and the story and the history of the Cuban exile
in the United States, especially in Miami.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
But in Cuba.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
The US media frenzy seemed to make Fidel Castro even
more upset, and soon Castro will send another stern message.
We turned the boy in seventy two hours. Fidel's message
(12:50):
to the US was clear, returned the boy in three.
Speaker 7 (12:53):
Days, only not too el Primian.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So that the pains of for an on trauma Dipoe
and his family does not go a mini longer, he said,
and his words were in the only ominous move. Castro
stationed several dozen Cuban soldiers outside of the US Government
Intersection office in Havana. This is the headquarters where I
(13:19):
remember attending government sponsor protests for Elian. I remember the
tension in the air, the vague sense that there was
something biggest stake here, something with a lot of biggers.
(13:39):
To understand why Land's case became such a big deal,
you had to understand the complicated relationship between Cuba and
the United States. Let's start in the early fifties. At
this time, Cuba was ruled by Fulhenzioatista, who was once elected,
but whose government had become actually a military dictatorship.
Speaker 10 (14:03):
Six years of surface pastparity and government corruption, of retression
and police brutality, right explosive discontent.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Mattista was friendly to US interests, allowing American companies like
Coca Cola and United Fruit to own a giant amount
of Cuban land. Workers struggled to survive on low wages
and oppressive conditions. This inequality ripened the country for the
ideals of Fidel Castro's revolution.
Speaker 10 (14:33):
Hubert's Fidel Castro emerged triumphant after two years a guerrilla
warfare against the Batista regime. A revolution that began with
Castro of fugitive ended with the find of dictator for
Cenzio Batista and the entry into Havana of rebel forces
to be acclaimed.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
By the city.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
He and his fighters including a john Argentinian doctor named
Erneto che Evara, eventually overthrew a Vista and his government.
Castro and his men were the underdogs. The uprising had
begun with just eighteen men in the mountains of La
Sierra Maestra, and it had spread to the whole island.
(15:14):
At first, the US was not alarmed.
Speaker 8 (15:19):
Now, when Fidel Castro's fighting to depose Battista, he's not
calling himself communist. Many of the people who were in
his movement, which was called the twenty sixth of July Movement,
were young people who were ardently anti communists.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
This is Ala Ferrer, the Cuban American history professor at
Princeton you heard from in episode one.
Speaker 8 (15:39):
But they believed in deposing Batista. They believed in acting
against government corruption.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
By nineteen sixty, the new government approved laws that banned
all foreign ownership of Cuban land, banishing American companies from
the island and nationalizing their businesses. His government also confiscated
the line of Ques, who held more than one thousand acres.
Even Castro's own mother was apparently outraged that her son
(16:07):
had confiscated their family estate. Castro redistributed this line to
workers or statecomings.
Speaker 8 (16:16):
They start enacting social reforms like the urban reform, cutting rents,
and with all these laws that they're passing, they're getting
enormous amounts of support.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Some of that support came from my own grandparents, who
got the chance to buy for almost nothing the apartment
that they were renting before the revolution. It was the
same apartment where I was raised with my mother thirty
years after that. Not everyone felt like my grandparents.
Speaker 8 (16:44):
Obviously, the people whose land is being taken away are
not necessarily going to support.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
But Castro was well liked in Cuba, not just by
my grandparents but by many other Cubans.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
So the tor policies in Cuba, doctor Castro, are leading
to two conditions of great economic difficulty.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Is this so everybody working?
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Everybody happy?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
In this nineteen sixty one BBC interview, Castro is young, smiling,
easy going. The journalist wrote that Castro charmed and impressed
many reporters. When Castro came to power, he promised democratic
elections will come as soon as the new government stabilized,
but by the early sixties that hadn't happened. The Cubans
(17:34):
who left for the United States after Castro had taken
their land.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
So Castro not for a revolutionary but a despot.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Some people say, some of your Cuban enemies, says yes,
people in Miami Americans say that you started a revolution
to bring in democracy and you have not done so.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
In this part of the video, when the reporter mentions
ones in Miami, Castro gets a son Ricita his marks
a little.
Speaker 7 (18:05):
Do you believe that there is no democracy here?
Speaker 15 (18:07):
I'm ensure there is more your question than that.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
In the United States, the most free main man you
can't find in all America is the Cuban.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Ada says that in a survey from February of nineteen
fifty nine, about ninety one percent of the respondents said
that the new government was doing everything perfectly well, but
Washington didn't feel this way.
Speaker 8 (18:36):
Here is Ada again, The President and senators and congressmen
were saying, what is Cuba doing? It's turning communists.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
By nineteen sixty two, the US had cut diplomatic ties
with Cuba and declared and embargo forbidding American trade with Cuba,
hoping to create shortages and hunger on the island to
destitlize Castro's new government. This time Castro had been turning
into the Soviet Union for help and trade.
Speaker 15 (19:06):
What the United States and self respect can endure that
lemit has now been reached.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
The CIA also secretly trained some fourteen hundred Cubans who
had led for the US to invade Cuba at the
Way of Peaks Lava Yedecuccinos, believing the attack could kickstart
an uprising against Castro. But the attended invasion failed miserably.
(19:33):
I remember learning in our history classes in Cuba about
these early days of Castro's rule, how he created new systems,
free health care and free education, improving the quality of
life for ordinary Cubans. I remember some people in Cuba
saying that yes, their life improved at the beginning, and
(19:54):
they supported Castro, pretty convinced that great years were ahead.
But what I didn't learn in school was that from
the very beginning, the censorin and self Censorina started, and
Cuba quickly became a place with almost no freedom of expression.
Under this new regime, dissidents were often imprisoned and then
(20:20):
thanks got warse.
Speaker 8 (20:22):
It's a period that follows the fall of the Soviet
Union and state socialism in Eastern Europe and the Cuban
economy just tanked almost from one day to the next.
There was the joke of you know, Cuba, but it
wasn't really a joke. You know, Cuba just has three problems.
You know, there's a union and mercilla, comedia breakfast, lunch
and dinner. And everywhere I went, the constant refrain was
(20:46):
noise fasci. Everyone had the reservation meant that, and it
was just this constant struggle to live and to survive.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Over the decades, waves of Cuban's left the island for
the US flights and votes. There were the fourteen thousand
children who were put on planes to Miami in fear
that they will be taken away from their families and
put in communist inductrination camps. That never happened, by the way.
Speaker 8 (21:17):
Then the next wave was nineteen eighty and the Mario
boat lived in which one hundred and twenty five thousand
people came in the space of about you know, five months.
Speaker 15 (21:25):
Even less, the president has literally opened the floodgates, placing
no limitations on the number of Cubans entering the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
A decade after Mariel, with the fall of the Soviet Union,
Cuba entered the years of severe scarcity that I remember
from my childhood. The Cuban government named it the Special
Period or Elperio Pessie.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
Then there was the Raftro crisis in ninety four, which
I think was about thirty five thousand people in the
space of a few months. But in all those years
there were people leaving.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Most of the time could not leave Cuba together. They
would decide who had a better chance to leave, save,
send money, and work hard to help the rest of
the family on the island. There are many families like
mine and Aliens where a parent or a child comes
without the rest of their family.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
Family separation is, you know, was a part of the
story of the Cuban Revolution from the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Family separation has become souci a part of the Cuban
cultural DNA that is actually pretty difficult to meet a
Cuban who has not been touched by it. And who
you blame for that separation depends on what side of
the small strip of ocean between Cuba and Florida you
are on. Alien's story flooded every corner of life in Cuba.
(23:04):
I remember not just attending but watching the protests in
Havana demanding Elian be brought home. So those Harold Cardinas
quean journalist and political analyst.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
People in Havanah had to rally all the time, and
it's impressive when you look at the images of the
Malecon in Havana next to the sea full of probably
millions of Cubans. That is an impressive thing. That showed
the capacity that the Kivan government had back then to
rally people and to bring them together for a cause.
(23:40):
I am sure that many of them were strongly encouraged
in their jobs to join those rallies, but others were
going because they really believe in it.
Speaker 7 (23:53):
I felt this too.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Sure there were people there because the protests were mandated,
but I also saw people who were truly calling for
his return, outraged that the boy was being kept from
his father.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Obviously, at that age, it's hard to distinguish between the
real fight of a kid that deserves to be with
his father and the propaganda and how the governments also
used people citizens for propaganda purposes. So as a child
it was hard to distinguish the propaganda.
Speaker 7 (24:25):
On both sides.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
In Cuba, I remember hearing a lot about how Alien's
father had never agreed that Ilian could be taken to
the United States. How the US was keeping a boy
away from the rightful parent, another example of the evil
US Empire. But for Cubans in Florida, this case was
about freedom and saving a boy from oppression.
Speaker 15 (24:52):
Many of the people, the Qubit Americans in Miami identified
with the mother and her motivations for doing what she
did and the fact she lost her life in trying.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
To do this.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
This is former Assistant Secretary of State Petromero. But this
idea that Alien's mother had died trying to reach freedom
for her son is not as black and white. There
is some evidence that Alien's mother was going to the
United States not for freedom, but to follow her boyfriend.
Speaker 16 (25:23):
They truly were the Cuban Romeo and Juliet Well.
Speaker 7 (25:27):
She was reputting the story.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Journalist and Louis bardak So a five page love letter
between the couple, and she and others are convinced that
love was the real motive.
Speaker 16 (25:39):
The reason the mother was on the boat was because
of her great love for Rafa Muneerum. If Rafa had
said we're going to Iceland or we're going to Columbia,
I think she.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Would have gone with him, regardless of why she got
on the boat. What do you should know is people
either identified with Lilian's mom and the US or Alien's
dad and Cuba.
Speaker 15 (26:07):
Everybody can understand, you know, a child who's a Cuban
child taken away from you know, the bosom of the
motherland and all of that stuff, and you know we
want him back. And yeah, I mean it was it
was great for propaganda.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I see how Alian was used by both sides to
boaster ideology. But mostly when I see Alian, I see
US Cubans, people who have experienced family separation over seven decades.
I see my family, my brother Juankey, who now lives
in Miami and works as a SWAT paramedic and firefighter.
(26:48):
Some people thought that you look like Ilian yourself.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Well, yeah, that was my nickname on Fire Academy when
I was eighteen, or my English pretty much up. But
back then it was pretty bad, and that was my
victim of Fire Academy, Alion Gonzales, you are the littlefees million.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
It is true my brother does look like Alan.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Maybe that's why it's been easier for me to imagine Elean,
not as a headline, not as a piece of geopolitics
or history, or even as propaganda. No, I see Elean
as someone who once was a boy in a new
and unknown country without his mom.
Speaker 7 (27:34):
Or his dad.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
And I know the whole that creates in your heart
to be separated from a parent. Forces greater than you
keeping you from them, countries and their policies, politicians and
their aims, reporters and their deadlines. That's all in the periphery.
(27:56):
At the center, at the heart of Alian's journey is
that he was a boy who longed for his parents
like I once did. Next time on Chess Peace, Miami,
(28:22):
Cubans and Ilian's relatives start getting angry.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Elean comes Fidel hasn't gone down.
Speaker 10 (28:29):
Everybody is not happy about that, and by God, Fidel's
not going to get this trophy.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
And the battle for Elian starts breaking up a family.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Chess piece.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
The Elian Gonzales Story is a production of Utuda Studios
in partnership with Iheart's Michael Turda podcast Network. This show
is written and reported by me Pennileea Medz with Maria Garcia,
Cold Rockwell and Tasha Sandoval. Our editor is Maria Garcia.
Additional editing by Marlon Bishop or. Senior producer is Nicole Rockwell.
(29:10):
Our associate producers are Tasha Sandoval and Elisabeth Loental Torres.
Sound designed by Jacob Rossatti and our intern is Evelin
Fajardo Alvarez. Our senior production manager is Jessica Elis, with
production supports from Nancy Trujillo and Francis Poon.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
Mixing by Stephanie.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Levo, Julia Caruso and j J Carubin, fat checking by
Media Bautista, Scoring and musical creation by Jacob Rossatti and
Stephanie Levo and credits music from Los aceos Or. Executive
producers are Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia. Legal review by
Neil Rossini. This episode was recorded in part at Dynamica
(29:55):
Studio in Mexico City. Whuturo Media was founded by Maria
noo Cossa. For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or whenever you listen to your favorite shows
mpany later, missus see you in the next episode. Novement
episode
Host
Peniley Ramírez
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