Boy castaway Elian Gonzalez, now 21, wants to revisit the US

Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who became famous after his dramatic ocean rescue at age 6 led to an international custody battle, has said that he would like to revisited the US.

|
Ramon Espinosa
In this Dec. 20, 2014, file photo, Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban rafter who was at the center of a bitter custody battle in 2000 between relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba, attends the closing ceremony of the legislative session at the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba. Gonzalez said during an ABC News interview that aired Monday, May 18, 2015, that if he could visit anywhere, it would be the United States so he could “give my love to (the) American people.”

Elian Gonzalez, who spent months with his Florida relatives as a Cuban child at the center of an international custody dispute, said in an interview broadcast Monday that he'd like to return to the United States for a visit.

Now 21, Gonzalez told ABC News in an interview that if he could visit anywhere, it would be the U.S.

Gonzalez thanked the American people for the love they showed him during the custody battle 15 years ago, and said he would like to go back "to give my love to the American people."

He said he'd like to see a baseball game, visit Washington museums and talk to Americans.

"I could personally thank those people who helped us, who were there by our side. Because we're so grateful for what they did."

ABC's images of Gonzalez captured over several days showed him first with a beard, then clean-shaven.

Gonzalez is a local celebrity on the island and was a military cadet when he was in his late teens. He is now studying industrial engineering at the university in the Cuban province of Matanzas, west of the capital. According to the interview, he recently became engaged to be married.

He was just a few weeks shy of 6 when his mother, Elizabeth Brotons, died at sea in 1999 while trying to take him to the U.S.

Gonazlez survived by clinging to an inner tube and was rescued on the high sea, eventually ending up with Florida relatives who fought to keep him in the United States.

"I was alone in the middle of the sea, that's the last thing I remember," Gonzalez said. He said he was moved by his mother's efforts to keep him afloat while he drowned.

"She fought until the very last minute to keep me alive," he said.

The tug-of-war between Gonzalez's U.S. relatives and his father ensued, with then-president Fidel Castro siding with the boy's surviving parent Juan Gonzalez and the Miami-based Cuban exile community backing family members in Florida.

For months, Cuba's Communist government organized almost daily marches of thousands of people demanding that the child be returned to the island.

News media camped outside the home where Gonzalez was staying in Miami, with cameras constantly trained on him and his relatives.

The case sparked a debate about parental rights that raged on both sides of the Florida Straits.

President Bill Clinton's administration ultimately backed the father's rights and allowed him to take his son back to Cuba in mid-2000.

The ABC report said Gonzalez said he had no regrets about his father's decision to stay in Cuba, and he's not angry with his Miami relatives and open to reconciliation.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Boy castaway Elian Gonzalez, now 21, wants to revisit the US
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0518/Boy-castaway-Elian-Gonzalez-now-21-wants-to-revisit-the-US
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe