THIS CUBAN'S PROUD TO BE DREAMING THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

by Miguel Perez

When I come home to Little Havana, the capital of broken Cuban dreams, it's usually in the midst of a crisis in U.S.-Cuba relations. An emotionally draining and yet inspiring assignment waits for me here, and I wouldn't have it any other way. This is where I come to recharge my Cuban batteries.

Recharging myself in Fidel Castro's Cuba, for me, would be sacrilegious. A freedom-worshiping Cuban just doesn't do that.

It's almost as sacrilegious as sacrificing a child to please a ruthless dictator, which is the subject of my assignment this week. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm getting reenergized here by the Elian Gonzalez story.

This is no longer my Miami, the town where I grew up as a child, spent most of my school years, started my career as a journalist. This is Elian's Miami. And my, how things have changed -- for the better.

Never have I seen my Cuban-American community more united behind one cause, more determined to fight for what's right "without question or pause," like modern-day Don Quixotes.

They may be dreaming an impossible dream, but that's what makes me proud to be one of them.

That's not to mention their untarnished reputation as tax-paying, law-abiding, hard-working believers in the American work ethic -- or their contributions to American wars, economy, music, cuisine, and culture. We Cubans are proud Americans for many reasons. But perhaps the most important is because we have a better understanding of the price of freedom.

If you are one of those who thinks we are using Elian Gonzalez as a pawn in a game of politics, give us a little more credit. We know that keeping the boy is this country will not rid Cuba of Fidel Castro. Let me rework a phrase made popular by our own American president: "It's the freedom, stupid." Our motives are based on principles, not politics.

To us, Elian's struggle for freedom is a reflection of all of our lives. When he survived almost three days clinging to an inner tube in the Florida Straits, when his mother gave her life trying to reach the United States so that he could "breathe free," Elian became one of us.

Giving him up to his Castro-manipulated father -- without due process -- would be betraying our deepest convictions. We came to this country to find freedom and justice, which is now being denied to little Elian. Sending him to Cuba would be betraying the memory of all who died fighting for Cuba's freedom and all who drowned trying to reach the Florida coast.

That's what I feel when I walk the streets of Little Havana nowadays, especially anywhere within the 10-block radius of Elian's very modest home and his very modest -- and very proudly Cuban -- family.

These are the streets where I grew up as a child. These are the people who really understand how I feel about Cuba. These are the schools where I learned the Pledge of Allegiance, after arriving from Cuba in 1962, especially the part about "freedom and justice for all."

And the closer I get to the Elian Gonzalez story, the more personal it becomes. Here I learned that the Gonzalez family lives in an area I know well, where the only reason why protesters can disrupt an entire neighborhood is because practically the entire neighborhood agrees with the protesters. As you walk toward Elian's house, after finding a parking space as far as 10 blocks away, you are overwhelmed with the solidarity you see displayed on front porches adorned with hand-painted signs vowing that Elian will stay.

It wasn't until I arrived in Miami on Saturday that I realized that Marisleysis Gonzalez, the cousin who has been a second mother to Elian since he arrived, graduated from my high school. Or that family spokesman Armando Gutierrez was really my former fraternity brother -- he doesn't look quite the same.

It wasn't until I got here that I learned more of the story of Lazaro Gonzalez, the great uncle who officially lost custody of Elian last week. He has become a folk hero here by defying federal authorities without breaking the law -- since the law doesn't require him to "deliver" Elian anywhere. If federal authorities want him, Gonzalez says, they have to come and get him.

I know. Most Americans wouldn't understand. But if you are a Cuban-American, with very few exceptions, it is crystal clear.

And there are things Cuban-Americans just don't understand, like those in the media who have been taking cheap and bordering-on-racist shots at Miami's Cuban community for its combative stand on the Elian case. In spite of all who have been forecasting riots for Miami, radicals are rioting in Washington while Cuban exiles are still praying outside Elian's home.

That's where I realized that Lazaro Gonzalez is my contemporary in many ways. He was born just 47 days before me. When Castro took power in 1959, we were both 9 years old. Some of his relatives were put in Castro's prisons for trying to cling to their lost freedom, and so were some of mine.

I remember it clearly, as if it were yesterday. When you are a small child and you live through traumatic experiences -- such as a revolution or a treacherous sea journey -- you don't forget it. You know the difference between liberty and oppression.

I knew it at Elian's age, when Cuba had a different dictator. And so does Elian now. And I don't care how many psychiatrists who have never met the boy go on TV and assure us that it is impossible for this boy to know the difference.

I'm not alone. To many Cuban-Americans here, childhood memories of tumultuous times back in Cuba, and the political opinions we were able to form back then, are proof that the remote-control psychiatrists are misguided -- and that this is a child who should be heard.

It's what you feel as you are re-energizing your batteries in Little Havana. After all, this is a place where the Cold War is not over, where Monday was a day to remember the war dead -- betrayed by another Democratic administration -- at the Bay of Pigs. This is a place I love to call home. These are the people I really understand.

On American television, most talking heads are declaring Castro the winner and Cuban-Americans the losers of the Elian Gonzalez tug-of-war, but when you get to Miami and you replant your Cuban roots, you don't really care. Because it's not about winning. Again, rephrasing our president, "It's the principle, stupid."

END

Miguel Perez
Miami
April 18, 2000

2000 Bergen Record Corp.

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