By Oscar Hijuelos. The New York Times. June 29, 2000
WILLAMS POINT, Conn. -- One midday, years ago while traveling in Spain, I was sitting in a Madrid bar watching a bullfight on television. A handsome and gallant young man had dispatched the bull, which lay dead on the arena floor. Hailed as a future great, the matador was taking his bows before
the cheering crowd when the bull suddenly stirred to life -- not with a few wearied motions, but with great vigor, rising violently up and abruptly goring the matador to death.
This scene was replayed again and again on Spanish TV for, just a few moments before, the noble youth had stood triumphantly over the beast.
I think of this because in some ways the aforementioned scene seems analogous to what has happened, again and again, with regard to relations between Fidel Castro's Cuba and the exile community in the United States. Just as it seems that the revolution is on the verge of a defeat, it rises
again. In the instance of the Elián González affair, the noble matador is the Cuban exile community which, for the most part, strongly supported Elián's staying here. (I say "the most part" for I have spoken to some Cubans who believed he should be returned to Cuba
with his father.)
Since the child's arrival here, his future has been an emotionally loaded issue; Elián's situation has seemed to embody the Cuban exiles' longstanding belief that freedom, as Americans know it, is preferable to life in a socialist state; that the very circumstances of Elián's
survival, with its mythical overtones, had foretold an uplifting and morally sound outcome; that justice would be done.
Now that this little boy, Elián, has returned to Cuba with his father, the notion of justice will long be debated, and talk of "political expediency" will color the dialogue. I, for one, will be glad to see this affair fade as subject matter for the monologues of Jay Leno and
others: what has happened is not funny. The exiles are sincere and impassioned in their beliefs; they have had only the best intentions for the child and for the future of Cuba itself.
The issue of freedom is beyond passion for those who have felt deprived of it; seeking freedom is greater than a one-minute segment on the evening news, and not about cheap and easy jokes on morning radio shows. As a kid I lived in a New York City household that became a home to family that had
left Cuba, and although I'd like to think I have a balanced and "sophisticated" view of history, I will never forget how my relatives endured and overcame the difficulties of the exile life. That triumph, I believe, is something that the Miami relatives of Elián wanted to share with
him: what other responses could they have had?
The exiles -- from Holguín, Santiago, Havana and every small town in Cuba -- are, in a sense, a family. All they have sought to give this child is a life among them.
It would seem that a perpetual corrida is taking place in the divided community of Cubans, here and on the island. This affair with Elián has been but one instance in a history of antagonisms. It is unfortunate that the situation exists at all. The Cubans are a great people -- in this
instance they are both "bull" and "matador" -- and reconciliation, not continued disappointment, should be a mutual goal for the future, whatever sadnesses may ensue.
Oscar Hijuelos is author of ``The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love,'' which won a Pulitzer Prize, and, most recently, ``Empress of the Splendid Season.''
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