By Vanessa Bauzá, Sun-Sentinel. Web-posted: 12:33 a.m. June 30, 2000
HAVANA -- Three bare-chested boys wearing faded shorts and carrying a neon yellow snorkel were on their way to the beach in the upscale Miramar neighborhood when they were stopped by a policeman. After explaining that they just wanted to ease the summer swelter with a swim, the teenaged boys
were turned away.
No one, except nearby neighbors, selected diplomats and party officials, is allowed within about 10 blocks of the house where Elián González, his family and schoolmates are staying.
"He's just a boy like us," one boy grumbled as he turned away from the officer.
"Why do they give him everything?" said another. "He should go back to Miami and bring us a pair of Nike's."
Elián is now making his temporary home in a converted school as a team of child psychologists and teachers prepares him for "readaption" into Cuban society. But even the government's predictions of Elián's future seem contradictory, straddling the line between normalcy
and celebrity.
"Our dedicated teachers should carry out the task of converting him into a model boy, worthy of his history, his charms and his talent, so that he may always be a normal citizen, as well as a symbol, an example and a glory for all the children of our nation, and a pride for Cuba's
teachers," an official communiqué said Thursday.
The government said Elián would likely spend two to three weeks in the Miramar house, which is surrounded by foreign embassies and dozens of police officers. After that, the family will take a week's vacation before returning to Cárdenas.
Some neighbors and visitors seemed annoyed by the limelight. Others were pleased to have Elián in their midst. "If they took him back to Cárdenas immediately it would be too much of an emotional shock. Bringing him here is like Cuban-izing him, making him feel Cuban again.
The psychologists have their work cut out for them," said Marta Rodriguez, 35, who teaches English half a block from Elián's temporary home. "I would like to see him face to face. It would be a unique experience because he's known throughout the world."
Yet Elián's "readaptation," cloaked in a veil of secrecy, puzzled some Cubans. Their only information about what was going on behind the barricades came from official communiqués, which said little more than that the group would remain in the house "for the
minimum time he needs to reinitiate his life in the country in the most normal and tranquil conditions possible, and to complete his first-grade studies and those of his four accompanying classmates … Elián is already able to read and write. It is thought that in two or three weeks he
will be perfectly ready to start the second grade in September."
One Cuban dissident, Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos, whose Havana-based organization seeks to unionize workers, questioned the need for a halfway house.
"Nobody knows what the readaption process is, or what methods will be used," he said. "We don't know why he should be isolated."
Cuban exiles, too, have worried that Elián will be brainwashed, that the Cuban government will seek to systematically replace his memories of the United States with socialist values and anti-American sentiment. But some Cuba experts saw a far less sinister process.
The extraordinary circumstances that surrounded Elián from the moment he stepped on the boat with his mother are contributing to the extraordinary care the Cuban educational system is extending to him, said Sheryl Lutjens, a political science professor at Arizona University and an
authority on Cuban education.
"I don't see it in the sense of being a special political project," said Lutjens. "In any society, no matter where, education always has political objectives -- to socialize our children and our youth into the norms that are expected in the culture and the political culture."
Gary Prevost, a Cuba expert at St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict in Collegeville, Minn., said Elián's stay at the Miramar home is "simply a continuation of his treatment in the United States. To expect that he would walk off an airplane and would go back to his
relatives in Cárdenas, that's unrealistic.
"I suspect most of what's going on is a 6-year-old getting reacquainted with his friends and life in Cuba," Prevost said. "The education he will receive in the area of history and social studies will very much be a process of socialization into the economic system of Cuba. In
that regard, Elián González will be no different than his classmates, and will learn about Cuban history from the perspective of their leaders, just as U.S. students do."
In televised replays of Elián's airport arrival, the Cuban government on Thursday continued to tout what is often described as a David vs. Goliath victory over the United States.
Cuban President Fidel Castro has vowed that Elián's homecoming will not end the massive mobilizations, which will now be aimed at changing U.S. policies that it says encourage the illegal migration that led to Elián's plight.
One of the first announcements Cubans heard Wednesday on state television and radio told of a rally of 200,000 people planned for Saturday in the southeastern city of Manzanillo.
Alvarez Ramos, the dissident, said the embargo and U.S. immigration policies are largely scapegoats for the island's woes.
"I personally believe the embargo hurts everyday people, but it's not the only reason people are leaving on rafts," he said.
Sun-Sentinel wire services contributed to this report.
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