By Fabiola Santiago, Knight Ridder Newspapers. The Record Online. Monday, January 10, 2000
MIAMI -- "It could have been me," 17-year-old Alain Landrian says, his intense green eyes cast in the distance.
To Alain, one of 3,000 children who left Cuba in the dramatic rafter exodus of 1994, the story of little Elian Gonzalez feels personal.
Alain, too, set out from Cardenas, Elian's hometown, on a boat with his mother and stepfather. His father stayed behind. Alain, too, almost died at sea, and lived moments of heart-stopping danger when the family's small boat started to take on water. Only they, like thousands of others, were
rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.
"What do I feel? Lastima," he says in Spanish.
Sadness.
To many of the children who endured the 1994 exodus, the images of sweet-faced Elian and the tug of war over his fate are particularly charged with emotion.
"When you see stuff like this is when you appreciate how lucky we were to be rescued," said Lizbet Martinez, the 12-year-old who took out her violin and played "The Star-Spangled Banner" after her rescue in 1994, tugging at hearts around the world.
For Lizbet, who became a media star like Elian, the little boy's ordeal has brought back the memory of a fellow little rafter, or balserito, she has never forgotten. The boy was on another raft with his parents when Lizbet and her family, on their raft, came upon them in the middle of the sea.
"Elian is older, but he reminded me of that other little boy. We don't know whatever happened to him. We never saw those people again," said Lizbet, now 17. "When I saw the news about Elian, and he looked so little and so helpless, I really felt sorry and sad for him."
Many of the little rafters feel torn by the issues of family ties vs. the life of hardship that awaits Elian on the communist-ruled island.
One teenager -- a 15-year-old Broward County girl who spent 12 hours on a raft with her parents and brother, then months at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay before coming to South Florida -- said she felt that Elian belonged with his father. The teen's mother later asked that the girl's
name be kept out of the story.
"If he lost his mother, he should be with the other person who is the closest to him, and it's his dad," the girl said. "It's going to be hard to grow up here with family members who are not too close. I think people should be with their families. Nobody is going to support you
like your parents. Whenever you see him on TV, he looks sad. He probably misses his dad."
"I don't want to give an opinion because he [Elian's father] is his dad, but then the kid has opportunities here and taking him back to Cuba . . . I just know that I feel really sorry for him and the situation with his mom," Lizbet said.
Frank Tarrau, principal of an alternative school that has a large refugee population, has noticed an unusual "silence" when it comes to the Elian topic during lunchtime conversations.
"I've noticed that for the first time, there is a double message, a struggle with the issues, and the result is silence," Tarrau said.
Although he doesn't talk about it unless he is prodded, Alain feels less uncertain about where Elian belongs.
"If what happened to Elian had happened to me, I would have preferred to stay here," Alain said. "There are more opportunities here."
Alain says he is able to maintain a good relationship with his father. With the help of exiles who travel to the island, father and son exchange audio and video cassettes.
"He tells me he misses me and hopes to see me soon, and I miss him, too," Alain said. He said he does not regret the decision that brought him here.
"It's good and it's bad," he said. "You are living better, but you also don't have the everyday love of your father."
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