By John Rice, .c The Associated Press
CARDENAS, Cuba (AP) - As the world watches an international custody battle over Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez, another child who started out on the same boat also is at the center of a debate across the Florida Straits.
Estefani Herrera is a 5-year-old girl with curly hair that flies in the wind as she races into her grandmother's arms in front of their house on Vives Street, roughly a mile from the house where Elian's father lives in Cardenas.
She's lucky to be alive. But her future, like that of Elian, is tangled in the sort of family disruption common to Cubans who have fled to the United States.
Estefani's mother, Arianne Horta, started to take the child on the ill-fated boat trip to the United States in late November. But when the boat had initial problems and had to return to shore, she decided to leave Estefani behind, hoping to send for her later, she told a Miami news conference on
Friday.
On the second attempt to reach the United States, the boat sank, killing 11 people. Only 6-year-old Elian, Horta, 22, and her boyfriend Nivaldo Fernandez survived. Fernandez left a wife and two children behind in Cuba, according to Cuba's state-run Radio Rebelde.
In her news conference, Horta appealed for help in reuniting with Estefani: ``From the moment she was born, she slept with me every night. Do you know how I feel?''
Horta appealed for a way to bring her daughter to the United States as soon as possible. Once she is a legal resident, she could apply to bring Estefani to the United States. That process might keep the girl in Cuba for more than a year, even if no one objects to her departure.
But back home in Cardenas, the child's grandmother and father, too, insist they love the child and balk at the idea of giving her up, at least right now.
``I would not like it to be so soon,'' said the grandmother, Elsa Alfonso.``Well, that doesn't mean that in the future I am going to refuse it because she is her mother.''
She said she would like to see her daughter is ``stable someplace, that she has work,'' before the child leaves. Horta and Estefani, her only daughter and granddaughter, lived in her house.
The father, Victor Herrera, is more certain.
``I'm the father, and she has gone. If I have to take her into my house, I will take her,'' he said at the Varadero hotel where he tends a bar facing the famed Caribbean beach - a coveted job in Cuba, especially because he receives some income in dollars. He and Estefani's mother separated
shortly after the girl was born.
Alfonso seemed torn by a sense of joy at her daughter's survival and a sense of loss at having her far away, with the prospect that her only granddaughter might be leaving.
``I have always believed in God and after what happened with my daughter, I believe much more,'' she said.
The mutual affection is also obvious between Alfonso and the child who tightly hugged her around the neck before racing out to play with friends.
Partly because a housing shortage often forces young married couples to share a home with their parents, grandmothers in Cuba often play a far greater role in child-rearing than they might in the United States
``I raised my granddaughter. My granddaughter never was in anybody else's house,'' she said.
Estefani ``loves her grandmother very much,'' said the father, Herrera. ``And she also loved her mother very much. I imagine she is missing her.''
But he, too, said he loves his daughter and spends his free days with her.
When he heard that her mother had fled for the United States, ``I went quickly to the house to see if the girl was there. When I saw her, I felt such relief,'' he said.
Alfonso said she has two brothers who live in the United States, and a husband who works for Cuba's Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the country's security.
``Politics has nothing to do with sentiment,'' she said. But she admitted Horta's departure had been hard on her husband.
Alfonso was angered by suggestions the case might be similar to that of Elian, whose great-uncle in Miami is trying to prevent the child from being returned to his father and grandparents in Cuba.
``That is criminal,'' she said. ``They are going to deny him a right to a future.''
Elian's Miami relatives have been caring for him since he was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast on Nov. 25. His mother and 10 other Cubans died in the attempt to reach the United States.
AP-NY-01-25-00 0140EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. |