By Luisa Yanez. Sun-Sentinel. Web-posted: 11:10 p.m. Mar. 12, 2000
MIAMI -- B.E. -- before Elián -- Marisleysis Gonzalez could have been rushed to the hospital and no one but her family would have noticed.
But that was before the whirlwind brought on by Elián Gonzalez disrupted her life, turning the young, attractive bank loan department employee into a sort of celebrity, chased by cameramen and courted by smitten strangers.
The unusually named Marisleysis, (pronounced Maris-lay-seas), 21, who still lives in Little Havana with her mom and dad, who call her "Mari," is so well-known in Miami that when she checked in to an undisclosed hospital a week ago, she had to do it under an assumed name to keep the
media and well-wishers away.
"She is the most popular girl in town," family spokesman Armando Gutierrez said with a chuckle. "The house and her hospital room were full of flowers."
Marisleysis was released with a clean bill of health on Friday, but initially the tabloid-like rumors flew: Marisleysis had suffered a mental collapse. Partly true, Gutierrez said. She was stressed from the emotional fight to keep her cousin in the United States and suffered from exhaustion.
She just needed to catch up on her rest.
For more than four months, Marisleysis has been the emotional core of the crusade to stop immigration officials from sending her 6-year-old cousin back to Cuba and his father.
"She is a very strong girl, and she is the family's leader in his struggle," said her uncle Delfin Gonzalez. "She loves Elián very much and will do anything for him."
Their second meeting
Marisleysis was there from the start. When Elián was released from Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, she's the one who held the boy's hand when he first faced the media. Later, when the custody battle erupted, an angry and defiant Marisleysis blasted the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service efforts to send the boy back. She publicly damned Elián's father for failing to come get his son. She was there when his grandmothers came to visit.
Throughout, her growing love for Elián, whom she met during a visit to Cuba two years ago, is evident. When she speaks of the boy, she does so with great tenderness.
"He tells me he wants to stay here, where his mother wanted to bring him to a new life," she has told reporters, often with tears streaming down her cheeks. Again and again, she's made it clear she has become all but the boy's surrogate mother.
And Elián, too, seems to have bonded with his cousin, with whom he shares a bedroom. "He adores her," Gutierrez said.
With Marisleysis in the hospital, Elián made a downcast appearance with his great-uncle and Marisleysis' father, Lazaro Gonzalez, at a local church on Wednesday.
It all began when, as the only English-speaking member of her family, she stepped up to the mike and spoke to the media days after the boy's rescue. She hasn't stopped since. Cameras have constantly been outside her door, and often capture her highly emotional and tearful responses to events
in the case.
They've also captured her metamorphosis from a young girl in a modest Cuban exile family who has became a poised and fervent fighter for Elián. Ordinary clothes gave way to fashionable suits and Ralph Lauren sweaters. Her hair, often pulled back casually in a ponytail before, is now
styled and streaked. Her nails are always done. She got braces.
Just four years ago, she graduated from Miami Senior High, where she was an average student with an interest in cosmetology. After graduating, she eventually landed a job at Ocean Bank. She is now on leave.
But now her routine is not a simple commute. She jets to Washington, D.C., on a moment's notice to lobby for her young cousin in front of powerful politicians. Jorge Mas, president of the powerful Cuban American National Foundation, often whispers in her ear at news conferences. The public
is used to seeing her on television on the go: at airports, hearings, with politicians.
Still, Marisleysis' private life is closely guarded by her family. Co-workers, neighbors and former teachers shied away from talking about her.
Private life intact
Gutierrez said he spends much of his time fielding questions about Marisleysis' personal life, usually from men, but he offers little: She is one of two children; she has an older brother; she loves to go to the movies, her best friend is her cousin Georgina Cid, she likes "to have a
good time."
Men have contacted the family trying to find out if she is romantically attached, among them a well-known Spanish-language television personality.
The answer? She's not available.
"Marisleysis has a boyfriend, and she's very happy with him," Gutierrez said, declining to give even the boyfriend's first name.
On Spanish-language radio, where Marisleysis often speaks in support of Elián, commentators speculate on who will play her when Elián's life story becomes a movie. The favorite choice? Voluptuous actress Jennifer Lopez.
"She takes it all in stride," Gutierrez said of Marisleysis' reaction to the hoopla about her. "She's just a typical young girl."
Her life was irretrievably altered when Elián was rescued off Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving Day after a harrowing voyage that claimed 11 lives. Only Elián and two adults survived.
Her life is now focused on seeing that Elián stays in the United States.
But signs that the strain of the fight for Elián was getting to be too much for Marisleysis emerged 11 days ago, when she made a long, rambling and tearful speech at a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. She spoke of how close she and Elián have become, how he wants to
stay here with her, where his mother had meant to bring him.
"At night, when he wakes up scared, he says, 'I love you mucho, my cousin,'" Marisleysis told the politicians, then broke down and cried.
Luisa Yanez can be reached at lyanez@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5007.
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