By Eric Mink. Daily News TV Critic. FRONTLINE: Saving
Elian. Tonight, 10 o'clock, PBS/Ch.13.
http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-02-06/New_York_Now/Television/a-98750.asp
Every now and then during Elian Gonzalez' seven-month stay in Miami, you
could catch a whiff of dissent from within the Cuban exile community.
But tonight's gutsy "Frontline: Saving Elian," by producer Ofra
Bikel, suggests that there actually were substantial numbers of Cuban-Americans
who believed that Elian should be returned to his father in Cuba. They were just
afraid to speak out.
Bikel's report acknowledges the powerful symbolism — protected by
dolphins, plucked from the sea, brought to freedom — of the child's story
and its impact on Cuban Americans of all ages.
PBS doc expands array of Elian opinion.
And Bikel certainly cuts Fidel Castro no slack, portraying him as a savvy
manipulator who exploited the boy's plight for his own political advantage.
But Bikel also gives voice to those in South Florida who dared challenge the
position of the Cuban-exile power elite that Elian must remain in the United
States, no matter what.
These voices include non-Cuban Latinos, African-Americans and white
businessmen, as well as some Cuban-Americans who had been branded as traitors by
the exile establishment for even suggesting the possibility of expanded dialogue
between the U.S. and Castro's Cuba.
Most telling of all, however, are comments by several members of the special
group of Cuban-Americans sent to the U.S. in the early 1960s by parents who
remained behind in Cuba: All believed that Elian belonged with his father.
"The most interesting experience," says Frank Avellanet, "is
to discover that we all agree and that we all kept it to ourselves … I
thought that if I had walked down south of Eighth Street [in Little Havana] and
said what I told you, I would have been lynched."
Original Publication Date: 2/6/01 | 