The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"

While visiting a concentration camp, Heydrich Himmler became enamoured of a Jewish boy who looked as if he had stepped off a poster for the Hitler Youth. The boy with the steel blue eyes and chiselled features was standing on a line leading to the gas chambers. Himmler stopped to inquire about his parentage and whether a mistake had been made (perhaps he had been "stolen" by his Jewish parents from a Christian family or had "Aryan" ancestors in his past). The boy replied that his parents were Jews and that he had no "Aryan" connections, whereupon Himmler said he was sorry for it and moved on.

The Jewish boy reminds me of the 4-year-old Cuban refugee girl whose mother physically abused her for most of her short life, both in Cuba and in this country, before being confined to a mental institution and surrendering custody of her daughter to the State of Florida.

As in the Elián case, non-Cubans are overwhelmingly in support of returning the child to Cuba to live, ostensibly, with her biological father (her mother's sometime boyfriend). They say that she belongs with and to her father. What they really mean is that she belongs anywhere but here. If they were actually able to see a photograph of the little Cuban girl it might move their hearts; for their hearts are not entirely petrified. They do still love their daughters and granddaughters and have the capacity to feel empathy for those who resemble them. Her blue eyes, blonde hair and pale skin — so uncommon in their conception of Cubans — might cause them to reassess their position, which, very simply stated, is that Hispanics, whatever their claims to our pity, should be ejected from the United States regardless of whether they have legal claims to be here beyond those founded on pity. This child was granted legal admission to the U.S. and has as much right to be here as anyone. When her mother surrendered custody, the child did not forfeit that right and it is that right which is now her only hope of living a normal life.

Being returned to Cuba and that system's tender mercies, even if, unlike Elián, she is not obliged to grow-up on abuelito Fidel's knee, is to me a comparable fate to being "saved" by Himmler or shoved into a gas oven. At 4, she has already known torture at the hands of her own mother and received no protection from her father, but even worse awaits her in Cuba, which will be a concentration camp in all but name for her and in a more intense degree than it is for other Cubans. A normal childhood is impossible in Cuba because there the state, not the parents, have the final say in raising a child. In most cases, however, this interest is not exercised to the full extent that its so-called laws allow, though sufficiently to mar the childhood of every Cuban child. In her case, as in Elián's, the State will control every facet of her life for the remainder of her childhood and beyond, not merely marring but obliterating it altogether as was done to Elián. The vacant stare that is his will be hers also, a stare that seeks a horizon that is not there; the internalized pain that radiates from within and is reflected in his face, will also be her set expression.

If life had not done enough to her by giving her an abusive mother, it also gave her a biological father who was indifferent to her abuse in Cuba, as were the authorities there, and consented to allow her crazed mother to take her to the U.S. — in fact, relinquished his parental rights to make it possible — and who now, suddenly feeling "parental" again at Castro's orders, is endeavoring with the full backing of the Cuban regime to recover custody of his daughter in order that Castro might have a matched set of juvenile political pawns. When one's own child's life is at stake no man has a right to be a coward. No intimidation is too great; no torture is too painful; no death is too horrible. This man is now on U.S. soil, as Elián's father was once. So, in addition to all else, there is no excuse for his cowardice; no attenuation; no forgiveness, ever.

No one, it seems, who has had any say in her short but painful life thus far, ever had her best interests at heart, except the loving Coral Gables couple who adopted her 12-year old half-brother and now wish to adopt her, creating the family that neither her mother nor father provided her with. Even the judge charged with deciding her fate shares the same prejudices as most of her countrymen. A few years ago Circuit Court Judge Jeri B. Cohen stated in open court, while hearing another case, that if all Cubans were repatriated to the island this country would be the better for it. I was the first to reveal that fact (before The Miami Herald or any other newspaper) on Babalú blog in March of this year.

The Florida Department of Children & Family, though perhaps well-intentioned, is nonetheless mishandling this case by refusing to recognize that this is more than just a standard custody battle. The political ramifications of this case are 75% of the case. A request is not being made to transfer custody from Florida to Georgia but from a democratic state to a Stalinist one. The father's standing here will not be his standing in Cuba. The child's fate here will not be her fate in Cuba. If these facts are ignored, then there is no case — the girl will be given to the father who consented to her abuse in the past and will be complicit in her abuse in the future. But these facts cannot be ignored because they are at the center of this case and are what makes it compelling and unique. Whatever other grounds there may be to exclude the father should not be ignored; but the principal grounds for denying him custody — that he is the willing proxy of a criminal consortium to which he has pimped his child should not be ignored. It was because that fact about Juan González was ignored that Elián was kidnapped at gunpoint and returned to Cuba.

The greatest threat to the safety of this child is not posed by the bigotted judge, the clueless Department of Children & Families, Ira Kurzban or the regime's other hired guns, not even by her cowardly and cowered father. Her greatest enemies are those who pretend that her case is different from Elián's, who deny her their support and indeed wish her to disappear. They care more about The Miami Herald making capital with her story than they do with the Cuban regime savaging her life. They will literally throw her down a well without a moment's remorse if they are spared the trauma of reliving the Elián case. They do not want to be reminded of how much their Anglo neighbors disdain them or how embarrassing it is to represented by those whom they in turn disdain. But this case is not about them and their identity crisis. It is about a little girl who has been tortured for most of her young life and who faces even more torture if she is returned to Communist Cuba. It is really that simple and that transcendental.