Chess Piece: The Elián González Story

Summary

All Of It: "Chess Piece: The Elián González Story" – A Detailed Summary

Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Pennile Ramirez, Investigative Journalist and Host of Chess Piece: The Elián González Story
Release Date: November 26, 2024

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Introduction to the Elián González Case

Alison Stewart opens the episode by introducing the dramatic and emotionally charged story of Elián González, a five-year-old boy found clinging to an inner tube off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thanksgiving Day, 1999. Kathryn futher contextualizes the event:

"Elian was found on Thanksgiving and his rescue immediately became symbolic for Cuban Americans. Why did Elian's story have so much resonance for the Cuban community in Miami?" (03:09)

Pennile Ramirez delves into the background, explaining how Elián's rescue became a powerful symbol for the Cuban American community, representing the broader struggle of Cubans escaping the island for freedom in the United States. The case quickly evolved into a high-stakes custody battle between Elián's Miami-based relatives and his father in Cuba, Juan Miguel González, who remained in the Communist stronghold.

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Symbolism and Political Implications

Lulu Ramirez discusses how Elián's case transcended personal tragedy, becoming a focal point for political tension between Miami's Cuban American population, the Cuban government, and the United States:

"It became a case that symbolizes this need for Cubans to reach the United States." (04:23)

She elaborates on the unique circumstances surrounding the case, such as the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, which granted asylum to Cubans who reached U.S. soil but mandated their return if apprehended at sea. This policy intensified the legal and emotional battle over Elián's custody.

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Personal Narratives and Emotional Toll

Ramirez shares personal connections to the Elián González story, revealing her own family's experience with separation due to political circumstances in Cuba:

"I have heard from so many of our listeners why the podcast is being meaningful also for them, because they also have been going through family separation..." (11:44)

This intertwines with the broader narrative of Cuban immigrants' struggles, highlighting the deep emotional scars left by forced separations and the enduring impact on family dynamics.

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The Supreme Court and the Raid

The discussion moves to the Supreme Court's decision to allow the U.S. government to remove Elián from his Miami relatives' home, leading to the infamous raid in April 2000. Lulu provides a gripping account of the operation and its aftermath:

"The supreme court rejected an appeal that would keep Elián in Miami. In April 2000, armed federal agents removed Elián from the home with his relatives in Miami." (16:07)

She recounts interviewing the leader of the U.S. raid, who expressed a personal connection to the event, reflecting on his own role and emotions during the operation:

"He was thinking about his own son that he said was Elian's age by the time." (16:37)

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Community Reactions and Political Fallout

Ramirez explores the intense reactions within the Cuban American community, including feelings of betrayal and anger towards U.S. officials like Attorney General Janet Reno. A poignant moment highlights the personal impact:

"She took her scissors, her sewing scissors, and tore out the eyes of Janet Reno." (19:05)

This visceral response underscores the deep-seated frustrations and the severe political repercussions that followed, influencing voting behaviors and altering the political landscape in Florida—a pivotal state in U.S. elections.

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Long-Term Consequences and Current Relevance

The podcast addresses the long-lasting effects of the Elián González case on U.S.-Cuba relations and the Cuban American community's political alignment:

"The case had long lasting consequences politically there that you can trace from that time, but you can even trace until today." (19:40)

Ramirez connects historical events to contemporary politics, noting shifts in voter preferences and the enduring legacy of the "El Voto Castigo" or "Punishment Vote," where Cuban Americans felt compelled to support candidates seen as betraying their community's interests.

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Elián González Today and Unanswered Questions

The episode concludes by discussing Elián González's life after the return to Cuba, where he has grown into a public figure:

"Elián González is 30 years old. He's married with a child. He's a member of Cuba's national assembly, it's Congress." (23:48)

Despite efforts to reach out, the Cuban government denied interviews, citing disapproval of Ramirez's critical stance during the 2021 protests in Cuba. This censorship prevents a direct account from Elián himself, leaving the narrative to rely on existing materials and testimonies.

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Final Thoughts

Ramirez emphasizes the universal themes of family separation and the immigrant experience, resonating with a broad audience beyond the Cuban community. The podcast not only recounts historical events but also delves deep into personal and societal impacts, making it a compelling exploration of a pivotal moment in U.S.-Cuba relations.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong..." – Cristina De Rossi (Podcast Introduction)
• "All Cubans have a book of pain." – Ramirez's Stepmother (14:32)
• "You remember the kind of wound that never really heals..." – Lulu Ramirez (14:41)

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This episode of All Of It offers an in-depth examination of the Elián González story, blending historical analysis with personal narratives to provide a comprehensive understanding of its enduring significance in cultural and political contexts.

Transcript

[Lulu]

Hey, Lulu here.

[Radiolab]

Whether we are romping through science, music, politics, technology or feelings, we seek to leave you seeing the world anew. Radiolab adventures right on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get podcasts.

[WNYC Studios]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[Alison Stewart]

This is, this is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Coming up on tomorrow's show, food writer Melissa Clark will be here to answer your Thanksgiving cooking questions. Special shout out to those of you preparing your first turkey, fear not, help is on the way. Tune in tomorrow around this time and we have a special get lit announcement. We have been reading Taffy Bredessar Achner's novel Long Island Compromise and we'll be meeting next Wednesday, December 4, to discuss @ the New York Public Library. Now we can announce our very special musical guest. It's Suzanne Vega.

[Suzanne Vega]

My name is Luca. I live on the second floor. I live upstairs from you. Yes, I think you've seen.

[Pennile Ramirez]

All right, so the bad news is tickets already sold out. So if you have one, I'll see you at the library. But there is a wait list at the library.

[Alison Stewart]

First come, first served, no guarantees or.

[Pennile Ramirez]

You can follow along with our livestream. Head to wnyc.org getlit for more information. Again, that's wnyc.org getlit that is in the future. But now let's get this hour started with podcasts.

[Alison Stewart]

25 years ago on Thanksgiving, two Florida men fishing off the coast of Fort Lauderdale discovered a five year old boy clinging to an inner tube. His name was Elian Gonzalez. He'd been part of a group of Cubans, including his mother, who were escaping the country. Their boat capsized, his mother drowned. Eliane was alone. Once he was on shore, he was sent to live with relatives in Miami. But his father, Juan Miguel, who remained in Cuba, wanted him returned. The custody battle that ensued became a proxy for a larger struggle pitting Miami's Cuban American community against both Cubans living in the country and the American government. And it also caused a political rift here in this country that reverberates to this day. The story is told in the new podcast chess piece, the Elian Gonzalez Story. It's from Futuro Studios and iHeartMedia's My Kultura podcast and it's hosted by investigative journalist Pennile Ramirez. She joins me now in studio Pennileh. Thank you for coming to wnyc.

[Lulu]

Thank you for the invitation.

[Alison Stewart]

Elian was found on Thanksgiving and his rescue immediately became symbolic for Cuban Americans. Why did Eliane's story have so much resonance for The Cuban community in Miami.

[Lulu]

Well, when Eliane was found, especially on Thanksgiving Day, it was considered like a Thanksgiving miracle. So he was in old news, all newspapers, and he became super quickly a symbol of something that was happening that has been happening for decades, but was happening in that moment, late 1990s, that was Cubans escaping the island and crossing in the Florida Straits under a lot of personal risk, as Lian and his family and his mother, who passed away during the trip. So what happened was that he became sort of a symbolic figure of that need for many Cubans to escape the island and try to reach Florida, no matter how. At that point, there was a special treatment for Cubans who were coming to the United States. And there was a specific executive order called dry food. Wet food.

[Pennile Ramirez]

Dry food. Wet food, right, yes.

[Lulu]

So if you literally put up food on shore, you will be granted asylum. But if you were captured, you know, any place before you reach the US Soil, then you will be returned to Cuba. So that was what they were trying to do. When the mother passed away, most of the people who came with Alian, it was Eliane and two other survivors. But he became the symbol because he was a little boy, because the family was trying to. The relatives in Miami were trying to keep him here, saying that his mother was dying, trying to bring him to freedom. And on the other side, the case became politically so, so quickly, because only a few days after he was rescued, Fidel Castro, who was the Cuban dictatorship and was alive at the time, sent an ultimatum to United States saying that the US had 72 hours to send the boy back because the father, Juan Miguel, who was in Cuba, was claiming him back. And after that, it was months and months of the geopolitical battle of Cubans in Cuba, Cubans in Miami, the two governments, and this poor little boy in the middle of it without really having a say in all that was happening around his life. And it was one of the first stories that became this 247 news cycle. It was, like, all over the news all the time. And it became a case that symbolizes this need for Cubans to reach the United States.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah, I remember. I think I worked at ABC News at the time. And it was everywhere. It was everywhere. When you think about his father, Wamigo, he said he wanted him back in Cuba. It raises the question, did he really want him back in Cuba? Did he have free will or was he under. We'll say. I don't want to say threat of Fidel Castro, but advisory from Fidel Castro.

[Lulu]

Well, we have an entire episode to try to respond to that question, because we have the same questions as part of the production team. So what we do in the podcast is that we try to get into a very nuanced approach, because it's not an easy case. Because if you see, like, straightforward, you see, you know, the mom is not alive anymore, the father is alive. The boy should belong with the father. That's very straightforward if you think about it. But at the same time, if you think about what the family was saying, was saying, we want him reunited with his father, but in the United States. We don't want him to go back to Cuba because he escaped Cuba, he managed to survive, and he's in freedom right now. So the reason why is not as straightforward. It's because what you mentioned about the free will, because once Fidel Castro got involved in the case, that was super soon in the case, everything became so political. And the father was saying and claiming, I'm not being pressured by the government. The father was a member of the Communist Party even before. So he was close to the government even before the case. But the big question was if this case became a political tool for Fidel Castro. And as I said, it became a symbol, but also for the Cuban American community that was trying to explain to the world and to the United States how bad was to live in Cuba and how difficult it was to live in Cuba at that time, and the fact that you were not really free, even if you were saying that you were free. So we have, as I said, an entire episode to try to understand all the nuances of this part. And what we do in the podcast is that we try to get pieces by pieces and try to understand what was the perspective of the Cuban community in Miami, what was the perspective of the Cubans in Cuba, and what are the personal issues that were. People that were reflecting about this became so passionate, like everyday Cubans became so passionate on both sides of the Florida Straits. But even people who were not Cubans, everybody had something to say about the case. As you said, it was everywhere, and it was a pretty straightforward case. So everybody had an opinion. And this is part of the complexities that we try to unpack in the podcast.

[Pennile Ramirez]

His cousin, it was Mary Lesas, she was just 21 years old. She really took on a maternal role for the little boy. And, you know, she turned you. She turned you down for an interview, a lot of interviews, but that was one that she turned you down for. But you said you respected that. Yeah, in the podcast, that you respect her putting up boundaries why?

[Lulu]

You know, it's hard because as you said during my introduction, I'm an investigative internally, so my training is to pursue something really, really bad. But at the same time it is a story that it's, as I said, pretty emotional. And she was, when you see the videos of her and you know, back in the day and you reflect about, she was only 21 years old. So she was a girl, you know, she a young woman who understood this country better than her relatives because she was raised here, she spoke good English, so she became like the spokesperson for the family. And she was under a lot of pressure from the media, from the local politicians, from the Cuban American community. And she was playing the role that she's supposed to be playing at that point. And that took a toll on her personally. She went to the hospital several times following mental health concerns. At that point we didn't have the open conversations about mental health that we have nowadays. So considering all that she went through and all the material that we have from archive, we decided to pursue the interview, to insist. But at some point we said we can tell the story with what we have from the archives and we respect her decision to put a boundary on something that will was not just another story for her, was something that was also taking a personal toll because they haven't even, they're cousins and they haven't talked not even once since 2000. So for more than 20 years. And this is, and this is important because it is a very public case, but it's also a case that broke.

[Pennile Ramirez]

A family 25 years ago on Thanksgiving Day. A five year old Elian Gonzalez would spurn international custody battle and have lasting implications for US Cuba relations and the Latin vote. The stories told a new 10 part podcast Chess piece, the Ellen Gonzalez Story. We're joined by its host, investigative journalist Pennile Ramirez. Something that else that makes this series quite different is there are parallels between your own story and Elian's as part of the podcast that you and your father were separated from for eight years? I believe it is, yes. Would you share what happened?

[Lulu]

Well, that's, that part was challenging for me because you know, we are trained as journalists to tell the story of others, not to tell the story about our. But we believed that in this podcast we needed to go personal because early on in the production process I shared with the team that the reason why this case was so meaningful to me was because at the same time that Elian was in Miami and his father was in Cuba trying to bring him back to Cuba, I was in Cuba. And my father was in Miami, and he was trying to bring me to the United States. So my father left Cuba in 1998. He was the coach of the national diving team of Cuba. And he left for an official competition and never came back. And he told me a little secret. I was a preteen back then, and he told me he was not coming back to Cuba, and I could not tell nobody. So I kept the secret, and I said goodbye to him, not knowing that I was going to be separated from him for eight years. So we were reunited many years after in Miami. But during the time of the case for me, we have a scene in the podcast when I share a memory that I have of this massive protest organized by the Cuban government in Cuba, and people screaming in Spanish, regress en Elian. Bring back Elian. And I remember myself screaming there as a kid. But then I reflected that I was screaming from my own father because the case was. Was so personal for me. And for the first time, I never spoke with my father about this, not even about the emotional toll on the family separation with me and my brother and him, because we don't talk about that. Sometimes it's hard, even within families to have these conversations. So the first time ever that I spoke with my dad about this was interviewing him for this podcast. So it's a really emotional and personal interview. And I think it is important because I have heard from so many of our listeners why the podcast is being meaningful also for them, because they also have been going through family separation, and not just for the Cuban community, for the immigrant community in general. In the United States. We have plenty of cases of family separation that goes beyond this new cycle of this scandal in the news. And I think this is one of the things why the podcast is touching on so many people on a personal and emotional level. Yeah.

[Pennile Ramirez]

There was one line that your stepmother said that it just really struck with me. And she said, and I'm paraphrasing, that, like, all Cubans have a book of pain.

[Alison Stewart]

We're all different, but we're similar in.

[Pennile Ramirez]

A way that that's a scar that never really heals. And your dad went on to say that the only thing that was between us was earth and water.

[Lulu]

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's hard to talk about these things, even for me, because it's a kind of wound that we say in the podcast that never really heals, that when you are reunited, you start healing that wound, but you never recover the time that you were separated. And I think when you reflect on how many commonalities we have among Cubans who have been suffering this separation. But also, as I said, as an immigrant community in general, beyond even the Cuban experience, it's okay to realize that, that there are some things that you will never recover, even if you have the chance, as I had, to come to the United States and be living here and spend Thanksgiving with my family. Very Cuban Thanksgiving. And something funny about the podcast is that we have a very specific explanation about why Thanksgiving for Cuban is so particular. So that's part of one of the levity moments of the podcast. But the reality is that. But as reporters, sometimes we're so focusing on getting the facts and explaining the numbers and explaining. But this podcast is also an opportunity to go deep into what are the long lasting consequences of something like family separation.

[Pennile Ramirez]

Back to Eliane. The Supreme Court rejected an appeal that would keep Elian in Miami. In April 2000, armed federal agents removed Elian from the home with his relatives in Miami. This was an image that was unbelievable. The federal agents that the photographer from the AP won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. That incredible image that we all remember. But you also interviewed the leader of the US Raid. What did he see as his job that day?

[Lulu]

You know, this case is so personal for every single person that we interviewed. That was something that really surprised me because every person that we interview for the podcast, they all remember this picture that you just described because it was so impactful for, you know, it was everywhere in every single newspaper. As you say, Alan, the photographer from Associated Press won the Pulitzer with a picture. So it was really everywhere. But if you get into this person who was leading the raid, he was saying that he was doing his job and he was training for months. And we explain in a lot of detail how they were training for this. So while the negotiations were happening, while the courts were deciding about the case, the government, the US Government had this plan B of what if everything fails and we need to go and just get the kid? Which is what ended up happening. And he was so focusing on, you know, I'm reuniting this boy with his father. That's my goal. And at some point he describes the raid. It was pretty violent. He described how they took Eliane out of the house of the relatives in Miami. We have an entire episode. It's pretty cinematic, this episode, because we have a lot of first time accounts of how it happened from different perspectives. It's really like a movie, this episode. But then when they are finally out of there and he's reuniting him with his father. I asked him, what were you thinking? And he was thinking about his own son. So this person, member of the US government, trained to be, you know, focusing on his goal, he was also getting emotional and also thinking about his own son that he said was Eliane's age by the time. So, as I said, even the person that is more like goal oriented, not that you won't expect, will get emotional with retelling this story. Was he even. He. Even he was emotional during the interview.

[Alison Stewart]

With us, one of the people you interviewed was Ada Farrar, a Cuban American historian who said many people in the community blamed Attorney General Janet Reno. You asked her how her own mother reacted.

[Lulu]

Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

And here is her response. This is from episode five of Chess Piece.

[WNYC Studios]

She used to read the newspaper all the time, the Nuevo Herald, and there was a front page picture in one day of Janet Reno and she took her scissors, her sewing scissors, and tore out the eyes of Janet Reno. That's how she felt.

[Lulu]

Oh, my God.

[WNYC Studios]

I mean, she was just. And she, you know, my mother was a lovely, funny, warm, warm woman, but she was so angry. And it was just such an emotional, visceral response to the raid.

[Alison Stewart]

That emotional, visceral response led to political fallout.

[Lulu]

Exactly.

[Pennile Ramirez]

For whom?

[Lulu]

Well, at that point, you know, the case, as I said, started in Thanksgiving 1999. So we were entering the presidential cycle. So all the year 2000 when the case was developing, and then the raid happened, and then this moment. I think I love this part of the interview because I think it's very telling about, you know, the kind of emotions that everyday people were having around the case. And then you had the U.S. presidential election. And as you will remember on some of our leaders, listeners will remember, that election was defined by Florida. And the Miami vote was very important in the election. So we have an episode that we call the Punishment Vote. My colleague Tasha Sandoval is the one hosting that episode. And we tried to unpack there what was really happening in Miami and what are all, again, the long lasting consequences. We just passed a presidential election and we just had a Republican winning the Miami vote after many years of Miami being considered one of the cities that the Democrats will win. And you have Florida not anymore as a swing state, but a solid red state. And a lot of that. We can trace that to what happened in 2000 and what happened with the Cuban American vote after Lian and what they will say in Spanish, they will call it El Voto Castigo or the punishment vote. And what people were so angry as the MOTHER OF ADA FERRER we just heard from saying that even if they were supporting, at some point, they were supporting Al Gore and they were supporting the Democrats. They switched to Bush because they considered that the US Government was betraying the Cuban American community. And I was siding with Fidel Castro for the first time by giving this boy back and sending the boy back to Cuba. And as we said in the podcast, something that you never ever, ever do in Miami is to side with Fidel Castro. So the case had long lasting consequences politically there that you can trace from that time, but you can even trace until today.

[Pennile Ramirez]

What do you think non Cuban Americans don't understand about the Elian Gonzalez story?

[Lulu]

Well, I think the passion and the reasons, all the things that you really need to let go when you leave Cuba. You know, as a journalist, I have been covering immigrant communities for a long time. And something that happens with a lot of immigrant communities is that the people who migrate have the hope to go back at some point, to go back to build a house or to retire. But the open door exists, even if you think that it's going to be 30 years from now. But in Cuba, that door doesn't exist. If you leave, you really leave. And that pain of really feel not just an immigrant, but an exile is something that you don't have in other immigrants community so strongly as you have with Cubans. And I think that the reasons why people really leave Cuba thinking I really cannot go back, or in the early days of the revolution thinking I'll be back in two months and never go back in 60 years, is something that is still kind of not understand other communities don't understand. Especially because all that passion was also portrayed in the media in a way that was not good for the Cuban American community. And we have members of the Cuban American community in the podcast saying that they lost the narrative. We lost the narrative. Not just the custody case, the battle, the legal battle, even the political battle, but also the narrative. And that's another thing that has been hard to recover even after so many years.

[Alison Stewart]

Elaine Gonzalez is 30 years old. He's married with a child. He's a member of Cuba's national assembly, it's Congress. Did you have any contact with him?

[Lulu]

Well, that's another thing about why the story is very current. It's not just a story from 25 years ago. We were ready to go to Cuba and interview Elia through one of our colleagues in Cuba. We were told that he was open to an interview, but then we were rejected to go by the Cuban government and the reason why they rejected us to go. We disclosed this in the podcast is because the Cuban government didn't like some tweets that I posted in July 2021, when Cuba was seeing for the first time, massive protests. But those protests were political protests. But people were protesting because it was after the pandemic. People were saying, we don't medicines, we don't have foods. We don't want this anymore. And I was, as a journalist, saying, these protests are happening in Cuba. Please pay attention to what is happening. But the Cuban government felt that that was enough reason to deny me, first, the crazy thing that I needed to ask for a visa to enter my own country, the country where I was born. And second, that they denied the visa because they didn't like some tweets that I posted. So that that prevented us from interviewing Eliane directly. But we have a lot of accounts in the podcast around all the things that Elian has been saying. So I think that we have enough material to really understand his perspective and his life in Cuba after he went back.

[Alison Stewart]

The podcast is called Chess the Elian Gonzalez Story. My guest has been Penele Ramirez. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

[Lulu]

Thank you and happy Thanksgiving.