Elian Gonzalez

* Like all Americans, we too suffer the pain of Elian Gonzalez and his family. The choice of citizenship is too difficult for a boy age 6 to determine for himself. The generosity of the American people is evident in the desire of many to give Elian American citizenship now. But it is not right to remove him from his closest biological family: his father and grandparents in Cuba.

Give Elian deferred American citizenship that will await him until he reaches age 18 or 21. There is no need to either break up his family or to force a citizenship on him that he cannot yet understand. It will be a gift for him from the American people when he is of age to understand the greatness of it.

PEGGY and GORDON YOUNG

San Luis Obispo

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* When I adopted my first son from Mexico it took over six years for him to receive his green card. When he was 5, an INS official threatened to return him to Mexico despite the fact that he had lived with us in Los Angeles since 1 month of age and had no loving father and two loving grandmothers pleading for his return. Where was Congress then?

MARGOT BENNETT

Culver City

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* Re the splendid article by Mike Downey about Elian (Jan. 21): It said it all, and of course the child should be returned to his father as soon as possible. Elian’s mother took him on a hazardous journey to America without consulting his father. I call this kidnapping.

Elian’s relatives in Miami are parading him in front of television cameras, peppering him with questions that he doesn’t understand or know how to answer, dragging him to Disneyland and showering him with material goods, making him a pawn in their hatred for Castro. They are not allowing him to deal with the loss of his mother and the absence of his father. I call this child abuse.

ANN EDELMAN

Los Angeles

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* Elian should remain here as a 60-pound political football rather than return to his father and other close family members who truly love him. After all, isn’t that what “family values� are all about?

MARVIN BIERS

Tarzana