Cuban Americans United in Frustration

MIAMI â€”  A month after the federal seizure of Elian Gonzalez, many of this city’s exiles have never felt more Cuban. Nor more powerless.

A shared revulsion over the armed force shown by the U.S. government in wresting the Cuban child from his Miami relatives’ home has united Cuban Americans across generational and political lines as never before.

“My American children, in their mid-20s, have found their Cuban American identity,� said Carlos A. Saladrigas, 51, a prominent Miami businessman. “They’re asking ‘How can I get involved?’ �

At the same time, however, many here sense that exile influence over U.S. policy may be waning. In Washington, House Republicans are pushing for a vote this week on a farm bill that would lift some restrictions on agricultural and medical sales to Cuba, long banned by the trade embargo on the communist island. Even Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a staunch foe of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, has lent support.

“The Elian case was a wake-up call,� said Elena Freyre, who heads the Cuban Committee for Democracy, a liberal Miami lobbying group. “The hard-liners are more entrenched than ever. But others question whether this was a fight over freedom in Cuba, or an internal debate about leadership. I think we realize we are not as powerful as we think we are.�

Six-year-old Elian and his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, remain secluded at a Maryland retreat while awaiting a federal appeals court decision on the Miami relatives’ request that Elian be granted an asylum hearing.

Elian Failure Seen as Another Bay of Pigs

But even now, many exiles agree with Cuban-born sociologist Ruben G. Rumbaut that the saga ranks with the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1980 Mariel boat lift “as one of the most defining moments of the last 40 years for Cuban Americans.�

“To use the boy as a symbol of the community’s resentment of Fidel Castro seemed at first like a triumph but ended up as another Bay of Pigs, a major loss,� said Rumbaut, a Michigan State University professor. Not only was Castro able to use the custody battle over Elian to rally popular support on the island, Rumbaut said, but “the spectacle of the most-favored immigrant group in the U.S. flouting the law--demonstrating with a sea of Cuban flags, waving the American flag upside-down--raised the indignation of many throughout the U.S.

“All that has left the Cuban American lobby isolated and vulnerable,� Rumbaut added.

Indeed, exile leaders in Miami have been scrambling to repair the community’s image. The Cuban American National Foundation, which has exerted a powerful influence on Cuba policy through four administrations, this week named a new director, 35-year-old Joe Garcia, a former state public service commissioner. The group also announced an expansion of its Washington staff. In Miami, Cuban civic groups have met with non-Latino power-brokers to discuss ways to counter what Saladrigas calls “the image that we in Miami are all right-wing radicals.�

Anti-Cuban Sentiment Heats Up in Miami

Meanwhile, fallout from the Elian case continues to rattle local government, cultural alliances and everyday folk. For example:

* A group of Miami residents has launched an effort to recall Miami Mayor Joe Carollo after his dismissal of the city manager and the resignation of the police chief--actions that stemmed from the April 22 raid on the Little Havana home of Elian’s great-uncle. Earlier this month, members of the same group protested Carollo’s leadership by throwing bananas at City Hall, a symbolic allusion to a perception of Miami as a banana republic.

* Angered by the banana tossing in Miami, Mayor Raul Martinez of the heavily Cuban city of Hialeah, Fla., went on Spanish-language radio to denounce what he called Cuban bashing. He urged Cubans to abandon the Republicans and Democrats to form their own political party.

* A federal court judge last week ordered a temporary ban on a Miami-Dade County requirement that arts groups applying for county funds swear that they do not do business with Cuban artists or with others who engage in trade with Cuba. U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno ruled that the so-called “Cuba affidavit� was likely to be found unconstitutional next month, when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a similar Massachusetts case.

Greater Miami is a thoroughly Latino metropolis. More than 50% of the 2 million residents of Miami-Dade County are Latino, and the majority of those are Cuban. Cuban Americans predominate in positions of authority in city and county government. The men named by Carollo to replace Miami’s former city manager and police chief (who were both non-Latinos) are Cuban Americans.

For most of Castro’s rule, Cuban immigrants have benefited from a unique policy that welcomes those who arrive illegally on U.S. soil and permits them to become permanent residents just one year later.

Still, the decision of U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, a Miami native, to send in armed federal agents to grab Elian and end the five-month standoff reminded many here that the desires of local citizens can still be trumped by Washington.

“We are left in a little bit of shock,� said Saladrigas, who was one of those in the Little Havana home of Elian’s uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, on the morning of the raid. He had been hoping to negotiate a transfer of the child.

Four weeks after the seizure--which led to days of street protests and some 300 arrests for civil disobedience--Cuban flags still are flying from many businesses, homes and cars in Miami.

And on the weekends, those who feel that some exiles go too far in expressing anti-government sentiment gather to wave American flags in response.

“This has seriously divided the community,� said Gonzalo R. Soruco, a professor of communications at the University of Miami who has had to halt classroom discussions of the case that became overheated. “Some of the emotion comes from anti-immigrant sentiment and some from the growing pains of a changing society. Miami is not a foreign country or a banana republic, but it is not an average American city yet, either. We’re in transition.�