La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami

5. The End of the Elián Saga: The Continuation of La Lucha

chapter 5 The End of the Elián Saga The Continuation of La Lucha On Sunday, October 21, 2001, the small home in Little Havana where Elián González had stayed during his international custody battle was opened as a shrine to his memory. Unidos en Casa Elián (United in Elián’s House) attracted nearly five hundred people on its first day. Visitors were greeted with a picture hanging on the wall of Elián’s mother, Elizabeth Brotons, who died during their trip to the United States. A poster on another wall bears a picture of the boy with the caption “The Miracle Child.” Visitors can view hundreds of photographs of a happy Elián playing in the house. One of the displays includes a picture of Elián in a toy boat next to a statue of La Virgen de la Caridad (the Virgin of Charity, Cuba’s patron saint). All the normal trappings of childhood— bicycle, stuffed Barney doll, toys, swing set, race-car-shaped bed, and Spiderman pajamas—become sacred relics as they are reverently displayed throughout the museum. Outside the house a large sign simply states, “Remember Elián—Vote Republican.” This house, still owned by Delfin González, the boy’s great-uncle, became a sacred space—a holy land—a place to contemplate, pray, and become spiritually fortified. To comprehend thoroughly the Miami ethos that gave rise to the religious passions surrounding the Elían saga, we have examined la lucha as a religious expression indigenous to Exilic Cubans, and how this religious expression attempts to mask a machismo that encompasses race, class, and gender oppression. To understand further how Exilic Cubans’ rise to power influences their ethnic construction, specifically when they fail to dismantle the societal structures once used to oppress them, in this 118 T HE END OF T HE ELIÁN SAGA 119 final chapter we will examine the relationship between this small immigrant group and the dominant Euroamerican culture. By surmounting, rather than dismantling, oppressive power structures, Exilic Cubans are in peril of imitating their former oppressors while justifying machismo in the name of the holy war of la lucha. The U.S. Colony of Cuba The first colonizer to visit what would eventually be called the United States was the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon. Arriving in Florida in 1513, he named the region Florida (“feast of flowers”), either because he saw a profusion of flowers or because it was Easter week (Pascua florida, literally “florid Easter”). By 1565, prior to the establishment of Jamestown or Plymouth Rock, the first permanent European settlement in what Elián’s home as museum: On November 27, 2000, Elián’s former home was converted into a museum. The banner in front of the house reads “I only want to live in freedom.” On the mailbox are bumper stickers that read “Christ Saves Me,” and “In Christ There’s Liberty.” A poster of Elián with Christ appears on the walkway leading to the front door stating “Elián knew Jesus while others denied Him.” On the front door is a poster of Elián with the Virgin . On the right side of the building, mounted on the wall, is a five-foot-tall cross, and numerous rosaries are hung on the fence. One is not sure if one is visiting a museum, a shrine, or both. Photograph © Roberto Koltun/The Miami Herald. 120 T HE END OF T HE ELIÁN SAGA would become the continental United States was established by the Spaniards in Saint Augustine, Florida. This land originally fell under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Santiago de Cuba. From the Chesapeake Bay to the San Francisco Bay, colonies, cities, and missions dotted the landscape . As Anglos began to invade “Spanish” territories, many of the original Spanish settlers left, finding themselves refugees in Cuba. The decline of the Spanish Empire, and the consequent rise of the U.S. Empire, contributed to a reversal in the colonial venture. The goal of making the Americas Spanish and Catholic gave way to Manifest Destiny. As early as 1823, with the assertion of the Monroe Doctrine, the western hemisphere became the private preserve of the United States, which expressed opposition to any “outside” (read European) intervention, even though at that time the United States lacked the military credibility to enforce the doctrine...