More than two decades after he was returned to Cuba from the United States following a diplomatic crisis and a custody battle between his father and his Miami relatives, Elián González says his election on Sunday to Cuba’s National Assembly puts him in a position to help improve the strained relationship between the two countries.
“I think I could be someone the American people recognize, and I can help bring the American and Cuban people together, and not just the people, but also that our governments reach an understanding and remove all the barriers between us. Our country doesn’t have any sanctions on the United States,” he told CNN in an interview after he voted Sunday in his Matanzas hometown of Cárdenas, the city he will represent in Cuba’s version of a parliament.
González, 29, who arrived in South Florida at age 5 clinging to an inner tube in November 1999, is well known in Cuba and and around the world. His mother drowned while attempting the perilous sea journey fleeing the island’s communist regime. A highly public custody battle between his Miami relatives and his father in Cuba, Juan Miguel González, ensued. The dispute quickly turned into a bitter political confrontation between Fidel Castro and the Cuban exile community, ending with a dramatic raid by federal agents of the Little Havana home where the boy was staying and his return to the island.
