Photo: ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP / Getty Images
Elián González, the Cuban who was rescued off the coast of Florida, clinging to an inner tube and his name became the focus of an international dispute over the custody of the children, as well as a political battle between the late leader Cuban Fidel Castro and Cuban exiles in Miami. Twenty-three years from that moment, he will become a member of the island’s National Assembly.
In that 1999, the US authorities in the first instance handed Elian over to the custody of his great-uncle, Lázaro, a resident of Miami. Elián’s US relatives, and various organizations opposed to Fidel Castro, maintained that the child could acquire political asylum status, which was requested by the relatives in charge of his custody.
However, since the mother had taken the child out of Cuba without the authorization of his father, Juan Miguel González Quintanathe case involved not only issues of political asylum, but also a conflict regarding Elián’s guard.
After numerous negotiations and discussions, the Government of Cuba, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and the US Department of Justice agree that the custody issue prevails and that the child must be returned to his father in Cuba.
Twenty-three years after that event, the 29-year-old militant of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), whom designated by the state media as “representative of the most dignified of Cuban youth”, he was elected as a candidate for the National Assembly of Popular Power (ANPP) of the island and has become one of the youngest applicants for the legislative body.
According to media in Cuba, on the island, González received a military education and became a supporter of the Castro brotherswho, after his return to the island, developed a close relationship with him and his father, who went from a waiter in a restaurant in Varadero to a member of the National Assembly.
Over the years, González was frequently seen in public with Fidel and later with Raúl Castro. When he graduated as an industrial engineer in July 2016, he read a letter that his promotion sent to Fidel Castro in which he promised to “fight from whatever trench the Revolution demands.” And when Castro died a few months later, González said he had been “like a father until he became a friend. And as my father, I wanted to show him everything I accomplished so that he could be proud of me.”
Keep reading:
• VIDEO: Man who stole $23 at a gas station spent 14 years hiding from the police in a cave
• San Bernardino County Mountain Communities Prepare for Potential Flooding
• Chiquibaby exclusive after the accident: “I am following the doctor’s instructions”