WWYD: the Elian 2 Case

I've hitherto avoided taking this one on for pragmatic and, in hindsight, naive, reasons. First, the Elian case cost the Cuban American community just about all of the good will it had taken decades to build, a stunning blow. And I'm sorry, but as a community I do not believe it is a moral imperative to stand on the deck of the SS Principle as it slowly sinks into the sea. There may come a time when we have no other choice, but this is not it.

So when this case came up, I reasoned that it was being heard in a court of law. The facts pertaining to the father were particularly damning, I thought. Let's review some. The little girl is the product of Izquierdo, the father, cheating on his present common law wife. I think this is important. For her entire life, he had no problem leaving her with the mother, both in Cuba and in the United States, with full knowledge that the mother was abusive. The child's thirteen year old brother has testified to this and given the mother's established instability such treatment would seem credible. He, himself, was supposedly abusive to the mother. Finally, he made no effort to contact his daughter or inquire as to her well being in the entire year she was in this country.

It seemed to me that as far as the interests of the child, this was a clear cut case. But, no, I find out that the judge hearing the case once said publicly that the crime problem in Miami would be solved if Cubans were sent back. This is obviously a judge that has a dim view of Cuban Americans. Should she have been assigned this case? Should she have taken it? The defense was accused of falsifying evidence, i.e. letters or pictures that demonstrated some iota of interest on the part of the father. They were accused of trying to get her to say she wanted to go to Cuba. Finally, the foregone conclusion of the ruling: the little girl receives a life sentence.

Unfortunately, the American public sees Cuban Americans as intransigently putting their political agenda before the interests of a young child. They see it as a case of the good life versus the humble life. Their knee jerk reaction is to think of their own children and how they would feel if they were taken away. Such a reaction is so universal that it has reached as far as townhall.com where Kathleen Parker has written this article which was picked up by the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

I have a close personal friend who was also born illegitimately, this time in the bad old days. His childhood was make-a-movie-out-of-it bad, so much so that it bruised his soul and has haunted him his whole adult life. Can you imagine how he felt when he recently found out that he could have been spared the hardship, the rejection and the abandonment, that when he was born his mother rejected the town doctor and his childless wife who had offered to adopt him? The enormity of that yawning possibility was overwhelming. Was it love, or was it narcissism?

So I ask you, as a mother, say you died or were incapacitated, would you want your child placed with a man, the birth father, who had not shown the slightest interest in her for a year? Would you want your child to grow up, not just in poverty, but in absolute penury? Would you want your child to go hungry? They do not starve to death in Cuba, but finding food is a daily battle. The child is of the age when she will not see milk again until she is 65. Would you want her exposed to a whole host of diseases brought on by poor public health, sanitation, and nutrition? Would you want her to grow up in an environment where she constantly has to measure her words, where she is subject to arbitrary imprisonment and worse, where as she grows up, prostituting herself with aging European tourists is often the only expedient left to young women. Here's the kicker for me, would you want her to live under the roof of the woman you had wronged by sleeping with her common law husband?

As a father, many of the same questions apply. Now picture the life your child can lead. She can be brought up with her brother in the arms of a well-to-do family who wants her. She can grow up free. She will enjoy protections you don't even dream of. She can be spared many of life's hardships. She will not know the hunger and privation and repression you face daily. You do not have to bring her into the home of the woman you have wronged, to be a daily reminder of your infidelity. What would a father who truly loves his child do?

Solomon knew the answer to this one. Apparently, we no longer do.