Word: elian
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When Juan Miguel learned that Elian had survived the shipwreck and was safely in the hands of the Miami branch of the family, Lazaro and other family members immediately began quietly working out how father and son would be reunited. But that was before Castro began making his public demands that the Miami family return the boy, and before the leaders of the exile community swooped down on Lazaro's small house in Little Havana and drew the family deep into the local political swamps. Robinson Crusoe did not have the misfortune of washing ashore in a swing state...
...weeks that followed Elian's rescue, Juan Miguel watched from a distance as his son was ushered into the American Dream. Congressmen like Dan Burton flew to Miami to meet him and report to the waiting media circus that they had discussed every Yankee virtue from the Federalist papers to 401(k)s. Elian went to Disney World, hugged Barney, celebrated his sixth birthday with the gift of a toy gun. He fell in love with chocolate milk; a Florida cousin who visits regularly told TIME that whenever Elian's cousin Marisleysis poured him a glass, she made a point...
Though the family says it has done nothing to turn the child against his father, relatives did not hesitate to tell him about the horrors of his native country whenever they had the chance--which may help explain the fear Elian is said to express when asked about seeing his father and returning to Cuba. Says a Miami child psychiatrist, who was asked by the Miami family to evaluate Elian but declined because he "didn't want to get sucked into the politics" of the situation: "Of course he's afraid of being reunited with his father--because...
...been falling out, and he's had stomach problems since this whole thing started," says Fidel Ramirez, 32, Juan Miguel's best friend since school days. "He was extremely gregarious, but now he has turned bitter and quiet. When it dawned on him that his Miami relatives were keeping Elian up there, he came to me and said, 'Hermano, they took my son--they're hitting me where it hurts most.' He cried for three days...
...help when, in January, Juan Miguel saw the TV pictures of Elian, dressed in a crisp new school uniform, heading off to a private school run by a Cuban-American political leader. Cuban psychiatrists had advised the father to tell Elian during their regular phone calls that the boy was "on vacation" and that they would be reunited soon. But starting a new school put a lie to that promise, and the family seemed determined to drag the case through the courts. Juan Miguel pleaded with INS officials to speed up the process, and they complied--worried that with each...