Identifying with Elián González

As I offer an explanation for the incredible focus upon Elián González, it is Sunday, April 23, 2000. It has been 24 hours since the federal intervention occurred, removing Elián from his Miami relatives and re-uniting him with his father. Clearly, the collective reaction to Elián has been

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neither casual nor cynically aloof. Tensions are high; passions surge.

When Elián was rescued at sea on Thanksgiving Day, he was not the first child to seek refuge in this country. Nor was he historically unique in experiencing the traumatic event of motherloss. Custodial disputes similar to Elián’s are daily realities in American domestic relations courts. How is it that Elián’s experience has so riveted our attentions? Why has one child so captured and provoked the passions, convictions, and indignations of Americans, Cubans, and international onlookers?

While issues of post-traumatic stress disorder, custodial rights, motherloss, attachment, and Cuban-American cultural/political issues are intellectual concepts and academic fodder, this child has emerged as the “real” as opposed to the “intellectual” and “conceptual.” Daily we learn of his past and present. We polemically debate what is in Elián’s best interest. As his saga is revealed, multiple challenges and tragedies unfold; we should remember that it is one child who is experiencing very real multiple crises.

In his story we identify with residual artifacts of our own experience: the early loss of a parent, attachment and separation, family conflict, issues of acculturation, and the process of repatriation. The more frail our personal resolution is in these areas, the more furious may be our reaction to Elián’s plight. It is in identifying ourselves with this child that we align our collectively old or ongoing psychological vulnerabilities. As we re-experience our life events through Elián, I suggest that we impose our idealized outcomes onto his experience. Our ancient unmet needs are projected onto Elián; his travail is the reenactment of our own sorrows. Our former idealized solutions for our losses become the longed-for resolutions for Elián.

Admittedly, I am not penning this reaction piece from an emotionally remote stance. In my valuable 10-minute intervals between client sessions, I scurry to an available personal computer to catch the latest Internet news update. I ruminate alone, pontificate loudly, and downright weep at the photographic image of this “most wonderful little boy” as he is face-to-face with an armed and masked Immigration and Naturalization Service agent. The media coverage has enlivened what has become more than a case study; we identify with the intimately developed reality of a small child whose sufferings are real.

The image of Elián adrift, cradled in the hollow of an inner tube, is not unlike the images of the baby Moses or the infant Christ child. As his archetypal predecessors, Elián has also emerged as the catalyst for our passions, ranging from parental sovereignty to political agendas. This very real child ignites our compassion. This very real Elián carries a piece of our own unfinished business.

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