The Fight Over Elian Gonzalez
It began on Thanksgiving day, in November, 1999, when two fisherman pulled the body of a five year old cuban boy out of the waters off the coast of Florida. The boy was Elian Gonzalez. He was one of three survivors of a group of Cuban refugees seeking political asylum and freedom from communist Cuba under Fidel Castro's rule. Elian's mother, Elisabeth Brotons, along with her common-law husband and nine others, drowned when the boat carrying them to the United States capsized and sank. Elisabeth Broton's husband, Lazaro Munero, was apparently trying to smuggle his family and the others into the United States, charging the others one-thousand dollars for the trip. When the boat took on water, two large truck innertubes were used as flotation devices in an attempt to remain alive. After more than a day adrift at sea, Elian was found alone clinging to one of the innertubes off shore near Fort Lauderdale. He was dehydrated, sun-stricken, and emotionally scarred from watching those around him perish in the vast ocean; but he was alive.
Elian was released into the temporary custody of his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, after being released from Joe Dimmaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood, Florida. Lazaro Gonzalez, along with his daughter, Marisleysis Gonzalez, brought Elian to their South Florida home in Miami's Little Havana section to shelter him from media attention until future arrangements involving his father could be made.
"God wanted him here for freedom," said Elian's second-cousin Marisleysis, "And he's here and he will get it."
Meanwhile back in Cuba, Elian's natural father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, began requesting the return of his son. He strongly disapproved asylum for his son an...
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...attention over the United States courts, government officials, and Fidel Castro as to who's doing what, when and why, are we losing sight over who is really important and what is truly at stake? Elian's life was greatly impacted by the Miami relatives after tragically losing his mother. Now he is at risk of losing the only stability he has known for the past five months, but is that enough to keep a boy from his father? Either way, Elian will lose since the chances of both sides of the family ever coming together agian to make some kind agreement are practically zero. Maybe Elian would have a better life and more opportunities in the United States, but he would not have a better life being separated from his father. Whatever the outcome, the peoples of both the United States of America and Cuba will be greatly impacted for years to come because of a boy named Elian.
The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act grants Cubans a unique place in U.S. Immigration Law and Policy by declaring that all those who arrive in the United States are accepted as political refugees, and are eligible to become legal permanent residents after one year (Marc R.). It was created to offer protection to Cubans escaping oppression from their Communist government. As might be expected, this law is always the debate of Cubans who think about coming to America seeking freedom and a better life. For many Cubans to reach American territory is all a dream, mostly because of the chances of attaining a better economic situation for themselves and their families. A lot of them also pursue to reunite with their families in the United States after many years of separation. Some others are opponents of the Castro regime. Because they don’t have freedom of speech and can see their lives threatened if they speak out against the government, seek for more political freedom and a democratic form of government, in a land of capitalism where there are fewer restrictions and more opportunities.
In 1898, three big events got in the way of any peaceful resolution in Cuba. The New York Journal received a letter from the Spanish minister in Washington, Enrique Dupuy de Lo...
José Martí, born in Havana, Cuba in 1853, experienced many hardships throughout his lifetime. All through his adolescence, José Martí struggled against poverty. He would not have attended primary or secondary education without the support of a famous Cuban writer, Rafael María de Mendive. This education, from both school and mentor, enabled him to express his thoughts on freedom and publish his first poems at fifteen. Due to his intellectual capabilities and brilliance with words, he was jailed for six years and exiled to Spain by the Cuban go...
Imagine quitting your job to start something that can help the future of the world in diffrent way. Picture getting arrested for trying to help the make the world better in the future. Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales is somebody that is extremely hopeful in the future.
Ferriss, Susan, Ricardo Sandoval, and Diana Hembree. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. Print.
The push-and-pull factors in Enrique’s yearn for the U.S not only allows him to rediscover himself as an individual in a world of uncertainty, it also eliminates his constant fear of failing as a promising human being; in addition exhibits the undying hope of a desperate man found in hopeful migrants. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” his mother’s trip streamed “emptiness” into the heart of a once comfortable child and left him to “struggle” to hold memories they shared. Enrique’s life after Lourdes’ departure triggered the traumatizing demise of his identity. He threw this broken identity away while facing many obstacles, nevertheless each endea...
In Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez, by Margo Sorenson, two teenagers were not paying attention in history class, and their teacher assigned them Saturday school, pulling weeds. Kenneth and Aleesa weren’t friends, they were caught passing a note to someone. After, they started to work on Saturday, they both drank from a blue water jug, that sent them back in time. To the year 1965, where Cesar Chavez was helping out the field workers get their own union. By putting on a strike against the Schenley Company, who grow grapes in Delano, California, and sold them around the world. While, the teenagers were in the past, they lived and worked with the Lopez’s, Juan, Rosa, and their son Luis. Luis helped Kenneth and Aleesa understand what was happening during that time with the NFWA- National Farm Workers Association and the strike to get the workers a union of their own, and they all joined the NFWA. Which ended in the year 1970 and they were able to go back to their time. Both Kenneth and Aleesa were able to experience the strike first hand, and when they went back home, they wished that they had paid a little bit more attention in class, and that they were going to from then on.
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.
In the Supreme Court Case Gonzales v. Raich on June 6th, 2005, physician-recommended marijuana users Angel Raich and Diane Monson argued that the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) allowed the United States Congress to abuse the Constitution-granted power of the Commerce Clause (Rosenbaum). Consequently, Raich and Monson’s case contributed greatly to the debate of federalism under the United States law (Rosenbaum). As demonstrated by the Supreme Court case of Gonzales v. Raich, the role of the People is to notice a wrong in the government and attempt to make a change to better benefit the People, including either limiting or increasing the government.
When we think about society, there is often a stark contrast between the controversy projected in the media that our society faces, and the mellow, safe view we have of our own smaller, more tangible, ‘local’ society. This leads us to believe that our way of life is protected, and our rights secured by that concept of society that has been fabricated and built upon. However, what if society were not what we perceive it to be, and the government chose to exercise its power in an oppressive manner? As a society we would like to think that we are above such cruelty, yet as The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera by J. Joaquin Fraxedas recounts the state of Cuba in the 1990’s, we must also remember that all societies and governments view the individual differently as opposed to the whole. Each group has unique expectations that are enforced upon the individual which extend beyond those expectations that are written. What this book brings to light is the extraordinary repercussions of refusing to meet the demands and expectations of those that lead our governments. When we veer from the path well-trodden and into the ‘wild’ as Juan did, we may not face death quite as often, but the possibility of those we once called our own, persecuting us for our choices is a true and often an incredibly frightening danger.
... the majority of which sought refuge in the United States. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba now stands at a crossroads. The battle cry has changed from “ Socialism or death to Resist, struggle and win” (Castro’s Cuba II). Hopefully, Castro and/or Cuba will not be forced into a market-based economy and all the materialistic commodities that go along with capitalism. In my opinion, Castro should hold out for as long as possible griping to the former battle cry “Socialism or death”. Only time will tell what the fate of Castro’s Cuba will be. Trade might once again flourish the economy, tourism might open up new economic opportunities and foreign investments from Italy, France and Spain could possibly dig Cuba out the current economic hole it’s in. Until then however, the battle against capitalism must not lose any of its vigor.
Gwendolyn Brooks' "First fight. Then Fiddle." initially seems to argue for the necessity of brutal war in order to create a space for the pursuit of beautiful art. The poem is more complex, however, because it also implies both that war cannot protect art and that art should not justify war. Yet if Brooks seems, paradoxically, to argue against art within a work of art, she does so in order create an artwork that by its very recognition of art's costs would justify itself.
Allende’s character Esteban Trueba has a very intricate life. Through his triumphs and defeats and through the different places of this novel, Allende portrays several elements that clearly exemplify historical, political and economic events in Chile. Esteban’s life is that of the low class in Chile. He usually longs for power and money to make good things happen. After leaving, his mother and sister, and starting a new and independent life, Esteban’s ideology changes dramatically. For the first time he directly experiments success and wealth. He feels as if he has no problems, mainly because he does not have a family to weigh him down. Trueba's move to Three Marias seems to appease his hunger temporarily, before his monstrous, demanding, and ever growing needs overwhelms him. The type of lifestyle achieved by Esteban Trueba in Three Marias far surpassed that of living with his mother and sister, however only brief moments of satisfaction are incurred. These, previously mentioned, moments created a hunger for perfection and greed that would continue perpetuate at any cost. Only when Trueba receives a letter from Ferula does he remember his life with her and his mother, which forces him to endure his memories of poverty and pain. He even remembers the smell of medicine, which had encompassed their home. These memories force Esteban to reflect on the reasons and ideas that made him leave his origins. He reminisces on that portion of his life, occupied by the deterioration of his family.
That feeling of leaving his parents in the Philippines to go with a stranger when he was 12 years old is truly unfortunate, but his mother was looking looking out with his best interests in mind. She just wanted her son to get a taste of the American dream, and have a better life in America rather than suffering with her in the Philippines. Vargas’s essay moves the reader emotionally as he explains when he was finally successful in getting the highest honor in journalism, but his grandmother was still worried about him getting deported. She wanted Vargas to stay under the radar, and find a way to obtain one more chance at his American dream of being
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