[Marxism] Children's rights, and mine

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

        We're almost to (in November) the 10th anniversary of the Elián
Gonzalez case, and a news item today brought it to mind.
        
        Elián Gonzalez was the five year old Cuban Boy spirited out of the
island on a boat by his mother without the father's knowledge. His mother
and most of the adults involved in the boat crossing lost their lives;
somehow Elián miraculously survived, lashed to an inner tube or some other
flotation device. Spotted by sports fishermen, right before Thanksgiving he
was brought ashore in Florida (a most important detail for U.S. immigration
policy, for "dry foot" "illegal aliens" from Cuba --those who have set foot
on dry land BEFORE being caught-- are automatically "legal" aliens.
Provided, of course, they were "illegal" to begin with -- if you're here
from Cuba with a temporary visa, going for a swim won't automatically give
you permanent residency.)

        Over that 1999 Thanksgiving Weekend, Elián became a cause célèbre;
by Monday there were already posters out celebrating Elián as the latest
prized capture in the Miami Mafia's unending war on Cuba. I say "on Cuba,"
not the Cuban Revolution, because that is the really existing Cuba, the one
with the revolution. And I am convinced --as I have been since the 1960's--
that only thanks to the Revolution is there a Cuba that is really Cuban
today: without the revolution, the island would have long ago been swallowed
whole by the North American Union, whatever the formalities of its political
status. 

        The Miami Mafia demanded that Elián remain here, to be raised
nominally by his great uncle, but in reality by the great uncle's daughter,
Marisleysis, who was portrayed by the media as Elián's new surrogate mother.
Except that, having lost his real mother, Elián still had another parent who
had always been involved in raising him, his father, as well as loving
grandparents, friends and classmates. In Cuba.

        The ins and outs of the case, the magnificent campaign waged by the
Cuban nation with the sympathy of all reasonable people the world over
eventually led to the only possible HUMAN outcome: the reuniting of Elián
with his father, and their eventual return to Cuba a couple of months later.
For if there is ONE bedrock right a child has, it is to be nurtured and
raised by those who brought them into the world. There are exceptions, of
course, where for the child's own well being children are surrendered by
parents or taken away. But all other things being equal, the right of a
child to be raised by his parents is a principle recognized by every country
in the world.

        Long time subscribers to the list may remember that I posted quite
vigorously and frequently on the Elián case, albeit under another name. I
don't remember for sure if I admitted it publicly at the time --I *think* I
did, but I may be wrong-- the reasons were not just political but personal,
or perhaps I should say instead the reasons were the most profoundly
political reasons I could possibly have. 

        For I have a child, a son, born a few months after Elián, who was
also five at the time Elián was rescued. And as I would write those posts,
mostly late on weekend nights when my son and his sister were with me
instead of their mom, I would get up from where I am sitting now, and walk
the few steps down the hall to their rooms, look in on them, and especially
him, and know that Silvio was right, that rage is sometimes the deepest
expression of love. Because when people started saying a child has a right
to be raised by his parents, unless his father is a Cuban and a Communist, I
took it personally. 

        No, that doesn't capture it. It wasn't just "personal." I was in
grief, and shock, and outrage.

        And that's what happened tonight when I read this story. Perhaps I
should add that my immediate circumstances had something to do with it. I'd
just dropped my son, now 14, and as tall as I am at his mom's house. His
entire life, or almost, since the age of two, he has spent most weekends
with me. But now that he is a few months into high school, he is exercising
his prerogative to decide. His sister did the same thing four years ago when
she was his age, and I well understand it. In my son's case, his electric
guitar, bass, and amps are at his mom's house, as is his Xbox and a
downstairs widescreen TV room that with his sis away in College has become
his private preserve. His mom's house is twice the size mine is, that's been
their primary residence, and that was by joint decision and design, and I
don't begrudge it. Except that now, at fourteen, adding guitars and amps to
the books and laptop and cell phone and iPod and homework sheets is becoming
just too awkward for most weekends. Weekends JUST with Dad are becoming
special, once-in-a-while and me, I just have to adapt. I see him throughout
the week anyways, either taking or picking him up from school or going to
guitar class or the Doctors or getting him fed because his mom has a late
meeting. I know in a couple of years that will also end, as it did with his
sister. 

        And I know his mom is going through the same thing -- even if he is
based there 24X7, he is growing AWAY from us, as his sister, now a freshman
at Swarthmore in Pennsylvania, did. It's been going on in stages for a
decade or more, since I noticed I didn't have to check whether he had a wet
diaper in the middle of the night, because he wasn't in diapers any more.

        But that was my frame of mind, a father, now in his late 50's,
struggling to stop smoking, feeling a little lonely on the weekends that for
a decade or more had been filled with his children. And then, I saw this:

*  *  *

Report: Over 100,000 deportees had children in US

By SUZANNE GAMBOA ? 3 hours ago 

WASHINGTON (AP) ? More than 100,000 parents whose children are U.S. citizens
were deported over the decade that ended in 2007, a Department of Homeland
Security's investigation has found.

The parents were removed from the country on immigration violations or
because they had committed crimes. The removals of the 108,434 parents were
among the approximately 2.2 million carried out by immigration officials
between 1998 and 2007, Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner
said in a report made public Friday.

Skinner warned the numbers were incomplete because Immigration and Customs
Enforcement doesn't fully document such cases. The agency also does not keep
track of how many children each parent has. He recommended immigration
officials start collecting more data on removed parents and their children.

In response to the findings, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said it
would study whether it can gather better information. Its study is due in
about two months.

*  *  *

        The full AP report is here:
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hEBNbzh07j6q6p7rZ5v9kAXaA
AHAD96B08JG0>.

        New York Democrat Congresscritter José Serrano was "saddened, but
not surprised" by the outrage, I read. 

        But me, I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut, like ten years ago
when the Elián case exploded. Children NEED their parents, their OWN
parents, and to read that la migra "doesn't fully document such cases" rips
my heart out. And to think how many fathers --for it has been mostly
fathers-- have been ripped away from their children...

        You bastards. A hundred thousand cases or more. 

        Se los vamos a cobrar toditos, uno por uno. 

        We will have justice for every case, one by one.

Joaquin


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