The Rescue

The water changes from a beautiful shade of teal to sapphire blue. When there's a storm, it looks almost black. It is a narrow strip of water, the space between two landmasks, a place with dolphins and sharks and early seven hundred species of marine life, more than any other place in the Atlantic Ocean. It's a life giving place, but it's also volatile, erratic taking life, and this stretch of sea has often been deadly for people trying to

That morning, the seas were really rough, eight to twelve foot swells, and the sky, i remember, was black to one side, and daylight was coming up, and there was like a rainbow out there.

This is the natal about Rinple.

He's been in Florida for years, a storm doesn't face him. So on Thanksgiving nineteen ninety nine, he went to his cousin Sam's house to go fishing.

Only for him to tell me that we weren't going to go fishing because the Marine advisory was saying that it was too rough to be out on the ocean that day.

But Donato and his cousin braave the aftermath of the storm anyways, and then they see something in the water, and we.

Ran across an inner tube and that's where it began for me. We found a little boy floating about three miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale.

That little boy was five year old Alean Gonzalez. He had been floating in the ocean for at least a day, maybe two. The legend is that he was protected by dolphins in the dark, dangerous storm waters.

It looked like a little angel.

I mean, it looks so fresh.

An angel of a boy saved by dolphins. What an image, what a story. Little did they not to know this strong storm in the ocean will actually bring more, more forceful storms, a political and legal storm.

He was cut in the crossfire between two governments, and not just him, All Cubans are caught in that cross fire.

The law is very clear.

An abandoned child belongs with his father in particle prove.

The equat.

It was a very close pivotal controversial election year, and we all remember what happened, right George W. Bush defeated Al Gore and what state was the deciding state of Florida?

A media storm.

Tensions between the United States and Cuba get hotter every day six year old Cuban refugee Ilian Gonzales remains in this country.

It was impossible to not be aware that something big was happening in association with Elian Gonzalez.

In three minutes, six year old Ellly Young Gunzas, dressed in a T shirt, draped in fear.

Was gone.

It was before Lean and after Alian. It definitely marked a line in the story in the history of the Cuban exile in the United States, especially in Miami.

And a storm within a family. I feel that he deserves to be here.

That's what his mom wanted it.

His mom is first to me.

Family.

We want him to be in a free country with his father, not alone. We want his father to be with him. Okay, we want his father to be with him, but free.

As we all know, when Alan came and found himself lonely in this country, without no family, without his dad, I was there and so was my family supporting that why are we giving the opportunity at this point? So speak for him.

All of these storms will tear a family apart, several entire communities. Some say the termine the fate of the two thousand US presidential election. And in the eye of these storms, this little boy, I'm pennilea miss and this is chess peace. The Elian Gonzalez Story. This is a production of Ututa Studios in partnership with Iheartsmichael Tura podcast Network. Before I tell you more about these storms from twenty five years ago, I want to introduce myself. I'm an

Ses the Esta Pista and Grasnrado spegan Gala Manires.

But now I want to tell you a story closer to home. One that I relate to was a Cuban as someone who, similar to Elian, was separated from my father. I was raised in Cuba, but lived most of my life in Mexico. A few years ago, I moved to New York. You can hear my accent. I haven't been here for long. I want to tell you a Lian's

I remember the stinker round bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, tooty fruity.

Sam told Donato the mahi mahi liked to hide in things.

Donato was on the lookout.

That's when something caught his eyes some twenty five yards away.

I said, like over there by that inner tube, and my cousin said, because you had gone over the inner tube.

And as they got closer, Donato told Sam, there's.

A dead person on this inner tube because he goes, no, no, he goes, it's a sick joke that somebody would tie a doll to this inner tube.

His cousin brought it off, thinking someone was messing with them, and then.

I looked again, and I seen a hand move, and I told my cousin, You're not gonna believe this. I said, yes, that person I thought was dead must be alive because the hand moved. My cousin knew I wouldn't joke like that with him.

He goes, hurry, Herry here.

They put the boat in gear and raced to the inner tube.

Before I can blink my eye, my cousin was in the water and he's screaming, it's a baby, it's a baby. And I'm thinking myself, a baby.

A frozen panic.

The next thing he remembers is his cousin Sam pushing up this little body from the ocean.

What he said was a baby became a little five.

Year old boy, Elian Gonzalez.

Elian Gonzalezalez.

When I got him into my arms and I asked him, I said, oh, you okay, and he didn't answer me, and I said, pabo suspanol, and he said, see.

They gave the little boy some orange juice and a sweatshirt. Donato saw he was scared.

He made like a sour face, like he wanted to cry, but he never cried.

Donato is a religious man and considers himself a missionary.

He was overcome with emotion.

I just looked up towards heaven. I didn't realize at that moment that this would become another mission for me.

Eleian would become a mission for more than just Donato. Eleian would become a cast on both sides of the Florida Strates. When Donato and s rescued Alien from the boat, they called Sam's then wife, Nola, and she called nine one one. Soon the coast Guard was on its way.

And the first thing I said to the coast Guard while we were on there, I said, is this boy going to be able to make it to land?

The coast Guard took Elian to land. When they go to the coast, an ambulance and the media were waiting for Elian.

See do you know this boy? Yeah, we found.

You know, this beautiful little boy and his beautiful you know, big eyes and smooth, smooth skin and a big bright smile. It was like a miracle, right, a Thanksgiving miracle.

That's policer prise winning Quean American historian Ada Fere. The fact that he was found on Thanksgiving is one of those details that make Elian's origin story in the US almost sacred. Over and over we spoke with people who tell us something like this, so.

Most you know, like a biblical story. It was poetic ramifications.

He represented something, he represented a miracle.

And this became a symbol to them of the failure.

Of the communist system and the hope of the capitalist system, the American system.

Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but it is a holiday that people reflect.

Eleon plays into that this is Cuban American.

Former Congressman Jogarcia, we talked about the symbolism of Ileane arriving in the US on one of the holidays most meaningful to Cubans here.

I don't know if you've ever had Cuban Thanksgiving, but it transmograification occurs.

Right.

They take a dry piece of turkey meat and they make it taste like pork.

And yes, I have had this turkey transmuted into pork many times. My family have lived in Miami for decades and I have celebrated many Thanksgivings there.

Somehow, just like you know, a priest turns water into wine, Cubans take a turkey, which is inedible, they fill with pork and meat ground beef inside. Then they cover the turkey in bacon, and then they cook it with moho and what comes out is a pork. It may be a turkey, but it tastes like pork, right, and.

It's delicious, And it's delicious.

I could see the congressman getting emotional about Qan Thanksgiving, and I get it. For Cubans in the US, this holiday holds a greater significance. It's a profound celebration for us, right with meaning, and.

So many times when you are celebrating Thanksgiving, you are thinking of those that can.

It's easy to get lost in the symbolism of Elian's rescue, the image of an angel faced voy surrounded by dolphins in.

The dark seas, rescued.

On Thanksgiving of all days. But behind these idealistic symbols there was a heroine journey. Cuban journalist Harold Calinas.

I think it's easy to forget that these childhood events are a trauma for Alien, and people often talk to him in Cuba like this is just a political event, But for him, this is the death of his mother.

Elean, like me, grew up in Cuba between the worst parents. His name is actually a combination of his parents' first names Elizabeth and Jamiel. It had been Elean's mother who decided to raise that narrow strip.

Of see to get to it in States.

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving of nineteen ninety nine, she took Elean, with her boyfriend, Rafa, and much of his family to flee Cuba on Afflotia across the Florida Straits to the United States. Elizabeth surely knew the risks. She had dressed Elian in old orange, a colored fisherman had told her would protect him against charts.

They hit bad weather the boat had started taking on water.

A giant wave flipped the boat over and left a group of fourteen with only two inner tubes. One of Raffa's brothers said he.

Could see the shore, maybe we can swim there, but they were nowhere near the shore.

That's again Donato the rescue. From the beginning of the episode, Alien's mother's boyfriend, Rafa, attempted to rescue his brother, who had tried to swim.

To sure but nobody returned.

When Rafa's mother realized her sons had drowned, she let go of her inner te Soon there were only four people left, Elian and his mother Elizabeth and a young couple Nevaldo Fernandez and Arian Orta. This couple was much less in the media spotlight than Allan, but they also survived. Later, Nvaldo would tell reporters Elizabeth's last words to.

Him and would tell me, take care of you, take care of.

The board, trying to make it to land of free make.

Sure that the child touches land in the United States.

That night on the ocean, the inner tubes somehow were separated. Years later, Eleann will say he was in and out of sleep on the inner tube and at some point he raised his head and he didn't see his mom and daldoes abamay she lost her life to save mine. Elizabeth drowned protecting Elian. Her body was never found, lost forever in this stretch of sea. The last thing Elian remembered was looking up and being alone in the middle

Wept some time drawing some waves a dolphin.

Himself in an inner tube me.

He said, I was sinking.

After the rescue, the cost guard took Elan, Donato and his cousin Sam to land and from there Elian was wrapped up in a thick blanket by medics, where news footage captured his dazed, scared look on his face.

Where's he going out?

As they loaded Alan on the stretcher into the ambulance, Sam and Donato both patted him with care on his head. They then follow Elian to the hospital.

That's today that I met Lazaro's uncle Delphine, which was the great uncle, and Mary Lacy's.

This is the Gonzales family of Miami. Elian's paternal great uncles Lasaro and the Finn, and his second cousin Mary Less.

It's just a miracle.

God wanted him here for freedom.

Thanks here, and he's here.

And he will get it.

They knew Elian was coming because his father's family in Cuba had called a few days before. Once they realized Elean was taken by his mom, it would be the first collect call of many during this saga. Puamillel eventually sold his nineteen fifty six Nash ramble.

To afford all these calls.

The day after Thanksgiving, Elian was released from the hospital. The former Immigration and Naturalization Service or I ins placed Elian in temporary care with his relatives in Miami.

Policies and protocols were executed, and at the time it required that he be placed into the care and custody of the closest and media r relatives, which he was.

This is Jim Goldman, a former Ironist special agent who worked the case.

And that's sort of when it all began.

The storm in the ocean had subsided, but the tempest was just beginning. When Eleane was rescued at sea. I was a pre teen in Lawanna. I was born there in nineteen eighty seven, just a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Iron curtain between East Germany and West Berlin has come tumbling down.

East Germany and and that meant a lot of changes for my little island.

The embargo is finally having the effect on cashrew that has been intended all along.

It's time to tighten the screws, not loose on the screws.

What I remember most was how poor the country was with the Soviet Union falling apart and the US embargo in place, cub Us foreign trade suffered drastically. We lived in a scarcity, with no public transportation, no access to gasoline, and almost no food. Havana was full of people biking everywhere, and to me, everyone looked tired and thin. We had four hours of electricity and then four hours without when the electricity came back guandol Via la Loose, I remember the collective celebration.

Bin Nola lu Forola lous.

I remember the happiness, the screens and everyone turning on their televisions to watch the Delenoela. I lived mostly with my mother stepfather brother ann Auela Delia, in an apartment in Lositios, a Barrio Ravo, a dangerous neighborhood, but I never felt unsafe. My mom was all about education and rules. She was loving and straight. Some of my biggest life

That's what he also Papa.

This is my dad who always calls me money short for Mineka.

Do you guys look alike.

See me Money.

We're super close and trust each other with anything.

The time you need a secretis.

A year before Elean was rescued. My father told me a secret one, but I couldn't tell a soul. My dad was a coach for Cuba's national diving team. In nineteen ninety eight, he was headed to South Florida for an international diving competition.

Before he left, he told me, he.

Said, money in Noway Reserve. He wouldn't be coming back to Cuba, and I will be staying in Cuba.

It was a dangerous secret.

If I told my father could get in trouble with the government. He could be prevented from traveling or even go to jail. And it's something nearly three decades later that my dad and I have never really talked about until now, until I started digging into my memories of Cuba during my reporting for this podcast.

Rago Avenia a Dando migaison.

Leaving Cuba was something that had been weighing on him. He wanted to find a life with more food and more freedom.

In Josavaka Dimpo and padan moment when he decided to leave, he had no idea when we will be able to see each other again. I go the ako to talk again.

But my father wanted me to know the truth. So my father went to Florida and never came back. He found a job at a public pool, teaching kids how to swim. Most of them were second generation immigrants from Latin America. Recently I spoke with some of the swimmers he coaches.

He was my coach, a father figure, a grandpa, someone you can ask advice for.

His everything, He's my everything.

It makes me emotional hearing his students calling him family. They got to be with my dad for so many years.

Something that was taken from me.

In nineteen ninety eight, when my dad didn't return to Cuba, he was marked as a traitor by the Cuban government and my family paid the consequences.

Okay, can you parad kua no so in the sector Yoso jun trailer.

We were forbidden from leaving Cuba or seeing my dad for at least three years. He lost all parents, our rights.

Oh say you feel direction.

And superdo.

To be Cuban like Elyan and me means that governments and their policies dictate if you can grow up with your parents. More often than not, the policies separate us as short now eighty mile stretch of ocean apart.

Taking our shoes off to get onto the sand in the hot no, I feel I'm burning. Oh Jesus, Oh I can't do it. Oh my Okay, we're putting our shoes back.

While reputting in Florida producer Tashas and Dovala and I tried to take a peaceful break at the beach, but the sun is too hot even in May.

So right now we're standing in a beautiful white sand beach and next to four dollars though, And we're just a few steps from the station of the US Coast Guard here in this place, and this is a station where Elean Gonzalez was taken after he was found three miles from here in the middle of the ocean.

It's a bit disorienting because the trees and land here resemble the beaches.

I remember as a kid in.

Cuba, you can hear the airplanes from here because the airport it's so close. So it's this paradox of it could be so easy to get here, but it's so dangerous and so difficult.

I look at the water today, is pristine, crystalline, calm. It makes me think of the beauty so many people describing Alian's rescue, the dolphins protecting this angelic boy on Thanksgiving Day. It's a poetic visual, but the Lian's story, just like the ocean, is darker than its glowing surface.

Every day things got worse and worse and worseh it got darker and deeper.

What work comes to your mind when I say the word alien elia, convasive pain.

No matter what the outcome would have been, it's just pain.

Was a triumph, I guess for his father, but for hundreds of thousands of Cubans in Miami was a tragedy.

I would have to say some misgivings. The word circus comes to mind.

I think puppet, I think dictatorship. I think the need for truth to surface myth.

It was hard to know what actually was true eventually in the end.

And ely On he was kind of the passive voice in this. You know, nobody could ask him what it means to be free?

And ngo and momentum contra momental my bad.

This is Chess Piece, the real Elian Gonzalez story. Chess Piece.

The Story is a production of Tudo Studios in partnership with Iheartsmichael Tura Podcast Network. This show is written and reported by me Pennileea Medz with Maria Garcia, Nicole Rodwell, and Tasha Sandoval. Our editor is Maria Garcia, Additional editing by Marlon Bishop. Our senior producer is Nicole Rodwell. Our associate producers are Tasha Sandovali and Elisabeth Loental Torres. Sound besigned by Jacob Rossatti and our intern is Evelyn Fajardo Alvarez.

Mixing by Stephanie.

Levo, Julia Caruso and j J Carubin, fat checking by Media Bautista, Scoring and musical creation by Jacob Rossati and Stephanie Lebo and credits music from Los Aceos Or. Executive producers are Marlon Bishop and my Ya Garcia. Legal review by Neil Rossini. This episode was recorded in part at Dynamica Studio in Mexico City. Utura Media was founded by

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