From November 1999 until June 2000, the story of five-year-old Elián was inescapable news in the United States. Rescued by fishermen from an innertube on Thanksgiving Day after his mother died while fleeing Cuba, the boy became the focal point of a media war and harrowing legal battle between exiles who demanded that he stay in Miami and the US government that sought to enforce US immigration law and return Elián to his father on the island. I traveled to Cuba from December to January 2000 in order to witness islanders’ reactions firsthand. Most Cubans I knew supported Elián’s return, but they also knew that Fidel Castro was using him as much as Miami exile politicians were: he was the perfect advertisement for each side’s assertions of moral righteousness and claims to represent “the real Cuba”. However, across Havana, posters of Elián’s face only seemed to highlight the ironies of post-Soviet Cuba. While billboards featured iconic Communist Pioneers saving a spot in class for Elián, a poster at Havana’s newly opened Benetton—the country’s most expensive store—could have easily been confused with similar images at a Miami mall. Havana, January 2001.
