Memories of Jamaican Exodus Shed Light on Cubans’ Agonies

On Nov. 22, 1999, Elian Gonzalez did not arrive at school. I remember vividly the day that my close friend, Susan, did not arrive at school. It was 1979 and I was 8 years old. When my mother arrived to collect me, I worriedly informed her of Susan’s absence, asking: “Do you think that she is sick?” Her eyes averted, and she did not answer.

Susan was only one of many Jamaican children who disappeared from my elementary school. Present one day, gone the next. Susan’s family had packed their bags and left for Miami. They were among the hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans who fled the island’s socialist regime in the 1970s.

For some Jamaicans, Michael Manley, the socialist prime minister, was our home-grown “Fidel.” They swore that Jamaica was “going communist” under the guidance of our Cuban neighbors, only 90 miles offshore. The signs were all there. Indeed, Fidel Castro had built our largest school, Jose Marti Secondary, and it had been named for a Cuban revolutionary. Moreover, Castro was too cozy with our leaders. As legend went, Castro, an avowed atheist, had agreed to be the godfather of our prime minister’s son.

Adding fuel to the fire, Manley famously reminded capitalist naysayers that there were “five flights a day to Miami.” Overwhelmingly, Jamaican middle class professionals took his advice and migrated in hordes. Like Harry Belafonte decades earlier, many were ambivalent about their Jamaican farewell. They were leaving not only for ideological reasons but, more important, to safeguard their children’s futures. With schools being built by Castro, perhaps even our educational system was under communist threat. At this rate, our children would soon be reading “Das Kapital.”

Rifts predictably developed between Jamaicans in Miami and Jamaicans who chose to stay home. Were we really “going communist” or was this overinflated rhetoric? After all, we remained democratic. And if we were indeed going communist, was it more patriotic to stay at home and fight the good fight or to flee? And what of Jamaican children: Would their futures be better protected in Jamaica or in Miami?

I have vague recollections of heated discussions over the dinner table between my parents and an aunt who had migrated to Miami. Even as my parents were sympathetic to the socialist experiment, they insisted that socialism was mostly irrelevant to their daily lives. Sure, they were poorer, but they could still enjoy life’s simple pleasures--church, family, friends and yes, parenthood, socialism notwithstanding.

My aunt insisted with equal conviction that socialism had deprived her children of the freedom of thought and economic opportunity that were basic to good living. Suffice it to say that even within families, the rifts ran deeply. Following one discussion, my grandmother forbade future political discussions at the dinner table.

I suspect that similarly nasty debates are now transpiring at many Cuban and Cuban American dinner tables. Commentators have rightly noted that the debate surrounding Elian Gonzalez was never about Elian Gonzalez. He has simply become a touchstone for broader ideological disputes. I believe, however, that many commentators have missed a much deeper point: Cuban Americans in Miami are up in arms because Elian provokes unresolved and deeply sensitive questions about their own identities. Admittedly, socialism and communism are entirely different phenomena.

Yet if Cubans are anything like Jamaicans, the vehement anti-Castro front masks a much deeper ambivalence about choices that they have made in their own lives. No one disputes that when Elian arrived in Miami, he was a well-adjusted child. His parents seem to have done an admirable job, notwithstanding Castro.

Moreover, even on free soil, Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, seems adamant about his desire to return home despite the protestations of Elian’s great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, to the contrary. Juan Miguel maintains that he was living a happy life prior to Nov. 22, when Elian and Elian’s mother took to sea. Had he chosen to be an anti-Castro activist, undoubtedly his life would have been more difficult. But politics was mostly irrelevant to his life. Yes, his life was simple and yes, his life was poor, but nevertheless, his life was content.

Away from the overheated crowds, for introspective Cuban Americans, the presence of such a psychologically healthy child and apparently normal father must raise questions. Could it be that in spite of political repression Juan Miguel was really living a happy, peaceful life, with hardly a thought of Castro? Could it be that good parenting is possible in Cuba? Could their own children have led normal childhoods, even in the land of Castro?

As it turns out, Jamaica never “went communist.” But we flirted more closely with communism than many would have liked. My parents chose to stay in Jamaica when Susan’s parents left. A few years ago, Castro arrived in Jamaica for Manley’s funeral to cheering crowds. I recall my aunt’s palpable disgust. She still lives in the United States. She swears to this day that Castro and his surrogate, Manley, drove her from her home.

Twenty years after Susan left, I would like to believe that I am a well-adjusted young woman, leading a perfectly mundane life. I live in the U.S. now, and I have happy memories of a Jamaican childhood. With Elian in the news, I think often of my childhood friend. We have long lost contact. Yet somehow I feel sure that she had a normal childhood in Miami.

My parents made the right decision, and her parents did too. As it turns out, Juan Miguel and Lazaro Gonzalez might both be right.