Elian Gonzalez

I agree that generally speaking, the best place for a young child who has lost his mother should be with his loving father and grandparents (letter, Dec. 29). This may even be true of Elian Gonzalez. These points notwithstanding, the letter writers have clearly adopted a very forgiving definition of “privilege” and a curiously skewed view of who is holding whom away from privilege and loved ones. Maybe their concerns would be more appropriately directed to that great “bestower” of privilege (food, medical care, education and recreational opportunities), Fidel Castro. It is Castro, after all, who is responsible for the death of Elian’s mother and it is Castro who will not allow Elian’s father and grandparents to come to this country to claim him.

If the father and his parents were allowed to come here to claim Elian, my guess (and Castro’s guess) is that they would gladly stay here in the United States and risk exposing their son and grandson to the horrors of the greedy American “goods dumping” conspiracy.

STEVE PREHEIM

Huntington Beach

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Bravo! to Agustin Gurza, always a voice for human decency and one of the best of your exceptional group of columnists. His column on the Elian Gonzalez affair (Dec. 28) should give anyone pause.

The contrast he draws between responses to the real, Cuban Elian and a hypothetical, Mexican Elian is persuasive--and upsetting.

WILLIAM K. PURVES

Claremont