A boy's view from a yard in Miami

By Brian Cabell
CNN Correspondent

January 11, 2000
Web posted at: 12:53 a.m. EST (0553 GMT)

This news analysis was written for CNN Interactive.

MIAMI (CNN) -- It is a strange sight from the front yard of a modest home here -- a 6-year-old boy, with a tentative, confused smile, held high in the air by his great uncle for the crowds to see.

"Elian! Elian!" they chant, and the boy rewards them with both hands extended upward in "V-for-victory" signs.

For more than six weeks, Elian Gonzalez, plucked from the Florida Straits on Thanksgiving Day as he clung to an inner tube, has lived an extraordinary life. He's a hero, a legend in the making.

Elian Gonzalez, center, gives a victory sign as he arrives with his great-uncle Delfin Gonzalez, right, and Father Francisco Santana, left, at the home of his relatives in Miami

Cuban-Americans in south Florida, many consumed with hatred for Fidel Castro, have journeyed to Elian's temporary home, hoping for a glimpse of this child who's become a symbol of the anti-Castro cause.

Indeed, both sides in this diplomatic dispute seem at times to be focusing on Elian more as a symbol than a little boy. In Cuba, speakers at government- orchestrated rallies take the opportunity to rant against the imperialists to the north while demanding the return of Elian.

Watching the little boy, you can only wonder what's going on inside his mind.

Two months ago, he was living a normal life in Cuba. Then, in a rapid series of events, he went out on rough seas in a rickety boat with his mother, and apparently watched her drown as the boat capsized and he himself almost drowned.

Elian, one of three survivors among the 13 people aboard the boat, was rescued by two fishermen, then found himself, exhausted and motherless, in Florida.

It was enough adventure and tragedy to last a lifetime.

Yet much more lay ahead. Elian was claimed by Miami relatives he had never met, he was visited by politicians, he was flooded with gifts. He found he couldn't go out in public without an army of photographers clamoring for shots of him and reporters calling out questions.

All this for a 6-year-old boy who, under normal circumstances, probably would have been more concerned with learning to read and making friends.

He's reportedly told his father on the telephone that he wants to return to Cuba. He's reportedly also told his relatives in Miami he wants to stay with them.

Should we be surprised by his confusion? Not at all. He's a little boy who has become a pawn in a struggle between two sworn enemies.

No matter where he ends up, his mind will have plenty to sort out. If he returns to Cuba, he will have to leave behind the toys and adoration and readjust to a life of relative poverty and anonymity.

If he stays in Miami, he still will have to figure out why he, out of everybody in the world, wound up playing this part in a drama that seems so important to all the adults.

That may be the reason for that tentative, confused smile he wears as he's held aloft, like a gleaming trophy, before the crowds who gather outside his great uncle's home in Miami.