July 13, 2025

From Miami to Saipan

When I saw Cuban-Americans reacting to the Federal seizure of Elian Gonzalez in Little Havana, I could almost swear I saw my good friend Antonio R. Cabrera among the crowd. I thought I saw Jesus R. Sablan, Mike Sablan, Perry Tenorio, Clarence Tenorio, Juan Blanco, and John Rosario. I thought I saw many familiar faces in the crowd. For one fleeting moment, I even thought I saw our own Juan "Bolis" Gonzalez (presumably, no relation to little Elian) shaking hands and working his way through the crowds.

When I saw Cuban-Americans reacting to the Federal seizure of Elian Gonzalez in Little Havana, I could almost swear I saw my good friend Antonio R. Cabrera among the crowd. I thought I saw Jesus R. Sablan, Mike Sablan, Perry Tenorio, Clarence Tenorio, Juan Blanco, and John Rosario. I thought I saw many familiar faces in the crowd. For one fleeting moment, I even thought I saw our own Juan “Bolis” Gonzalez (presumably, no relation to little Elian) shaking hands and working his way through the crowds.

What I am saying is that the Cuban Americans look a great deal like us. We are similar in several respects. Our languages are similar. Our culture is similar. Our racial stock rests on a similar Spanish/Hispanic heritage. Our last names are similar, if not the same in many specific cases. Our religion is certainly the same–Roman Catholicism (original Christianity).

Above all, amid the anguish and strife generated by little Elian’s brutal, Gestapo-styled abduction, I saw that we even shared a similar politics. Like the Cuban American community in Miami, we have strong ties to American Republicans–and we utterly resent the Clinton administration. And just as our Cuban American brothers and sisters despise Castro’s socialism and communism, so too do we despise encroaching, unrelenting, and unrestrained Clinton Federalism.

In the Cuban-American struggle, I see a mirrored reflection of our own agonizing position. From Miami to Saipan and back, I see a journey–and struggle–for political liberty. Indeed, at some rather profound level, the plight of little Elian Gonzalez is almost a kind of symbolic metaphor for our own local self-government–and for our own desperate struggle to keep it from the ravages of Bill Clinton (Fidel Castro).

In other words, little Elian is rather like our local self government: fragile and targeted by the Federal government. Will the Federal government snatch our local self-government on behalf of the labor unions and socialists, just as they seized young Elian?

If that ever happens, if our local self-government is ever kidnapped in the night, Chamorro-Americans may react as violently as Cuban Americans outraged over Elian’s seizure.

America will then lose its glory in our eyes. America will have betrayed us–as well as its great promise and its democratic, freedom-loving, principles.

Of course, not every Chamorro-American opposes a Federal takeover. Like our Cuban counterparts, we have our traitors too. Just as there are Cubans who support Fidel Castro and Janet Waco Reno, there are also Chamorro-Americans who support Clinton, David North, George Miller, and Danny Akaka.

I still think I saw Antonio R. Cabrera in that Little Havana crowd–on a cell phone, chomping a big, fat Cuban cigar, pouring over his OPA audit.

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