OPEN LETTER TO JANET RENO ON ELIAN GONZALEZTo Ms. Janet Reno
Attorney General
U.S. Department of JusticeDear Ms. Reno,
I would like to express my support for the difficult decisions you have had to make in the last several days regarding Elián González. I know you are receiving much organized criticism, so I felt compelled to attempt to express my individual opinion to you as a native born citizen of the United States, although I doubt you will ever read this.
I am a Mexican-American woman, native of California, a state where former Governor Pete Wilson used his position in government to promote hateful divisive, specifically anti-Mexican policies which resulted in 187, a legislation from which we have all suffered a sense of dehumanization.
For many years I have known first-hand about INS abuses towards Mexicans, including the physical and sexual abuse of Mexican women and children. So the special treatment that has been accorded to the Miami family of Elián González, allowing them to dictate U.S. immigration policy from their political stronghold in Little Havana has deepened my sense of unfairness regarding the application of immigration policies and laws in our country.
If Elián González was a Mexican child, washed up on the shores of say, Santa Barbara California, he would have been returned/deported before he dried off. Is that Mexican child, a refugee from poverty, gov't corruption and ecological disasters caused by corporate greed any less worthy of humane treatment?
I have been greatly saddened and disgusted by Al Gore's transparently opportunistic political position regarding this issue, and in my opinion he put you on the hot seat for the sake of Cuban votes from the expatriate community in Florida. Please know that from where I sit, I think you have done the right thing, particularly considering that the whole world is watching. I only wish you had done it sooner.
Maria Elena Gaitán
Maria Elena Gaitán is the talented creator of "The Adventures of Connie Chancla" that has earned wide acclaim in the theatre arts community.
